Clarity

In order for the team to understand the individual, the individual must also understand themselves.

Personality is often said to be the major makeup of an individual person or team’s make-up. A contemporary definition for personality is offered by Carver and Scheier (Professors of Psychology): “Personality is a dynamic organization, inside the person, of psychophysical systems that create a person’s characteristic patterns of behavior, thoughts, and feelings.” Important aspects of the psychological or personality makeup may be:

Dynamic Organization: suggests ongoing readjustments, adaptation to experience, continual upgrading and maintaining Personality doesn’t just lie there. It has process and it’s organized. Inside the Person: suggests internal storage of patterns, supporting the notion that personality influences behaviors, etc. Psychophysical systems: suggests that the physical is also involved in ‘who we are’ Characteristic Patterns: implies that consistency/continuity which are uniquely identifying of an individual Behavior, Thoughts, and Feelings: indicates that personality includes a wide range of psychological experience/manifestation: that personality is displayed in MANY ways.

Carver & Scheier also suggest that the word personality “conveys a sense of consistency, internal causality, and personal distinctiveness”. This issue of “personal distinctiveness” is very important. There are certain universal characteristics of the human race and particular features of individuals. We all for example experience stress and the elevated pressure that goes with it. The real key is this though - Every one of us is unique too. That is why using psychological profiling can point out much of those unique points and point the team in the right direction to play on those unique points, while also meshing with the similar characteristics.