Over the past several weeks, I have participated in a
myriad of exercises designed to help with introspect and to help me better
understand myself. Each exercise had a specific purpose. They were used find my
values, identify my social status, to find some of my strengths and weaknesses,
develop my personal vision, identify my passions, and even help me realize some
of my fears. Now it is time to zoom out and look at myself holistically. This
is kind of like when I used to do theatre. I remember once several years ago
when I was doing “South Pacific” with the Lubbock Community Theatre. We would
rehearse each section of a play until we could perform it in our sleep.
However, we only had one rehearsal where we did the play in its entirety before
the show opened. We still did fine but it was a nerve-wracking experience. We
should have practiced putting it all together to make it a fluid event. That is
what we are trying to accomplish this week. We are just zooming out and looking
how everything fits together. This is my full dress rehearsal.
To truly look at myself holistically, I have to accept
that I am not a superhuman that has achieved resonance just because I took a
class on it as some of the exercises made me feel at the time. In fact, what I
have learned is that resonance is a constant process and it is very easy to
slip out of it. It is near impossible to maintain. I understand that I have my
strengths that don’t need to change and I have my weaknesses that I do need to
change. I also understand that I have perceived strengths and weaknesses that
don’t necessarily exist but others see them as such. Some of the exercises made
me feel as if I had identified all of these traits and that change would be
easy. The truth is, though, that change is a difficult process. If it wasn’t,
why would dissonance be the default instead of resonance?
Let me start with what I think is my strongest point –
I am a peacemaker. A lot of this has to do with my values. As mentioned in a
previous blog entry, I am a consequentialist so I seek to do what is in the
best interest of the collective. I am willing to make sacrifices if the benefit
outweighs the cost. Because of that, I am able to guide others through doing
the same. As an example, when I took over my current position earlier this
year, the friction in my office was palpable. It was pretty evident that my new
team was in the storming phase. Everybody seemed to be working to outdo the
others and nobody was really working together. It was an “us versus them” (or a
“me versus you”) mentality. It took time but I was able to use positive
reinforcement through empathy to get my team to find common ground and start
working together as a single unit. The results of this are very clear. Just
yesterday, during my morning meeting, I sat everybody down and went over our
production reports with them and pointed out that just in the first quarter of
this year we have already achieved 50% of the volume that we achieved for the
entire fiscal year last year. That isn’t because of me, though. It is because
the team has realized their own potential by working together. There is a
downside to this, though. I don’t think this is an actual weakness of mine but
it is a perceived weakness. Often, people will try to take advantage of
peacemakers by pushing the limits as far as possible. There are two in
particular on my team that try to take advantage of that and try to play on my
empathy to get me to force more compromises to give them an advantage,
particularly with time off. Where I have difficulty with that is balancing when
to be compassionate and when to be forceful. Again, though, by zooming out and
looking at both of these together – my strength and weakness – I can see how
they fit together. It isn’t as easy as saying, “Well, I just will be firm but
fair”. The big picture shows that being firm may affect my ability to make
peace. To take it a step farther, how does that fit in with my personal vision
and my goals? How does this factor in to becoming the person I want to be? What
I can see a little more clearly now is that it is more important for me to be
the peacemaker so being firm (non-empathetic, for lack of a better term), may
not actually be the best approach. Now I am asking myself – is there a way that
I can help the two team members that continue to ask for more? Can I connect
with them to maybe help with their underlying needs? Perhaps asking for more is
not a personality trait for them but rather a solution to a deeper problem.
I also have to look at the opposite end of the
spectrum. What is my biggest weakness that makes me slip into dissonance and
stands in the way of achieving my ideal self? Several months ago, I had a
professional coaching session and we made an interesting discovering based off
of my personality profile. My profile was based on three separate iterations of
The Attentional Interpersonal Style Inventory (TAIS). Over the course of three
years, there was very little change in my results so it was easy enough to
identify some of my prominent personality and leadership traits. What stuck out
is that I a highly logical decision maker and I arrive at those decisions
quickly. The problem is that I may become easily frustrated when others aren’t
able to understand the logic in what I am saying. Just the other day, I was
giving a tutoring session to a coworker taking a math class and experienced a
similar thing. I swear, I explained 10 times how to find the solution but he
just wasn’t understanding the concepts. I know he could see on my face that I
was getting frustrated so he became even more nervous and frustrated himself.
This ties into another weakness that I have. Since I am very logical, I don’t
focus as much on emotions. That isn’t to say that I don’t feel anything as I
absolutely do but I tend to forgive and forget. When other people aren’t able
to do that and resolve their emotions as quickly as I am, I may visibly show my
frustration with that which, just like with the math tutoring, leads to
increased frustration on their part. I believe this is my primary obstacle at this
time. Unfortunately, I am not sure how to correct it but at least I know what
it is and how I want to be. And knowing is half the battle.
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