I love personality tests. Actually, I wonder what trait a personality test would give to someone who loves personality tests?!?! I imagine it lines up with the “Openness to Experience” category as people who are more open light up at the opportunity to learn more about themselves and the world. And what do you know, that’s one of my strongest attributes according to both the Five Factor Test from Psychology World and FiveThirtyEight’s Personality Quiz. As you can see from posted results below, my strongest characteristics are “Openness to Experience” and “Extraversion,” while my weaker suits are Negative Emotionality (Neuroticism) and Agreeableness. The third test I took is Clifton’s Strengths Finder Assessment by Gallup (results also posted below). This measures a person's strongest “themes.”
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| Image Source: FiveThirtyEight |
Psychologist World - 5 Factor Test
- Extraversion - 78%
- Openness to Experience - 96%
- Conscientiousness - 77%
- Agreeableness - 73%
- Neuroticism - 57%
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| Image Source: Personal Use |
- Individualization - The innate need to attach a personal story to your work
- Activator - The impulse to get started right away on a new idea one is excited about
- Learner - The love of new experiences and information
- Input - The determination to dive deep on a topic
- Ideation - Brainstorming and exploring new ideas
Do I agree?
It may be confirmation bias, but I think personality tests usually do a great job of reading me. All of the aforementioned tests put me squarely in the category of someone who loves to experience new things and then dig into them. This is exactly who I am. I love a good brainstorming meeting where new ideas are brought forth and ideas are explored. In my current role as a coach, teachers have discovered this about me and use me often when searching for new ways to teach a topic or new ideas for how to approach student engagement. If I don’t have much, I’ll dig into it to deliver. I love meeting with all different types of teachers (and people) and this shows in my extraversion scores. I’m often on the teams, at work and in my personal life, that bring people together for any reason: to collaborate on new ideas, to plan for an outing, a committee to build culture, or to celebrate a colleague.
Area to Strengthen
However, I also understand (and agree with) the scores I’ve been given that need a bit of work. While I love to provide my ideas on a topic, I can get lost in them and forget to listen to the other ideas around me. This is reflected in my “Agreeableness” and “Conscientiousness” scores. My preference is to take a new idea (mine if possible!) and then divide and conquer to execute the work. This is not often conducive to true team play and collaboration. If others have a differing opinion, I have a tendency to question or poke holes in what I might anticipate could go wrong. I know this is an issue regardless of how graceful I am with it, and it’s exactly why I’m setting my personal Goal and Action Plan around it, specifically, my Agreeableness.
Action Plan (3 Steps and Timeline)
In order to increase my Agreeable nature, I’m choosing to focus on three particular steps in the coming trimester: Active Listening, Showing Empathy, and Choosing My Words Carefully. These three action steps actually share a lot of the same practice techniques, but I still believe they live in slightly separate realms. Below are the following concrete techniques I will take for 30 days each. On that note, I’m going to try using the 30 for 30 approach from Sahil Bloom.
He says to increase any skill, one should try practicing it for 30 minutes a day for 30 days. He recommends this timeframe for learning anything new because 30 minutes a day isn’t very intimidating and 30 days is enough to solidify new learning into long term memory to create a viable habit. Plus, the majority of my meetings are 30-40 minutes long, another reason why this structure can support my growth.
In order to increase my Agreeable nature, I’m choosing to focus on three particular steps in the coming trimester: Active Listening, Showing Empathy, and Choosing My Words Carefully. These three action steps actually share a lot of the same practice techniques, but I still believe they live in slightly separate realms. Below are the following concrete techniques I will take for 30 days each. On that note, I’m going to try using the 30 for 30 approach from Sahil Bloom
First 30 Days
Active Listening
Focus on understanding: Pay attention to the speaker's words, tone, and body language.
Avoid interrupting: Let the speaker finish their thoughts before responding.
Paraphrase: Repeat what you've heard in your own words to ensure understanding.
Second 30 Days
Showing Empathy
Put yourself in their shoes: Try to see things from the other person's perspective.
Validate their feelings: Acknowledge their emotions, even if you disagree with their viewpoint.
Express understanding: Let them know you understand why they feel the way they do.
Third 30 Days
Choosing Positive Language
Use positive language: Avoid negative words that can escalate a situation.
Focus on solutions: Rather than dwelling on problems, suggest potential solutions.
Avoid blaming: Take responsibility for your own actions and avoid blaming others.
I’ll be setting Google Task Reminders on my calendar to start and end each cycle. I’ll also be copying the above strategies into each calendar appointment (that others can’t see), so when I pull it up before a meeting begins, I’m reminded of my goals. Finally, I’ll set a task reminder at the end of each meeting I’ve chosen to focus on my goals to reflect on how I did. The questions for each 30 day cycle will be:
Active Listening:
Did I avoid interrupting the speaker?
Did I paraphrase their key points to ensure understanding?
Did I give the speaker my full attention without getting distracted?
Empathy:
Did I try to see things from the other person's perspective?
Did I validate their feelings and emotions?
Did I express empathy and understanding for their viewpoint?
Positive Language:
Did I avoid using negative or blaming language?
Did I focus on solutions rather than problems?
Did I choose my words carefully to avoid causing offense?
Connection to PLNs
Not to oversaturate the conversation with Sahil Bloom references, but I also love this piece of advice from him from his podcast The Curiosity Chronicle. He recommends that the best way to “level up” as a human is to surround yourself with the right people and “be the dumbest one in the room.” This is exactly what I want my approach to be when it comes to my PLN. I want to follow people who produce ideas from perspectives that I would have never considered. While I confirmed from my personality tests that I do, in fact, obsess over new, progressive ideas, I don’t have a tendency to always take the ones seriously that others initiate because I’m not as agreeable or conscientious as I can be. I need to create a PLN that includes people that challenge me and those from industries and walks of life that are different from my own. PLNs, especially those across the internet, offer me the chance to hear new ideas of those I would never encounter in my day-to-day personal or professional life. They can get me out of my “silo.” It's the reason I love Dan Meyer, founder of Desmos, currently with Amplify, and a leader in math instruction. We share different beliefs about AIs effect on education, but his ideas give me pause and make me think. I need to find more people like him, and the only way to find new voices like that is to seek them out, or perhaps even more simply, let others talk more.
Instead of jumping in to share my opinion, whether it be in person or in my own head, let the idea simmer. Hear it out. Then, actually try it. Instead of shooing away the thoughts of others in favor of my own, I need to give them the space to breathe. If I give those ideas a shot from my own PLN of colleagues, friends, family members, bloggers, authors, and podcasters, I may realize that they have credibility. It’s actually why, after writing about it, I’m very attracted to the idea of a digital PLN. I’m a natural lurker on the internet anyway with an aversion to sharing my private ideas online for a number of reasons. The digital world, however, allows me to seek as many new ideas as possible without feeling the need to respond as I would if I’m sitting across the table from someone. Then, if those ideas don’t end up jiving well with how I’m delivering them, maybe I can make them my own and find a happy medium because when I saw that agreeableness was my main goal, I immediately thought of compromise, and that’s a concept I can get behind.
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