Have you ever heard of the “Type A vs. Type B” personality traits?
To summarize to the extreme, Type A’s tend to be very driven individuals. They’re competitive and ambitious with a sense of urgency. Type B’s tend to be more laid-back and go with the flow. They’ll want to work well with others and be flexible.
I’ve never been a believer in that psychology shortcut.
Although I feel closer to a type A personality, it never wholly matched.
I’ve been driven by hard work and the sheer will to succeed. I’ve put much stress on myself – and others – to act quickly and decisively.
Yet, I didn’t look to control every situation and organize things from my perspective. I built massive amounts of flexibility and willingness to work with others to find a best practice. And I learned to make the distinction between urgent and important.
I appreciate that these psychological traits were not meant to put us in immutable boxes. Experts designed them to predict better how someone will react to a conflict or stressful situation.
It makes a little more sense then, as we all tend to reveal who we truly are in times of tension.
Still, the best team performance I’ve seen was when we could avoid the dangers of such personality categorization and understood that we’re all some hybrid.
It wasn’t easy. It didn’t last forever, but here’s what we focus our alignment and shared understanding on to make it happen:
We built a shared vision
We had an agreed-upon destination and a timeline to reach it. We genuinely believed in it. But, we also knew how to step back, regularly checking on that vision, and adjusted things as needed.
We strived for excellence
Whenever we had the opportunity, we would go deep, deconstruct and try to understand the mechanics of how to reach that excellence. Acutely self-aware of our capabilities, becoming the best at what we did was paramount.
We nurtured open-mindedness
Fluidity in what you believe is critical. We didn’t constantly flip-flop between opinions, but each recognized valid arguments even when we didn’t necessarily agree with them.
We constantly helped each other
Putting aside ill-suited pride, asking for help had become second nature. We worked hard to place the team’s success above any individual consideration or incentive.
We experimented – a lot
When paving new grounds, the only certainty you can have is that nothing is 100% certain. But instead of developing a fear of that uncertainty, we stopped looking for answers. We got out and just did things. And if they went off-course, we’d analyze and course-correct until we got closer to the envisioned outcomes.
As I pointed out, the perfect alignment of these five principles at a specific time rarely occurred.
But these overarching principles helped us reduce the distractions from so-called traditional beliefs like these personality traits. We stayed the course and accomplished more.
So, the next time someone is commenting on your personality type, take it with a grain of salt, and focus on what really matters for you and the team to shine.