Here is my third and last instalment this week from my Connected Living project. This chapter encourages you to consider your persona and where you preferences lay. This chapter helps us appreciate that we are never binary (one thing or another) but a complicated and often situational. There is not a better way of being, we are all a complex wonderful mixture, and the key to success to knowing and understanding where our strengths lay in that mix.
I have added a little exercise to help you identify your core values.
Chapter 3: The story of your persona
Are you an introvert or extrovert?
Are you most comfortable as an extrovert or as an introvert, or does it depend on what you are doing and who you are with?
Are you chatty or more the quiet type?
Do you prefer to watch from the side-lines or are you more comfortable in the thick of it getting stuck in?
Do you look within yourself for inspiration or do you prefer to surround yourself with friends or colleagues to find your creativity?
Do you relish those intimate one to one moments with friends or do you love those occasions with all your friends and family present?
Do you like to blend in to the background or do you love to stand out in the crowd?
Do you think to speak or do you speak to think?
Do you like to reflect before you act or are you more prone to rushing in to action?
Now if you are anything like me you will relate to some of the introvert traits and some of the extrovert traits. For some of the statements you might not have an opinion either way. We are after all complex and interesting human beings, none of us can be put in a box.
You may have noticed however that you answered more one way than the other.
In all parts of my life I have a tendency towards introversion. I prefer to email someone rather than speak to them on the phone, especially when I do not know them very well. If I am in a shop and I cannot find what I have gone in for I would rather walk out of the shop empty handed rather than ask a shop assistant. When I have a difficult problem I need to solve, I will prefer to do this alone and work through my problem carefully, I will then share my plan once I am happy with it. On the flip side I love teaching groups of people and I love talking in large groups, I often relish being the centre of attention on some occasions and hate the thought of it on others. When I worked on the wards I had no problem talking to complete strangers and striking up a rapport with them. When I am teaching and talking to large groups of people I am Matt Smith the Educator or Matt Smith the Coach. When I am blending into the background I am being Matt Smith, just plain old Matt Smith, the father, husband, son, blogger and coach. Saying that my extroverted traits do show up in my latter persona as well as my professional persona, and the same is true for my introversion. Jung described humans as having different personas for different occasions. So crudely speaking I have my Professional persona and a persona as a Father, a persona as a Husband, Son, Coach, Blogger and Friend. Most of these persona’s no doubt are very similar, as yours will be, otherwise it would could get very confusing trying to work out what version of a person we are speaking to, let alone how exhausting it would be to keep up all these multiple characters all of the time.
As well describing your attitude (introversion and extroversion) Carl Jung, suggests there are 2 aspects of our decision making. He proposed that we either make decisions based on our thinking or our feelings. As with our attitude they are not mutually exclusive, therefore we can and do use both traits, but not at the same time. We do however prefer to make decisions either one way or another. Again to help you understand you preferred behaviour I have put together a series of questions below:
Do you consider yourself to be formal in your interactions with people or are you much more informal when greeting people?
Do you remember facts and figures more easily than names and faces or do facts and figures leave you cold?
Do you like to analyse a problem before you plan to correct it, or do you get stuck in and use a kind of trial and error approach?
When faced with an issue do you look at it with a subjective or objective eye?
Once you have decided on a direction of travel do you stick to that route or do you see where road takes you?
Do you relish competition and strive to come out on top, or are you more interesting in taking part and helping others to succeed?
Is it important to you to have a tidy desk, is it important that everything has its place and is in it, or do you not really care whether you desk is tidy or not, or where things are kept?
Do you choose your work or task above spending time with friends or family, or do you insist on finishing work on time to ensure you spend quality time with your friends and family?
Again if you are anything like me you will be able to relate to some traits for both thinking and feeling decision making. I must admit my preferred route to making decisions is based on what I feel rather than thinking things through. When faced with important decisions however, I will rely more on than feelings. When I am writing or reviewing guidelines I will spend time collecting data and make sure I have all the information I need before I start writing, sometimes to the point where it takes me such a long time to get things done. However in every other aspect of my life I make decisions based on how they make me feel and how they may make others feel. I will often base my decision making on my values, if they are congruent with my values, for me it is the right decision. You may think that you base decisions on either analysis of data or on what you feel, but they may have their basis in the opposite. To examine where your decision making is routed it is worth exploring your values. What you value will unearth your preference.
Discovering our core values
In her book Dare to Lead, Brene Brown offers an exercise to help you explore what your core values are; in fact that is why I discovered my 2 core values (courage and usefulness). It is an exercise worth doing even if you think you know what you core values are, as you might be surprised that another value lies behind the values you hold as important. Brene offers a long list of values and invites you to find 2 core values, this is quite a daunting task, therefore she suggests you come up with 10 initially and then try to group them together, in themes and ask yourself what value do they collectively represent until you get down to one or 2 core values. To help you try this out I have provided a list below, I do however implore you to read Dare to Lead if you are a leader it will change the way you view your leadership, and if you are not it will change the way you interact with your leader. Any way below is a list of values to help get you started with discovering what your core values are. Once you have 10 values that relate to you (please try not to choose values that you would like to have or what you think are admirable, choose those that really mean something to you). Then can you group any of them together, do they represent an overarching value. Take your time, really think about what you value; if you cannot find your value add it. Have some fun with it, be creative and thoughtful and you will be able to come up with 2 core values. You can find a list of all the values that you can print out via Brene Brown’s website; https://daretolead.brenebrown.com/workbook-art-pics-glossary/
Brene then invites you to operationalise your core values and the values of the organisation you work in. Read Dare to Lead and visit her website https://daretolead.brenebrown.com/ to discover more.
For me this is a useful exercise to discover why you prefer to behave and make decisions. It also helps to explain why we are so complicated and not easy to put in a box.
Connected Coaching 