The Personality Test
07/02/22
Do you remember the times when you were just starting out on your job hunt? Maybe this was during high school applying for a summer job. Or perhaps this was when you were embarking on your career journey right out of college. (We know! What an exciting time!) Whether this job search was just to gain some coinage, or the opportunity to get your foot into the doors of your dream job; do you remember the employer’s qualifications? What about seeing the infamous qualifications of “we are looking for someone who is “a people person” or can be “a team player”. We remember seeing those bullet points and just thinking, “If we get along with everyone, this job should be perfect for us!”
What about after years of working for others you finally have decided to embark on the journey to become an entrepreneur and run your own dream business. Do you remember any challenges or obstacles that arose when networking or collaborating with other entrepreneurs? Do you recall thinking about some partners, “this is going to work out great”; while with others, you were left pondering, “how you were going to make this work?” What tools or knowledge do you think would have aided in your way of navigating how different people work best? I bring this all up to pose this question, how important is it to know and understand the work personalities of the people you work with? And how does this knowledge affect your ability to work, problem-solving, and achieve your goals as a unit?
What is it and why is it important?
If you’ve never heard of a personality test, it’s a test of your personality. Still a bit confused? Let me explain. Personality tests are like quizzes, surveys, or sometimes questionnaires that are created with different scenarios, possible likes and dislikes, a comfortability scale, and statistics in mind. And based on how the individual responds to the posed situation or question, will determine where the individual falls on the spectrum of personalities. Or in our case, in which category.
Whether you believe in personality traits or not, at the end of the day everyone’s work ethic and abilities are different. And while some of us may be able to mesh well with most people, there are some people that we just find it much harder to work with; whatever the reason maybe. For the sake of being noninvasive or getting lost on the gossip train of, “why Chad from the 6th-floor office gets under your skin” (rolls eyes); we will chuck those reasons for difficult working relationships up to different personalities. With that being said, let’s flip the switch. Let us view the knowledge that we gain from personality tests, as the ultimate pokemon card. This card allows you to understand how you work best, and how your teammates and partners work best. This card also allows you the chance to (kind of, sorta) predetermine how you can troubleshoot conflict within your team efficiently so that the project continues to move forward and your team can obtain the bag. Or whatever the prize is for your team/ project. So let’s discussed us, the team members of NITM who took our personality test and found out some interesting things about each other’s work styles.
The Team Takes The Quiz -A little bit of background.
For those of you who already know us and what NITM is about and are reading this, we are glad you came back to check out our blog. And for those of you who are new, I’ll tell you a bit about who we are. Team member Gerald has experience as an engineering manager at Github. Venkat has background experience working for a private telecom company in New York as well as overseas, doing product management for various projects. And I, Malcolm, am the founder of Ninjas In The Machines, (NITM. Inc.).
For this test, we used the “16 Personalities Type Test” (linked below) to engage in this self and team discovery journey. While the test does take into account romantic relationships, the team sought to focus mostly on the facets of workplace relationships and the results of those interactions. The 16 traits of this test consist of the commander, debater, logician, and architect residing in the Analyst category. Entertainer, virtuoso, adventure, and entrepreneur which falls into the Explorers category. Counselor, executive, defender, logistician of the Sentinels category and campaigner, advocate, protagonistic, mediator of the Diplomats category.
Some of the information revealed, that we already knew about each other, but other findings were quite interesting. And the results are in!!! While Gerald and Venkat had the same personality category of Diplomat under “the Meditator’’; I got the result of Diplomat under “the Protagonist.” What we found the most shocking was that we were all a part of the same category; which you would think explains why we work so well together. But let me stop you right there. Just because Gerald and Venkat got the same results, does not mean that they are the same person. From behind-the-scenes p.o.v., these two members; even though they are in the same personality category, do not always agree on approaches to troubleshooting. May be due to their creative levels and abilities to see many sides of a situation. AKA, MEDIATORY SUPERPOWERS! It is important to remember they are still two different people, who have lived through different life experiences as we all have. And all of our experiences have shaped our traits. This idea can and should also be applied to you, the reader if you ever come into contact with two different people who exhibit the same personality traits.
So how does the knowledge about each other’s personality traits aid in us working as a team? Here are some quotes from us that may give you an in-depth look at what it means to be a part of a certain category. Gerald being the Diplomat Mediator describes his personality as “ feeling most motivated when thinking about ways to help others. And feeling most accomplished when he does in fact, help others achieve a goal.” I, who fell into the Diplomat Protagonist, said my personality is like “being eager to prove and show that I am committed to a mission and taking my time to establish trusting relationships with partners.”
How does this knowledge translate into what we do and how we work with our clients?
Well, as stated above, we are Ninjas In The Machine (NITM, inc.) focusing on early-stage startups and aiding them in building their technology to go to market. How we use the personality test information is by being understanding and being able to identify these different personality traits amongst the people we work with. When it comes to us working as a team along with our different personality compositions, we cannot only navigate how we work with each other but even more so; how to navigate working with our clients and partners most efficiently.
For example, one of our clients, whom we will call Client A, is very goal-oriented. They want deadlines met, heavy on time management, and care for everything to run according to plan. With this client, there is not much room for detouring or making changes to their product, except for tech and software utilization. Client A would possibly fall into the category of Sentinels as the Logistician. As explained in the personality test, a Sentinel Logistician is someone practical, fact-minded, and reliable. In this case, we would bring the project and Client A’s vision to the center stage.
While Client B, is more dreamy, and uber creative with big ideas and plans; but lacks effective execution skills, which gives us more room to be flexible. This client would be very open to trying new ideas and exploring different perspectives for their project. Client B would fall into the personality category of the Analysis as the Architect. Someone who is an imaginative, strategic thinker, and has a plan for everything. Even so, with this client who has a plan, the team can be a little more creative and flexible and they would help Client B to build out the actual product from start to finish because this client is more of a visionary.
Whether our clients are starting from rock bottom or having gone to market before, and are coming with different personality traits; the team understands the importance of taking different approaches that would suit our clients and their desired outcome. We do this by being honest, transparent, logical, and realistic while having fun along the way.
How can we help?
Because NITM has a unique dynamic makeup of work personalities working on the team, (yes there are more us moving and working in the background of the company that is NITM (thus the Ninjas In The Machine) along with a wide array of backgrounds and technological expertise, there is no job that we can not do. We can bring our clients’ products and visions to reality by meeting them where they are and, elevating the client and the client’s product to where they need to be; to be successful. When working with us our stakeholders and team members work to advocate for the wants and needs of the projects and represent the client’s ideas. We are your ninjas working in your best interest to obtain the best possible outcome for the success of the project.
