Review of Me, Myself, and Us: The Science of Personality and the Art of Well-Being by Brian R. Little

About once a year you read a book that both confirms your beliefs and introduces you to new ways of thinking.  Me, Myself, and Us is the book for 2015.  It is a pleasure to read a book that is clearly written and humorous yet full of insights.  Thankfully it gives neuroplasticity a miss and tries to explain how you can have a happy life without morphing into a sermon on new-age spirituality.  Instead Little takes as his mantra that happiness is derived by understanding who we are and what we do and then spends 288 pages explaining how it can be achieved.

The first insight by Little is that there are three sources of our personality traits:

1.      Biogenic referring to the aspects of our personality sourced genetically. (50%)

2.      Sociogenic, those aspects learned from social and cultural factors (25%), and

3.      Idogenic, referring to the aspects of our personality best accounted for by (idiosyncratic) individual factors such as personal values, goals, projects and commitments. (25%)

Personally I think the London Twins study makes the percentages more like 66%-17%-17% but it still is a very useful model.

With regard to Biogenic factors Little begins by dumping on Myers-Briggs saying the test lacks both reliability and validity.  In addition he makes the point that it is not Type that counts in personality but traits.  I must confess as someone who regards MBTI as a waste of time I enjoyed this section.  Instead Little recommends the reader adopt the Big Five model.  The five-factor model (FFM) indentifies 5 core traits:

1.      openness to creativity

2.      conscientiousness

3.      extraversion

4.      agreeableness

5.      neuroticism

OCEAN is often used as a mnemonic to remember the traits.  Each trait is distributed normally in the population.  In other words 67% of the population fall within plus or minus 1 standard devation and have an average level of the trait.  So one sixth of the population would be classified as Extravert, one sixth as Introverts, and two-thirds as Ambiverts.  The MBTI say you are either an Extravert or Introvert.

Personally I prefer the Humm-Wadsworth with its seven factors to the FFM; however the five most common factors in the Humm are identical to the FFM.

Little then goes on to both list a number of secondary factors and provide for each factor a simple questionnaire.  Unfortunately he then slips into the same error as the MBTI by saying you are at one end of the spectrum or the other.  For example Self Monitoring refers to the individual's trait sensitivity and responsiveness to social factors. High Self Monitors are highly responsive to needs and perspectives of others and are apt to avoid conflict at all costs. Low Self Monitors stick to their own beliefs and attitudes which can make them unconscious and boorish but they are not afraid of healthy conflict.  The reality is that two-thirds of us are clustered around the mean.

Similarly with locus of control which refers to the extent to which individuals believe are in control of the events affecting them. A person’s locus is either internal (the person believes they are primarily in control of their life course) or external (meaning they believe their life course is primarily controlled by external factors which they cannot influence).  Again two-thirds of us cluster around the mean.

However the part of the book I found really illuminating is when Little described the idojenic contribution to our behaviour.  Little uses himself as an example.  He describes as an introvert who when he is lecturing projects himself as an pseudo=extrovert.  I myself have had the same experience.  People are often surprised to hear according to the MBTI that I am an introvert. But I am. I have simply adapted my personality to meet the demands of the situation. People do behave "out of character" or counter to their typical disposition.

Little makes great play about how important it is for your own happiness to be doing projects that are congruent with your genetic traits.  According to Little most of us have up to 15 projects on the go.  He refers to a website 43.com which had been operating since 2005 and collects list of projects from people.  Top of the list is losing weight followed by going to write a book.  Unfortunately for Little the website closed down in March 2015.  Nevertheless his book is first class and well worth purchasing.

You always see a red tie

On 18 May Australian Stockbroker BBY was placed into voluntary administration.  The picture below appeared in many of the newspapers

The man wearing the red tie is the former executive chairman of BBY securities, Glen Rosewall, the son of Australian tennis great, Ken Rosewall.  Mr Rosewall said: "I put my heart and soul into BBY for 11 years and I'm devastated by what's happened."

Stockbrokers and investment bankers to succeed need a lot of Hustler Component.  A person with a ‘strong H’ will have a drive for Material Success. This means enjoying money and the things that money will buy. The H is quick, opportunistic, shrewd, entrepreneurial, and charming. This person has a ‘nose’ for a deal and they’ll quickly work out if you can help them do the deal or not. They’re also short-term – they want results now, or very soon. Promising an H a significant financial reward next year will probably not interest them. They are very loyal to their own families and team. But mostly they’re loyal to themselves and they will work hard to make sure they get what they believe they’re entitled to.

I will never forget a morning presentation I was asked to give shortly after I joined the Bankers Trust Australia in 1981.  It was on the Humm-Wadsworth profiling system and about 60 people attended.  At that time there were three silos in the bank. 

The first silo comprised the fund managers.  Preservation of capital and the ability to read the copious reports supplied by over 100 stockbroking firms dominated their life and most of their personalities had very strong Doublechecker and Engineer components.  About 20 of them came to the talk.

In the second silo were the Corporate Financiers. They spend most of their time with company CEOs and government officials working out mergers and acquisitions or privatisations.  They were the corporate salespeople with lots of competitive pitches and presentations.  About 15 came to the talk.  They were dominated by the Politician component.

Finally in the third silo were the money market dealers who dealt with various money market instruments such as bank bills, CDs and bonds.  Their day was dominated by buying and selling orders and constantly hustling their clients.  As an aside I said that one way you recognise Hustlers was that they always wore red ties.  A murmur slid into laughter into uproar as the whole audience realised that every one of the 35 money market people attending the talk was wearing a red tie.  The talk became famous in BT as the “Red Tie” talk and my place in the organisation was assured.

Some wonderful comments have emerged about BBY since the administration.

It turns out BBY had invested in Firestone Energy, a dual listed Australian and South African coalmine developer, that in 2013 was acquired by dual listed South African miner Waterberg Coal.  BBY’s holding in Firestone at the current share price of half a cent is worth around $3m, the company has been unable to trade since March after Standard Bank called in a loan ­facility worth $35m due on April 9 this year.  Nevertheless BBY was claiming the investment was a liquid asset to the ASX.  Stretching legal definitions is typical of the Hustler.

Other options traders said BBY had grown rapidly because it charged the least of any of the brokers. Rates were set at just one basis point (0.01 of one per cent) per trade. Hustlers are notorious for buying on a discount, and equally notorious when selling to alway sell with a discount.
“BBY is known as the Hedge Fund Hotel because of all the micro hedge funds who rent space in the BBY office,’’ said one major fund manager.  Micro hedge fund managers are infamous traders and birds of a feather flock together.
One of the unfortunate changes in business life is that more and more men are not wearing ties.  They were such a great window into the temperament of a male.

Emotional Intelligence update: Forbes slams MBTI

There was a terrific article in Forbes (29 May 2015) by Camille Chatterjee:  Interview Test Prep: 6 Common Personality Assessments -- And How Employers Use Them.

To quote the articles beginning:

Once upon a time all you needed to land a new job was a typo-free résumé, some interview smarts, and a few good references.  But these days more and more candidates are finding that getting the gig may very well come down to … your innate personality? According to a 2014 trends report from business advisory company CEB, 62% of human resources professionals are using personality tests to vet candidates in the hiring process. That’s compared to less than 50% in 2010, per research firm Aberdeen Group.62% of human resources professionals are using personality tests to vet candidates in the hiring process.

The message that personality testing is now used by the majority of organisations is not new although I must confess I was surprise by the rapid growth in penetration. However where the article was interesting is that it went on to assess the most popular personality tests.  Three popular personality tests pass the, well, test—and two actually fail because they say very little about your at-work worthiness.

The three tests given the thumbs up were:

The Caliper Profile - This assessment, which has been around for some 50 years, measures personality traits—from assertiveness to thoroughness—that relate to key skills needed on the job, such as leadership ability and time management.  Unlike other tests, it examines both positive and negative qualities that, together, provide insight into what really motivates a person.

Gallup StrengthsFinder - This test was created a few decades ago, when research by Gallup (suggested that personality assessments focused too much on weaknesses.  Gallup looks at strengths that are real indicators of success, rather than simply sussing out people’s negatives and downsides.

16PF Questionnaire - This test was devised in 1949 by psychologist Raymond Cattell, who identified 16 

traits that we all posses in varying degrees, like warmth and tension.  The 170 questions on the test differ from those on most other personality assessments in that they ask how you might react to a certain situation on the job, rather than get you to describe your overall personality in some way.  Thanks to its focus on practical situations rather than general personality traits it is described as a “terrific instrument” for hiring and also for employee development.

The tests given the thumbs down were:

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator - Probably one of the most well-known personality tests around, the Myers-Briggs looks at where you fall in four different dichotomies—sensing or intuition, introversion or extroversion, thinking or feeling, and judging or perceiving—to come up with 16 different personality types labeled by combos of initials.  Around 80% of new hires at Fortune 500 companies are given the MBTI, and countless other companies use it as part of the actual employee selection process, according to CPP, the test’s exclusive publisher. 

Essentially, Myers-Briggs is designed to suss out innate preferences.  Although MBTI is an interesting tool for self-discovery (“Me? An extrovert?”), it has not been proven to be valid for job selection.  According to the article HR departments who choose employees based on its results could miss out on superstars who might actually excel in a given position, or mistakenly bring on workers that don’t live up to expectations—all because they relied too much on what they thought the MBTI was telling them.

Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory - Unlike the other tests, which can be taken online or administered by HR professionals, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2) can only be given and interpreted by a psychologist.  The information that it asks about is not business-related and companies that have tried to use it, have been taken to court, and lost.

Forbes is to be congratulated for publishing this article.  Just a pity the sub-editors cannot count.

As readers would know I like the Humm-Wadsworth because it is a practical tool for measuring the seven core components of your temperament. 

People drive performance, emotions drive people, temperament drives emotions.

Emotional Intelligence is achieving self- and social mastery by being smart with core emotions.

Self-Mastery = Awareness + Management (Steps 1 & 2 as defined by Goleman)

Social Mastery = Empathy + Social Skills (Steps 3 &4 as defined by Goleman

However the key to emotional intelligence is understanding your core emotions compared to your transient emotions.  Your core emotions are driven by your temperament – what you are genetically born with.  Based on a study of 11,000 identical twins nature is around twice as important as nurture.  I have found the Humm-Wadsworth model of seven core emotions the most practical tool for people to use and once understood (takes a day) dramatically lifts their emotional intelligence.  If you want to learn about the Humm download a free white paper on using Emotional Intelligence in either selling or management .  http://www.emotionalintelligencecourse.com/eq-free-white-papers/

My e-books available in Kindle format explain the technique in more detail.

Emotional Intelligence and the Ring of Gyges

Last week I attended two seminars in the Sydney CBD.  The first seminar, Positive Psychology@Work: The Science & Practice, was organised by the University of Wollongong Sydney Business School and was given by Dr Suzy Green, a leader and pioneer in the complementary fields of Positive Psychology & Coaching Psychology and Founder of The Positivity Institute.  The second was arranged by MGSM where Dr. David Cooperrider, spoke about the process of Appreciative Inquiry (AI).  Appreciative Inquiry is a collaborative, strength-based approach to both personal and organizational development that asserts by focusing on the organization's strengths, you can evolve into a true “center of excellence”. Rather than focusing on problems, Appreciative Inquiry elicits solutions.

Both lectures were effectively segues on the original work on Positive Psychology by Martin Seligman which was started as a 'positive' counterpart to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). While the DSM focuses on what can go wrong, Positive Psychology is designed to look at what can go right.  I am very much in the camp that says the only thing that is more contagious than enthusiasm is the lack of it.  However while at end of the both seminars the mood in the audience was definitely happy-clappy, I must confess that I walked out of the two lectures discombobulated. 

My unease can be traced back to Plato’s Republic.  One of the great passages in the Republic concerns the Ring of Gyges.  According to the legend, there was a shepherd in the service of the ruler of Lydia. After an earthquake, a cave was revealed where he discovered a ring that gave him the power to become invisible by adjusting it. He then arranged to be chosen as one of the messengers who reported to the king as to the status of the flocks. Arriving at the palace, he used his new power of invisibility to seduce the queen, and with her help he murdered the king, and became king of Lydia himself.

In the Republic, Glaucon, the brother of Plato, constructs the following mind experiment.  Suppose there were two such magic rings, and the just man puts on one of them and the unjust man the other.  According to Glaucon both men would act the same:  no man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a god among men.  So the just and unjust man would act the same and if anyone thinks that he can safely be unjust, then he is unjust.  For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice. 
 
While I do not agree that all men would be unjust I do think that there is sufficient percentage of those people in the population who would manipulate their position in a zeitgeist of positive psychology.  According to the Humm, the manipulators are the Hustlers and around 15% of the population have a higher than average Hustler temperament components.  Half of this group have a moral compass due to a higher than average Normal but the other half (7%  of the population) are Machiavellian manipulating narcissists.  History is replete with religions where a Hustler was part of a group that intended to do good but ended up doing rather well.  Judas Iscariot is one example.  The pious charlatan Tartuffe in Moliere’s eponymous play is another example.

Professor Alex Frino of MGSM carried out a study where five CEOs of the 20 biggest ASX companies were identified as narcissists.  These people are able to manipulate themselves into positions of power.  They do not necessarily do a good job when they get there, but they do get there all the same. Kevin Rudd is an excellent example of this phenomenon.

I must confess that I lean much more towards Professor Pfeffer’s concepts of power and leadership.  Pfeffer’s view is that it takes power to get things done. Without power, you’re impotent and power is not gained through intelligence (emotional or otherwise) and job performance.  This is one of the key lessons in my workshops: you do not get promoted into management because you do a good job, but because your managers think you have the potential to be a good manager.  As long as you keep your boss or bosses happy, performance really does not matter that much and, by contrast, if you upset them, performance won’t save you.

On the other hand I did learn a new definition of leadership originally provided by Peter Drucker:  “The task of organisational leadership is to create an alignment of strengths in ways that make a system’s weaknesses irrelevant.”