Givers vs Takers

We have been discussing a lot about personality and identity. When deciding what to discuss for my second post which involved more thought than the first, I turned to one of my favorite resources, TEDTalks. I was first exposed to these early in high school during my two year Biotechnology I & II course. They quickly have become something I have often watched when needing inspiration for papers, presentations, and interview preparation. But they are also what I would consider a "nerdy guilty pleasure" as I have watched many of them just for the fun of it. I think there is a wealth of knowledge to be found in each of these talks and one day I hope to attend a conference.
First, I searched organizational behavior and found links to a few people, but no videos. Next, I went under the topics tab to the business section. I quickly found Adam Grant's talk titled "Are you a giver or a taker?". Before even listening to the talk I considered this question and found it hard to come up with an answer. Many of my interactions I would consider to be a balance of both giving and taking, however I find myself giving more often. Right off the bat he explained he was an organizational psychologist so I knew I was in the right place. He then displayed an image on the screen:

I read this and laughed within a few seconds. While there is no data to support this and very little content, I found it to be funny and also accurate enough for what it is. Grant then went on to discuss a third category, matchers. He states, "If you're a matcher, you try to keep an even balance of give and take: quid pro quo — I'll do something for you if you do something for me." This was likely the category I was searching for, however I feel depending on the situation I can either take the role of a matcher or a giver.
Through his data, he shows that givers can be found to produce the most and least productivity at many organizations. However they do offer the most improvement to organizations of the three. So why are they found at the bottom and the top of productivity? Grant along with other colleagues conducted research specifically inside of hospitals. They observed the likeliness of nurses to ask for help among different floors of the hospital. They found where there was a nurse positioned solely as a resource to aid the other nurses, they were more likely to seek out help as opposed to the other floors. This result is very important for managers to understand. Although a floor may not need a nurse in that position to produce the same result, the basis of that result more likely comes from an environment where asking for help is encouraged and not seen as a sign of incompetence or weakness. Creating an environment of open communication allows for those who are in a situation where they need assistance to feel they are supported. Finally, he discusses the importance of creating the right group of people in a team or organization. This can easily be applied to any team especially a hospital board or senior management team. Teams need a healthy mixture of both matchers and givers to be successful.
Overall, I thought this video touched on all the parts of organizational behavior which we will be focusing on: One, Two, and Many. At the One level, it is important to understand where you fall in the giver/taker/matcher system. Although people may adapt to different roles under different circumstances, it is important to understand one's tendencies and how you will likely react in a situation. Your interactions would fall under the Two category. Grant explains that givers do not work well with takers because they feel they are taken advantage of and will likely shut down. At the Many level, it is important for management to be able to spot takers who may negatively impact productivity among the organization. Grant's point about making sure you have the right team members in an organization is spot on in the healthcare field. Surrounding yourself and your team with the right people is what sets you up for success.

Personality Testing

Yesterday as part of our first assignment, I completed two personality tests. One was the 16 Personalities test and the other was The Big Five. I had taken the Big Five before and found similar results (I'm a O53-C74-E86-A90-N1 Big Five!!) I found these results to be pretty indicative of what I would expect. The only one I disagreed with was the first category. I feel I often seek out new experience and consider myself someone who is willing to go outside of their comfort zone. I am not super artistic in the traditional sense so I feel that my answers to those questions may have contributed to why I was given that score. The other categories told me that I am well organized, reliable, social, outgoing, good-natured, curteous, supportive, and that I remain calm in intense situations. I scored in the 1st percentile for neuroticism for this test. My other result contradicted this a bit but I feel the Big Five was much more accurate on that category. I feel very low anxiety and understand pressure but do not allow it to control my emotions. I have a very good understanding of my emotions and who I am and this test confirmed that. For the 16 Personalities test, I was given "The Campaigner" as my personality (The Campaigner). My only disagreement with this result was that it says the personality's weaknesses are getting stressed out easily and are highly emotional. Like any 20 year old female, I certainly have emotions. However I would not consider myself "highly" emotional. I understand my feelings and feel I control and express them well. It also says that one of my weaknesses is being independent to a fault. I found this to be very spot on. I had my first interview for a summer internship today and one of the first things I told my interviewer about is that I consider myself highly independent and have often been told by others that they also see this. I have been fortunate enough to grow up with a lot of support and my parents have allowed me to develop my own sense of self. I am very confident and comfortable with who I am. My strengths for this personality told me I am energetic, observant, curious, have excellent communication, and know how to relax. When looking through the career paths section, it mentions a strong ability to network and match communication styles while exploring new challenges. This trait will be helpful for my professional career. I found it humorous that my personality would not do well in the military as many of our mentors have a background in. I found the most important part of the description to be this:
"And while Thinking types may be better at applying logic to systems and machines, people with the Campaigner personality type are able to apply that same logic to human interactions and networks, using their exceptional social perception to find out what makes people tick. This lends Campaigners a solid foothold in any human science or service, from psychology, counseling and teaching to politics, diplomacy and detective work. All of these fields have another important similarity: they are in constant development, shifting, presenting new angles and new approaches. It’s simply not possible to be good in these fields and content with the way things are, and this is where Campaigners truly shine."
This affirmed to me that HMP does work well with who I am as a person. I also took a brief look at the "Administrator" personality and found my results were very similar to that of an administrator. HMP could take me many places and I am curious to find which path I will go down but if I enjoyed gambling I would put my money on Health Administration. My last semester everything really started to come together for me academically. This class is a tremendous opportunity that I feel lucky to be a part of. It will provide me the opportunity to grow and prepare myself for my summer internship. Overall with personality testing, I think its better to have a sense of who you are and be confident in that. My results certainly were accurate for the most part but I feel I could have written a long description of who I am. They are a great way to affirm what you already know to be true about yourself.