More Tips for Your Tool Box - Understanding Personalities

I know I write about personalities a lot in my blog, but I strongly believe if you not just comprehend different personalities, but realize how they can affect you directly when you're competing, it will give you an advantage over your opponents.  And as you all know, I love it when you all add more tools to your toolbox!

I'm sure a lot of you have heard of Myers-Briggs. I have written about it a couple of times myself.

Long story short,

The Myers–Briggs Type Indicator is an introspective self-report questionnaire with the purpose of indicating differing psychological preferences in how people perceive the world around them and make decisions.

Leadership books teach us you shouldn't treat someone as you would want to be treated.  Instead, you find out their personality (or Myers-Briggs Type) and then treat them based on that.

I realize as I write this out that some of you will be surprised to hear this because it goes against what we've heard for years, "you should treat people how you want to be treated."  But, nope, that isn't really the best thing to do.

So, let me give you one example I can think of right off the top of my head. If you are a supervisor and one of your employees gets an award, how do you give them that award? Myers-Briggs says based on their personality determines how you should give them the award. Some people are fine with getting an award in front of others; they like the accolades and they like being respected by their peers. Other people, however, do not like the attention and they would prefer to get the award handed to them maybe in their office, so as it's not in front of everyone drawing attention to them.

You can see the opposite ways people handle accolades. So, if you were to treat others as you want to be treated, the way you give the award would based on your feelings, not theirs. What you should do instead is to find out how best they would like to receive an award.

So, how does this all relate to competing, Melinda?

I'm glad you asked!

Well, if you're lucky enough to be aware of or already know an opponents' personality ahead of time, then when you play them you can use that knowledge to not let their reactions or emotions bother you.  Let me be specific.  Extroverts can be loud, talk a lot, verbally show their emotions when they are upset (or happy) and those things can be distractions.  Many of us assume they are directing their words directly at us personally.  But in reality, that's just the way they are.  It's not personal.  It's not directed towards you, they are just that way all the time.

Therefore, knowing that their actions/words are not personal to you is a huge advantage.  It will allow you to focus on playing your best, instead of stealing mental energy away from you by getting upset because they are talking too much or you think they are upset with you personally.

Myers-Briggs will also tell us if I, you, or others are a "feeler" or a "thinker."  If you play someone who is a feeler and you upset them, their reaction is going to be completely different than someone who is a thinker.  Thinkers don't usually take things personal and don't think about the issue again.  Feelers will hold on to even the slightest bothersome thing and let it affect them.

Again - how does this help you?  This helps you because if someone reacts in a certain way it's usually not because of something you have done, but it's more so their personality that brings out their attitude.

Some people can be extremely mad on the inside, but you'll never see it on the outside because they just don't show it. But if they do show it, and you know they are an extrovert or a feeler, then you can use that as a tool to not react to how they are acting, realizing that this is just their personality.

I hope this helps you in your pool journey, peeps!