Today was actually a really interesting day for me – I learned stuff. Lots of stuff. Stuff that I’m actually interested in.
A few weeks ago, I signed up for a class at work called Time Style Management, on the recommendation of a teammate who had just taken the class. I had no idea what the class would entail, but I was assured it was a really good, valuable class.
Turns out it was sort of a personality/psychology sort of class – we answered a questionnaire and then deciphered our personalities (“time styles”) from our answers. From there we broke into groups a few different times to see how we work with others IN our group and OUTSIDE of our group.
That’s all fine and dandy, unless you’re like me and you’re split perfectly between three of the different time styles. One of those three is the one that I know resembles me the most, but it’s also the one I despise. It’s the bucket that everyone places me in (including our instructor), and even if I were to place myself in just one of these buckets (forcing myself to be completely honest), I’d have to put myself in this category too – even though I hate it. But that’s the problem – you can’t fight your own personality. You can’t just decide that even though you rank highly in one area, you want to force yourself to act as though you’re another personality type. You can do that for a while, but it won’t last.
The instructor, of course, made it sound like being split between three different types was a GOOD thing – I can rely on other traits that I like more in order to be less strong on the ones I dislike (which are actually very good traits, but just don’t represent who I want to be). He also said that being split between two or more styles means that you have strong survival instincts – you’ve already learned to adapt to different personalities and management styles, so you can fit in better. I guess you could say that I’m the chameleon of the personality world.
Very interesting stuff. I only wish the class could be longer than 4 hours – I’d love to do this stuff every day!
I see a Diamond- Shine on! An Egg-the Best is yet to come. It’s Hip to be Square. And a InGodWeTrust (the Almighty Dollar). You work 2 jobs, so I know you’re a Triangle. A Diamond in the Rough would include my Egg analogy.
Two out of three ain’t bad… not a diamond.