I am yellow

I went through a psychometrics evaluation recently as part of a group activity in Microsoft. It was extremely interesting to find out about the characteristics of different personalities. Of course, we should always treat such tests with a grain of salt. We are all individuals with our unique characteristics. We constantly get input about our personality and behavior from our environment, our friends, our family, our colleagues. My approach to improving myself personally and professionally is to aggregate all the input and make it my own, try to benefit/learn from it rather than blindly follow everything that I am told. Most importantly, I am a believer in admitting the mistakes I make and then try to learn from them; and yes… I’ve done lots of mistakes 🙂 However, I have also met people who refuse to admit that anything they do could be considered a mistake. Oh well.

The analysis is based on Carl Jung‘s work and is supposed to be an alternative to the Meyers-Briggs method for psychometrics.

So, who am I? According to the evaluation, here are the main points. It’s amazing how they got many aspects of me right, just from the few questions they asked.

Personal Style

Savas has a real zest for living and enjoys company. He should take care to include the practical details in his projects and continually try to look at situations from an objective viewpoint rather than just his own perception. He is a good improviser who will go to great lengths to please others. He is strong on initiative and creativity, but may often be weak on the completion of projects. He tends to be light-hearted and sunny, and because he constantly seeks to avoid painful experiences, he tends to steer away from personal anxieties.

Quick to see the possibilities of new ideas and projects, Savas is outstanding at initiating these and persuading people to support him. Exhibiting a tendency to become concerned and hurt if his ideas are met with indifference or criticism, he may take conflict and rejection personally. Socially adept, even-tempered and tireless in his efforts to bring about peace and well-being, he tends to hold the perfect relationship as the ideal. He is inventive, independent and can be extremely perceptive of the potential contained within the views of others. Savas enthusiastically and co-operatively joins in activities and can juggle several activities at once.

Savas radiates goodwill and enthusiasm. He is optimistic about life in general and human potential in particular. He is motivated by approval and reacts unfavourably to indifference or rejection from others. Savas is sympathetic, empathic and affable. As he puts as much energy into maintaining personal relationships than into maintaining tasks, Savas likes to keep a wide assortment of relationships alive and kicking. Seen by others as spontaneous and charming, Savas is persuasive, loves surprises and enjoys finding unique ways of bringing delight and unexpected pleasure to others.

Savas can be very effective in using his concern for others to ensure involvement. He is comfortable letting others manage the more technical aspects of a project so he can devote his full energies to creating a co-operative, comfortable environment. He may lose interest and move on to the next thing, once a job becomes routine or dull. His mental processes operate best when he is in contact with other people. He is an imaginative and creative visionary who is a source of inspiration to most.

Ingenious, enthusiastic and outgoing, Savas has great personal charm and can be successful in a variety of roles. At times, events can overwhelm him and he may find it almost impossible to say “No”, even when the demands are unreasonable. He is used to doing several things at once, but others may view some of this as superficial activity. Learning how to use accepted methods of organisation and time management will help him to overcome a tendency to want to procrastinate.

He may have had personal experience of the view that worthwhile success comes only after suffering significant misfortune.

Interacting with Others

A creative thinker, Savas is generally warm, enthusiastic and confident of his own abilities. He makes stimulating company with his witty and interesting conversational style. He does not appreciate critical comments about his personal qualities as he sees these comments as personal attacks on his integrity. He may become possessive of people in whom he has invested a lot of his emotional energy. He is motivated to help other people in what he sees as real and practical ways through direct action and co-operation. The easy-going nature and good humour that Savas displays makes him an attractive companion. Consequently he is known by a large number of people and enjoys a wide circle of acquaintances.

The gift of sheer adaptability means that Savas has an uncanny skill for making life into an enjoyable performance, juggling many activities and people and usually enjoying the limelight. He prefers to be active and working with like minded people. He may become rather over-emotional when stressed. Savas is very co-operative and articulate, communicating sympathy, concern and a willingness to become involved. He prefers democratic and participative processes rather than written instructions or autocratic systems.

Savas is outgoing and makes things more fun for others by his pure and unreserved enjoyment of the moment. Placing a high value on his harmonious relationships, it is not surprising that people turn to Savas for encouragement, nurture and support. Even-tempered and tolerant, Savas constantly tries to be the diplomat. He excels in promoting harmony around him. Usually verbal and persuasive, he will seek or wish to withdraw quickly from confrontation unless provoked to the extreme, when he may go “off the deep end” verbally. As a result of his natural desire to please, he can be seen as overly concerned with others’ needs.

Decision Making

Savas’s natural curiosity for new ideas will bring new and fresh ways of thinking to the group. He recognises judgements that rely heavily on logical analysis, but then may ignore this in making his decisions. He may get bored quickly and tend to ignore significant detail in his desire to move on to more exciting things. Decisions made on the basis of logic alone are not highly valued by him. He prefers tasks or projects which allow flexibility of scheduling.

He needs to learn to consciously delay making decisions until he has considered more information as he may have overlooked sounder alternatives. Through his intuitive feeling personality, he may have difficulty in limiting himself to a single project and usually prefers to keep many balls in the air. He is a quick decision maker and considers people within the context of the result of the task. He is likely to decide in favour of the solution that brings the highest level of approval from others. Others may see his decisions as unrealistic in certain circumstances.

He may choose to change his decisions if it turns out that someone may be adversely affected by them. He tends to make choices around his own personal feelings which may be as important to him as more objective data. If everyone can be involved in a project, he will ensure that they are. He may unconsciously manipulate the process to get his own way. He is prepared to make decisions through group consensus.

Key Strengths

• Understands the importance of “style” in presentation.
• Strong sense of humour and fun.
• Fluent and reassuring.
• His glass is usually half full.
• Investigative, interested and inventive.
• Displays high levels of energy.
• Accommodating and will provide help where needed.
• Articulate and communicative.
• Adaptable and adventurous.
• Imaginative and dynamic.

Key Weaknesses

• Becomes impatient with routine and repetition.
• Generates so many ideas that chaos often ensues.
• His outwardly directed energy can be overpowering to some.
• May not finish everything he starts.
• Has to work hard to maintain a specific focus.
• De-motivated by routine tasks.
• Fails to appreciate the seriousness of certain situations.
• Feels that some who may be modest are justified in their modesty!
• Easily distracted from the routine.
• Loses interest when the initial challenge has gone.

 

Obviously I need to try to apply more of the “blue” qualities in my work. The evaluation did show that I am trying to compensate in that aspect (the third diagram showing the areas in which I invest energy in order to compensate), but I think I need to be doing more.

There is much more in the evaluation but I think the above gives you an idea. The more interesting thing of the entire exercise was to find out the characteristics of others and the category in which they belong. Finding out what’s the best way to interact with them was very useful.