Over my career, I have taken many personality & skill tests. For example, I know my Myers Briggs Indicator Type, mapped myself across the Insight Discovery Wheel, discovered my rating on the Management Assessment of Proficiency, found the next number in the sequence, found the wrong shape and generally been tested in every conceivable way. I quite enjoy the tests because I have done so many I can predict what score I will get when asked to do a new one.

I like to rapidly read through the results and may say, “Yes, that’s a reasonable approximation”. But I dread the HR interviewer who will explain the test scores with open questions like, “Did you know you were XYZ?”. You don’t say, I must try to get my left & right brain hemispheres talking more! On one test at the start of my career I got the HR question, “Did you know you are too honest?”. That threw me, but with several years of hindsight, I can see the point.

But all of this got me thinking and I once asked the question at an HR interview, “This is me, but how do I relate with people who are the complete opposite of me, the Anti-Me?”. I was given a very interesting book called Dealing with People You Can’t Stand.

It describes a series of annoying behaviors and the underlying reasons why the person acts the way they do. Behaviors like The No Person, The Whiner or The Know It All. I read through it and found myself in some of the behaviors and then started to understand why people act like they do. This was a great insight. Once you can see past the behavior and understand what is important to the person you can deal with them much more effectively. Hope this helps.

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