Award winning author, emotional intelligence expert, and President and co-founder of TalentSmart, Travis Bradberry, Ph.D., was kind enough to take the time to discuss his authoritative and enlightening book Self-Awareness: The Hidden Driver of Success and Satisfaction.
Travis Bradberry shared his insights into the background of the book, and the critical importance of understanding personality in career and personal development. He dispels some well known myths, and shares his insights into why a person must develop self-awareness, to better utilize the strengths and minimize the weaknesses, in one's own personality.
Thanks to Travis Bradberry for his wonderful and insightful answers.
What was the background to writing your book titled Self-Awareness: The Hidden Driver of Success and Satisfaction?
Travis Bradberry: The impetus for this book surfaced more than a decade ago, in the form of a perplexing question batted around amongst a group of industrial psychologists, “Is there a universal characteristic that makes people successful?” With no answer in sight, this conundrum needled our curiosity. We decided to launch a study to find out. We assembled a team of statisticians, programmers, administrators, and psychologists to execute a global search for the universal source of talent.
Aptly named the TalentSmart study, this quest operated outside the confines of an underlying theory—any preconceived notions as to what produces success would only muddy the waters. TalentSmart took a broad brush and measured the scope of people’s skills, motivations, and opinions. We observed their behavior at work and at home. And, perhaps more importantly, we noted the choices people made and measured the results that followed. An overarching determinant of success, should it exist, could only be found by separating the actions that get results from those that are inconsequential or even harmful.
The TalentSmart study grew steadily with each passing year, and by the time it was complete we had profiled people on every inhabited continent. This enormous data base contains millions of pieces of information that represent the input of more than 500,000 people in 94 countries. (See Appendix B for details of the study sample.) At the heart of Self-Awareness are the discoveries from this effort. And, yes, the answer to our question ultimately surfaced, but not before we had stumbled upon two revelations that fly in the face of what people have been told their entire lives will make them successful: your personality sets your direction in life and the greater your self-awareness, the more able you are to use personality to achieve your fullest potential.
How do you define self-awareness?
Travis Bradberry: Self-awareness is not about discovering deep, dark secrets or unconscious motivations, but, rather it comes from developing a straightforward and honest understanding of what makes you tick.
Why is self-awareness such a critical, but often overlooked skill?
Travis Bradberry: Guided by the mistaken notion that psychology deals exclusively with pathology, we assume that the only time to learn about ourselves is in the face of crisis. We embrace those things with which we’re comfortable, and put the blinders on the moment something makes us uncomfortable. But it’s really the whole picture that serves us. The more we understand the beauty and the blemishes, the more we can put them both to work to achieve our potential.
Travis Bradberry Ph.D. (photo left)
People are told they can be who they want to be. You disagree with this conventional wisdom. Why?
Travis Bradberry: In our homes, schools, and the workplace we’re encouraged to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and be the person we wish to become. Success, we’re told, is a matter of choice. The incredible flaw in this well-intended advice? We actually have very little say in the matter. Like a massive boulder tearing down a hillside, our destiny is set in motion by our personality—a set of behavior traits we all possess in varying degrees. Like the tendency towards introversion or extraversion, these traits influence how we think, how we feel, and ultimately what we do.
Each of us has a personality profile, which reflects our own unique blend of the personality traits, and is produced by hardwired paths for thinking in the brain. By the time we reach adulthood, these paths are fixed. They serve as the conduits by which our brains think; the mental funnels through which our choices must flow. Personality is a collection of our motivations, needs, and preferences that serves as a blueprint to our strengths and weaknesses—each individual’s “code” as it were.
Your research goes much farther than the standard nature versus nurture debate as well. How does your research differ from that discussion?
Travis Bradberry: That discussion is a rather outdated one, so Self-Awareness proceeds with the understanding that we now know how much of our behavior is dictated by genes and how much by our environment. By the time you enter adulthood, your personality is fixed. Both nature and nurture have run their course, so you're only going to benefit from getting to know your personality and increasing your self-awareness.
How important is personality in determining our lives and career choices? How can personality determine our strengths and weaknesses?
Travis Bradberry: Think of it this way: If personality is fixed, then what is the point of knowing it? To be honest, we scratched our heads over this one for a good while. Personality was not the blanket predictor of success the study was seeking. True, it dictates the bulk of our behavior, but we found that successful people come from a mixed bag of personalities—they represent each of the 14 types equally. Top performers may not share the same personality profile, but they do have one critical thing in common: an acute sense of self-awareness.
Will understanding different personality types lead to a greater self-awareness of strengths and weaknesses?
Travis Bradberry: People high in self-awareness are remarkably clear in their understanding of what they are capable of doing well, what will motivate and satisfy them, and which people and situations they should avoid. As self-awareness increases, people’s satisfaction with life—defined as their ability to reach their goals at work and at home—skyrockets. In the workplace, 83% of those high in self-awareness are top performers. Likewise, just 2% of bottom performers are high in self-awareness. Why is this so? Those who understand their preferences and tendencies are far more likely to pursue the right opportunities, put their strengths to work, and get results. When we learn the ins and outs of our ingrained style for responding to challenges and opportunities, we discover the situations and people that will make us successful. Self-awareness unlocks your personality code.
TalentSmart logo (left)
How can understanding personality traits in other people help in making good decisions and avoiding costly mistakes?
Travis Bradberry: Conflict between people is an inevitable part of work, and its presence has warning signs. Successful managers beat the odds by heeding these signs, looking within their group, and striving to understand the various personalities sitting at the table. Understanding your team does more than help you avoid conflict, it helps you use the strengths of each team member to achieve the greatest results possible. As we discussed previously, people don’t naturally develop an objective understanding of their strengths. A manager who educates and understands her team has a powerful and enduring influence upon the success of the group.
How many different personality types have been outlined from your large research study and how can a person find out their own personality type and profile?
Travis Bradberry: Fourteen broad types with subtle variations within each type. It's essential to take the IDISC assessment (and the reason we included an access code within each copy of the book) to know not only your type, but also the nuances of your profile from within that type.
What is next for Travis Bradberry?
Travis Bradberry: Well, my new book Emotional Intelligence 2.0 is doing phenomenally well. It's striking a chord with people because things are so challenging these days since the economy collapsed and the housing bubble burst. We're being asked to do more with less at work, and we're facing a host of new challenges at home. Emotional Intelligence 2.0 illustrates the other critical component of the TalentSmart study, emotional intelligence, and it does so by delivering 66 strategies readers can use to increase their self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management skills. Like Self-Awareness, Emotional Intelligence 2.0 comes with a test, but in this case the test is our Emotional Intelligence Appraisal assessment.
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My book review of Self-Awareness: The Hidden Driver of Success and Satisfaction by Travis Bradberry.
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