The Boss from Outer Space and Other Aliens at Work

Introduction

To be happier, more successful, and more stress-free at work, you only have to do two things well. Sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? You have to get the job done, and you have to handle the relationships with the people around you. Getting the job done tends to be the easy part. Most of us are trained for that; we went to school, or took classes, or received training once we were hired. But to handle a demanding boss, deal with difficult co-workers or clients, or manage employees who squabble like children—those are the kinds of things that make a job stressful, demanding, and sometimes impossible.

We have always been interested in what makes other people tick; we have just not always been very good at figuring it out. We have all had bosses, co-workers, employees, and customers who sometimes seem like alien beings (not to mention neighbors and family members, but that is a different book). How can we explain it? Is it gender, age differences, astrological signs, cultural differences, or possibly even brain disorders?

Let’s flash back several thousand years.

The Place: Ancient China

The Scene: A young man argues for his choice of prospective bride in the face of parental opposition. No, my son, says his father kindly but firmly. You know you may not marry a woman born in the year of the snake. She will bring you nothing but misery. Because, of course, everyone knows that you can tell a lot about people by the year in which they were born.

The early Chinese developed a calendar with twelve months based on the moon cycles. They named the years in a cycle of twelve as well, using the names of animals (rat, ox, tiger, etc.). They believed that many of people’s characteristics were determined by the year of their births. Females born in the year of the snake, for example, were believed to be so unlucky that they were unlikely to find husbands. Men or women born in the year of the monkey, on the other hand, were considered to be intelligent, were well-liked, and were expected to be successful in life.

The Place: Ancient Greece

The Scene: An angry man shouts at the patrons in his small shop. Clearly the man is choleric, says a bystander. His behavior, in other words, was explained by the presence of yellow bile in his system.

The ancient Greeks attempted to explain differences among people by classifying them according to which of the four bodily fluids was most prevalent. The sturdy, cheerful, confident, optimistic person was described as sanguine and was believed to have these characteristics because blood was the predominant body fluid. A person with too much phlegm was phlegmatic: impassive, slow, and stolid. The melancholic person had a lot of black bile and was described as depressed, sad, and dejected. Too much yellow bile led to a person being hot-tempered and angry, or choleric.

Now let’s fast forward.

The Place: The United States, 1973

The Scene: A disco bar. A young man with a heavy gold chain around his neck comes closer. I can see now that there is a zodiac figure suspended from the chain: two small naked cherubs—the twin sign, or Gemini. He gets close enough to see the stylized lion hanging from my own, thinner chain, indicating Leo, of course. Obviously not too observant, he leers, What’s your sign?

We make some assumptions on our compatibility, or lack thereof, based on the jewelry (in my case, probably influenced by the leer and the stupid pickup line). Have we come a long way, or not?

Astrology is built on the idea that the position of the stars and planets at the time of our births determines many of the differences among people. The year is divided into 12 sections, called the zodiac, which correspond to 12 constellations that lay across the sky. Each constellation is regarded as the house of a particular planet, and the position of the sun in the constellation at the moment of our birth is regarded as having an impact on our personality. Thus we have the flamboyant Leo or the stolid Taurus.

The Place: Corporate America, the 1990s

The Scene: Yet another diversity workshop. Welcome, beams the trainer. We are here to learn about one another’s cultural backgrounds and learn to truly value diversity in all forms, including sexual preference, age, and ethnicity.

Not to mention gender, says a participant, not lifting her head from a copy of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. ¹

What about birth order? asks another, waving his copy of The Birth Order Factor. ²

So more recently, we have looked at differences in gender, race, sexual preference, birth order, and age to categorize and deal with our differences. Men and women, for example, are characterized as having different communication styles. The trouble is, some men communicate more like women, and vice versa. First-borns are known to be aggressive go-getters, more likely to be corporation presidents or millionaires. Of course, there are a whole lot of first-borns who are neither! Employers have shown a great deal of interest these days in helping us get along with our co-workers in the face of diversity. Corporations offer workshops in dealing with people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Where do we stand today? From the brief examples above you can see that people have always been fascinated by the differences among themselves, trying to explain them and trying to get along with others. From astrology to birth order to gender, in different eras we have called on different explanations of why other people are different from us. The goal of all of these explanations is a better understanding of how we can learn to get along with other people despite our differences. These differences can lead to conflict or, if managed properly, to a greater appreciation of other people. In fact, people who look at things differently than we do are very valuable to us, as long as we don’t get so annoyed that we avoid them.

The premise of all of these efforts is that if we understand someone who is different from us, we can communicate with that person more effectively, and thus we can live and work with that person more effectively. The premise of this book is that none of these efforts go far enough—that people will not truly value differences until they recognize and value different personality traits, cognitive styles, and communication styles. There are quite a few of these kinds of factors that we may not even be aware of, but that have a huge impact on our ability to get along with other people. For now I will refer to these factors as personality for the sake of convenience, although they are not all strictly personality traits.

Personality is the invisible diversity. It is the factor that causes you to get along great with some people while other people annoy you. You may meet someone of the same age, race, and gender as yourself, only to find that you can’t communicate at all. I know I have met people who look just like me but are clearly from another planet. One basic human tendency is to assume that we are normal and that everyone else should be like us. That is, of course, not true. We will live, work, play, and love more happily if we understand that every other person is somewhat different than we are. The more different a person is, the more she may annoy us, but the more we really need her to round out our view of the world. Think about a work team in which all the members think alike. They will work together very smoothly, but they may not be as effective as a team that experiences conflict once in a while in ways that get the creative juices flowing. There are strengths and weaknesses to be found in every personality type, if we just know where to look.

THE RESEARCH

The personality traits, cognitive styles, and communication styles that I am going to talk about in this book are based on several traditions of research. If you are the type of reader who is not interested in these things, feel free to skip to the end of this introduction and read the last several paragraphs. Otherwise, follow me on this brief journey through the many years of research that have led us to this point. I am going to talk about the personality research that culminated in a consensus around what are called the Big Five personality factors, the characteristics of human temperament that we can trace back to the work of Carl Jung, emotional intelligence, differences in cognitive style, differences in activity level, and differences in motivational needs.

THE BIG FIVE

Let’s begin with the Big Five factors of personality. Many researchers have identified hundreds of bundles of personality traits, but after many years and literally hundreds of research studies there is now substantial consensus around the five traits that can most efficiently describe a person. ³ These five show up across cultures as well. ⁴ The five are:

1. Extroversion

2. Agreeableness

3. Conscientiousness

4. Emotional stability

5. Openness to experience

Extroversion is one of the most readily observable personality traits. Most of us are fairly good at making judgments about whether other people are introverts or extroverts. We experience people as either talkative or quiet. We may find them sociable, outgoing, and open, or quiet loners. Extroverts think by talking, and much of what they say (in work meetings, for example) involves thinking out loud. Introverts think by mulling things over and need time and solitude to do so.

As far as agreeableness goes, people will fall somewhere on a continuum from cooperative and good natured to irritable and negative. You may be wondering about the strengths and weaknesses in this case. What’s wrong with being agreeable? The obvious weakness with extreme agreeableness is an inability to stand up for oneself or buck the tide of popular opinion. Being too good-natured, too mild, too cooperative—you can see that these drawbacks are almost as big as being too negative, too uncooperative, or too irritable. Agreeableness influences how you communicate with people. At one end of the spectrum you will find the very direct, open, and honest person. At the other end is the tactful, diplomatic soul. Either person can be very useful to you, or very annoying.

The third of the Big Five personality traits is called conscientiousness. This trait compares the responsible, fussy, persevering person with the careless, undependable, flexible person. Once again, as we saw in previous traits, people on either end of the spectrum have their good points and their bad, and they may cause difficulties in organizations. A person who is too conscientious may be a real barrier to rapid change and getting things done. A perfectionist may spend all of his time and energy planning, not doing. The careless person may be of more assistance to you when you have a project that needs to get done quickly—not perfectly, but quickly.

The fourth of the Big Five personality traits is emotional stability. At one end of the continuum we find the very calm, composed, and poised individual. At the other end is the very nervous, anxious, and excitable person. As with the other traits, there is no good place to be on this continuum. There are benefits to both types. So how could there possibly be benefits to being nervous and anxious? It is probably less clear than with the other traits, but there are times that a nervous, excitable person may be just what you need. He may bring needed energy to a project. A person with a lot of nervous energy may not do well with a task that requires concentrated desk time, and on the other hand, the calm, composed employee may not seem to have the sense of urgency that the project or job demands. She is too mellow; she may not seem to care too much about the job or task at hand.

The last of the Big Five personality traits is called openness to experience. The trait is also called culture or sophistication. The fact that this trait has three names, and that researchers have not been able to agree on just what it should be called, is your first clue that this is a complicated one. At one end of the spectrum we have people who are intellectual, artistically sensitive, polished, refined, and imaginative. Some adjectives that have been used to describe the other end of the continuum are artistically insensitive, unreflective, narrow, and direct. There is a great deal of snobbery evident in these adjectives and certainly in the understanding of these personality types in the workplace.

An open person is more self-reflective and thinks about her own personality and the effect it has on other people. None of us likes to number ourselves among the narrow-minded people we know. The fact is, too many of us are. This trait is not related to intelligence. There are very smart people who are not very open to new ideas, and less smart people who are. People who are high on this trait tend to be open to new data as it comes in, even after they have made a decision. People who are low on this trait tend to see things in a more black-and-white fashion (I have made up my mind. Now let’s move on.). When confronted with someone who disagrees with them, people who are high on this trait tend to say something like, Isn’t that interesting? Why do you think so? People who are low on this trait are more abrupt: You’re wrong.

TEMPERAMENT

In addition to the Big Five model, there are some interesting twists brought to our understanding of human behavior by the temperament research of Carl Jung. ⁵ Although not as widely researched as the Big Five, various instruments that measure these temperament factors are widely used and certainly affect the workplace. ⁶ Let’s explore these factors next.

The Jungian research places human temperament along four continuums:

1. Extroverted (E), Introverted (I)

2. Sensing (S), Intuitive (N)

3. Thinking (T), Feeling (F)

4. Judging (J), Perceiving (P)

The first dimension, represented by the letters E and I, characterizes people as either extroverted or introverted. This is similar to the Big Five personality trait of extroversion, but the temperament research defines it a bit differently. In the temperament research, we are talking more about where people get their energy. Extroverted people derive their energy from the outside world of other people, but introverted people gain strength from their internal thoughts and ideas. Extroverted people appear at ease while socializing, being gregarious, conversing with strangers, and thinking out loud. This creates energy for them. The introverted personality is less approachable, decides matters and speaks up more slowly, and prefers quiet and being away from a crowd. Socializing and being gregarious actually drains energy from an introvert. Extroverted personalities in the workplace are better suited for tasks requiring social contact and communication. Introverted personalities are a better fit for jobs like data analysis, strategizing, and organizing.

The second dimension is intuition versus sensing. This trait describes how people prefer to collect information. Intuitive personalities like to get information subjectively and intuitively, usually without a formal system. In contrast, sensing personalities prefer to collect factual information systematically, based on the five senses (they like things they can see and touch, for example). Intuitive types prefer to get the overall picture of an experience, but the sensing type prefers to have the details. The intuitive personalities would be a good fit for jobs requiring innovation, creativity, conceptualization, and vision. Sensing personalities fit better with quantitative data analysis, practical and specific tasks, and jobs that call upon their sense of orderliness.

Thinking versus feeling is the third temperament dimension. This dimension identifies the way in which people make decisions. Thinking people prefer to use logic and facts to decide, but feeling personalities prefer to focus on how people will feel about and be affected by the decision. Thinking types use cause-and-effect reasoning and the scientific method to consider the evidence objectively without emotional involvement. Feeling types weigh the options against their personal values more than their rational logic. People in the thinking category tend to be analytical, critical, impersonal, and objective. Their preference is for the bottom line logic and rationale. People in the feeling end of the dimension show more empathy and appreciation, use their hearts rather than their heads to consider implications, are much more likely to consider the human values, and prefer to be personal and subjective in the decision-making process.

The perceiving versus judging dimension refers to how much information a person requires before feeling comfortable in making a decision. Those in the judging category prefer to make decisions and resolve problems quickly. At the opposite end of the spectrum, perceiving people prefer to be adaptable to events and flexible enough to keep their options open. Judging types work hard to get closure on issues. They like to be decisive and methodical, prefer minimal information on which to base their decisions, and tend to get nervous when a decision is still on the table (Let’s make up our mind already!). Perceivers are more curious and spontaneous, prefer to collect as much information as possible to make a decision, and like having options. In this way, perceivers are better at collecting and analyzing data, but they may hesitate too long in deciding and taking action.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

One of the things that causes people’s behaviors and reactions to differ in the workplace is the degree to which they are emotionally intelligent. There is a body of knowledge and research available to us on emotional intelligence, sparked by an author named Daniel Goleman. ⁷ He followed up his initial work with some information on how this trait influences us in the workplace. ⁸ His basic premise is that intelligence, or IQ, is not always as important as emotional intelligence, or what he calls EQ. Emotional intelligence has the following components:

• Self-awareness

• Impulse control

• Persistence

• Self-motivation

• Empathy

• Social deftness

Although the original research looked at people in life and in relationships, these factors are also very important in the workplace. Lack of emotional intelligence can get in the way of a good career and cause people to fail. Essentially, an emotionally intelligent person does not always act on her emotional impulses. She is able to read what another person is feeling and can handle relationships smoothly.

Self-awareness refers to the ability to monitor and understand yourself. When you are too angry to speak with someone, you tell him so and reschedule the meeting rather than scream at him and have an unproductive conversation. Self-aware people recognize their emotions as well as their strengths and weaknesses. They know what their hot buttons are and what impact other people’s moods may have on them. They understand their own motivations, goals, and values. The most important thing to understand about self-awareness is that it is a very realistic assessment of oneself. It is neither overly critical nor overly optimistic.

Emotionally intelligent people are able to control their impulses and their moods. They think before they act and are not carried away by their impulses. They tend to act appropriately in any given situation. These people do get into bad moods and feel emotional impulses just like everyone else does. Basically, the difference is that they can choose when to act on their emotions and when not to. Usually these people get a reputation for fairness and integrity.

Emotionally intelligent people are not easily discouraged. They are not pessimistic and do not easily give up. They have a healthy self-confidence and believe in their ability to succeed.

Emotionally intelligent people work for reasons beyond simply making a paycheck. They tend to motivate themselves, finding internal satisfaction in what they do. They do not look to other people for praise, criticism, or rewards—or at least they do these things to a lesser extent than other people.

Emotionally intelligent people are tapped into the emotional states of other people. They not only notice emotions in other people, they are usually fairly accurate in assessing it. Empathy allows them to consider other people’s feelings in a thoughtful manner.