Masterclass: Strategies for Handling Personality Differences at Work

In this episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast, Simon Goode explores the Big Five personality model and its practical application for understanding and managing workplace conflicts. He compares the Big Five to other popular personality frameworks like DISC and Myers-Briggs, highlighting why the Big Five offers more actionable insights. Simon Goode also shares strategies for identifying personality differences, using structure to mitigate conflict, and communicating in a mutual and neutral way to support healthier team dynamics. 

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Simon Goode is a professional mediator and the host of the Conflict Skills Podcast. Drawing from his experience in conflict resolution, Simon launched his podcast to offer practical, free tools and resources for people dealing with conflict in their personal and professional lives. In each episode, Simon explores topics like personality differences, focusing on useful models such as the Big Five type indicators to help listeners understand themselves and others better. His goal is to provide actionable strategies—especially for managing workplace conflicts—making his podcast a valuable guide for anyone seeking to navigate challenging interactions more effectively.

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TIMESTAMPS: 

00:00 "Navigating Workplace Personality Conflicts"

06:07 Personality Traits and Social Conflict

08:38 Managing Teams Through Structured Planning

13:01 Openness: Traits and Differences

14:31 "Big Five Openness Explained"

17:13 "Understanding Openness in Teams"

21:56 Conscientiousness and Behavioral Traits

24:34 "Collaborating on Organization & Approach"

27:13 Balancing Team Dynamics Effectively

33:16 Managing Emotions: Anxiety & Anger

35:24 Managing Differences Through Dialogue

Transcript

0:01

Well, hello and welcome back to the Conflict Skills Podcast. I'm your host, professional mediator Simon Goode. I set up this podcast to provide free resources and tools for dealing with conflict. So if that sounds like the kind of thing that's useful for you, please consider pressing subscribe. In the episode today, I'm going to be talking about one of the ways that we can understand differences in personality. I'll explain the Big Five type indicators and the way that that's used in psychometric testing, etc., as well as some of the subcategories that can be found within that Big Five model. For me, this is the most practical and the most useful of the ways that we think about personality differences. So I'm going to talk briefly about some of the others, but largely focus on that, and then talk about some of the strategies that we can use to apply it and manage workplace conflict situations. If you're dealing with workplace conflict yourself, my hope is that this might be something that's useful for you. Or if you're a team leader or a manager and you're dealing with differences in personality within your team, for example, there will hopefully also be some useful different bits and pieces for you too. Now, there are many ways that psychologists use to categorise different elements of people's personality. And if you've been in the workplace for quite a bit of time, you might have even had exposure to some of these different models. For workplace conflict, DISC is a common one that's used, the D-I-S-C. There's a book that I really like called Surrounded by Idiots where he talks about similar categories to that. So it's the people who prefer to be more direct, people who prefer to have more influence, people who tend to be more steadfast or steady, and then people who are high in conscientiousness. The challenge for me with DISC is that it's this broad brush way of understanding the personality differences, and I don't think it leads to as much insight or practical options that we have for managing it as some of the other tools. I remember I used to really like a podcast that was called Manager Tools, I think, and they constantly talked about DiSC. And so early on in my management journey, I thought this is the gold standard, this is the one that we should be using. But as I've looked into it in more depth and considered this in my own leadership journey, I haven't found it to be the most practically, practically useful, to be honest. Insights Discovery is one that I often talk about when I'm doing conflict resolution training. In that model, it breaks people into 4 different categories, 4 colors. The red people are the very driven, like, busy professional people that you might come across. The yellows are the people that really like discussion. They really like creative ways of thinking about tasks. The green are like the glue that holds the team together. They want to have beers after work. They want to go away camping on the weekend. They'll ask you how your kids are, all of that kind of thing. And then finally, we've got the blue, the people who tend to be more detail-oriented and data-focused. But there's many different ways that psychologists use to manage this as well as DISC or Insights. The Enneagram is a very popular model of understanding different personalities. In that framework, I think there's 11 different categories that you could break people into. Myers-Briggs is another one that a lot of people like. My wife really likes Myers-Briggs, for example. That one breaks people down into introversion, extroversion, thinking or feeling, sensing or perceiving, etc. The challenge for me is that when we end up dealing with Myers-Briggs is that we've got 16 different categories that people could go into. So when I've sat in training workshops myself, people are often looking at themselves first and foremost and then thinking about one or two individuals that they're dealing with. But trying to remember which of the full 16 categories everybody who you work with is in, that can be a little bit problematic in my experience. And you might have even be someone who is invested in star signs. Maybe horoscopes is something that you think clearly articulates the differences between people. They're such a Taurus, or they're such a Virgo, they're such a Gemini, or whatever. And in Korea, they even think that personality might be associated with differences in blood type. I spent a couple of years over in South Korea teaching English, and always my students would ask me what's my blood type and how old I am. It tends to be something that they really focus on because they're quite— it's quite a hierarchical system, I suppose, even in workplace teams and friendship groups, etc. So the Big Five is the tool that I prefer for dealing with personality differences. The way that this particular framework works is that there's five categories that we could look at. So each person might be different in one or two or potentially all five of these different areas. The acronym that I used to use to remember it is OCEAN. So the O stands for openness, the C is conscientiousness, the E is extroversion, The A is agreeableness and the N is neuroticism. In Myers-Briggs and some of the other personality psychometric tests, you've got two different labels at each end of the continuum. So introversion versus extroversion, thinking versus perceiving or whatever, sensing or judging. I can't remember them all off the top of my head, but there's like a label at each end, if you know what I mean. The Big Five is a little bit different. People tend to be high or low in each of those five categories. So you might be high in openness, low in conscientiousness, high in extroversion, low in agreeableness, and high in neuroticism, for example. So those labels in themselves, I think, begin to show up as being more useful. People who are more open, they prefer more imaginative, spontaneous ways of working. People low in openness prefer routine. They prefer practical planning. They might have trouble with creative approaches to dealing with an issue, abstract ideas, that kind of thing. People high in Conscientiousness tend to be more disciplined. They tend to be more careful. These are the kind of people that will clean up the dishes before they go to bed, or if their manager asks them to do one more thing, they're just going to do it. They won't feel good leaving work with something that's not quite complete. People who are low in Conscientiousness, by comparison, tend to be more impulsive, and they tend to be more disorganized in terms of the way that they work. For myself, I'm very low in conscientiousness, and I've— looking back and reflecting on different conflict situations that I've been in, I think this has been one of the ways that I've inadvertently rubbed people up the wrong way. Or maybe we just had different expectations in terms of the support that we would give each other. For example, you might have someone that's high in extroversion. They're very sociable, they're very fun-loving, they seem to be quite happy and jolly all the time when you talk to them. Someone low in extroversion might be more reserved, more thoughtful, etc. Agreeableness was the A. Someone high in agreeableness tends to be more trusting, they're more helpful, they just say yes when you ask them to do something. Someone low in agreeableness might ask why, what's the justification for this? They tend to be more suspicious and they tend to be not very cooperative. And then the N, neuroticism. People high in neuroticism tend to be anxious, a little bit more pessimistic, intrusive thoughts, rumination, those kind of elements. Are often common experiences for people high in neuroticism. By comparison, you've got people low in neuroticism that are quite calm and confident naturally. It is possible that these dimensions would change, but one of the reasons that I really like this Big Five way of understanding personality is that it's very well backed up in the research. You might be surprised at how little empirical basis exists for some of the other models like DISC, Myers-Briggs, Myers-Briggs, for example. Whereas Big Five, it's very valid, like the categories tend to match the results that come in from a test, for example, and it tends to be reliable. These are things that are consistent across time. Whereas for DiSC or Myers-Briggs, it's pretty common to see people that are very different at home versus at work. When it comes to the Big Five, these elements tend to be more consistent. So when we're dealing with differences in personality, whether we use the Big Five or some other model, we need to decide how we're going to apply this. And for me, there's 3 steps that I often follow. First, I want to identify what the difference is. Like, where are we thinking differently? Where are we expecting something different? Where do we have different expectations in terms of the conscientiousness factor, for example? All of those different elements, but we're really looking at behavior. And then the second step is use structure to manage the conflict. It's possible that when you identify the fact that this person's very low in extroversion, you wouldn't schedule a number of different client appointments for them one after the other. You might give them one face-to-face meeting with a client and then give them the next hour in the diary to take notes or do some research or something else. And then the next person that they're scheduled to see would give them a little bit of breathing room so that they can reset. So a lot of the time we can use structure to either prevent conflict from happening at all or stop it from happening if it's something that's been going on for a while. And we can also use structure to mitigate the negative effects of conflict as well. For example, you might delegate tasks to different members of your team and you take control of that because you're aware of the fact that within the members of your team, there's different levels of agreeableness, for example. So if you just left it up to them, it's likely that the more agreeable people would end up doing more work. So we could use structure in terms of the way that we delegate to manage that. Now, the third step is discussing it. And for me, the key is that we need to be able to talk about the difference in personality in a way that's mutual and neutral. So when I say mutual, it's like, it seems like we're on different pages here, or it seems like we've got different perspectives, or I'm wondering if maybe there's been a couple of crossed wires because you've been thinking this and I've been looking at it quite differently. So the mutual element is that this difference involves both of us. As a team leader, as a manager, you could talk about how we're going to manage these differences within our team. And if you're a manager coaching one of your staff who's dealing with conflict with someone else, it would be encouraging them to think about this as a reciprocal pattern that's going on between the two of them. Just because you're high in neuroticism and they're low doesn't necessarily mean that there's going to be conflict. But if there is conflict that's going on as a result, we need to find a way to talk about the issue without triggering defensiveness, without it coming across as critical. So something like, "It seems like we've got different takes on this." Well, there's no implication there that you're wrong or you're an idiot or you're a jerk or you're not taking it seriously or any of that. So mutual is the first element and then neutral is the second. We don't want this to be perceived as criticism. So that means that as we're talking about this difference in personality, we don't want to use phrases like, "You should do this," or, "What you need to understand is this." We would use more of a coaching approach of, "How are we going to figure this out? What do you think would work moving forwards?" So I'm going to go through those different categories. I'll talk about openness first, as well as the different subcategories that can exist within them. I think that if you're dealing with differences in personality, one or two of the elements that I talk about might ring a bell for you. And in that case, you could follow those 3 steps that I talked about. First, identify the difference. Second, use structure to manage it where we can, and maybe we don't need to have any difficult conversations then as a result. But third, if we do need to talk about it, how can we frame it in a way that's mutual and neutral? So people who are high in openness, they tend to be more curious. These are the kind of people that ask why, or they want to look into the underlying mechanism that's resulted in this output or outcome. They tend to be more imaginative, not just that they have the capacity to be more imaginative, but they enjoy that style of approaching problem solving, or they enjoy daydreaming or those kind of elements. They're more creative. They tend to be more open for trying new things, and they tend to be unconventional. They would prefer to invent their own methodology to use rather than just doing it the same way as the previous person that was in their role. So by contrast, people who are low in openness are usually more predictable. They often follow routines, so it's not that hard to figure out what they're going to do next because it's the same thing that they do every day. They tend not to be as imaginative. Both, they might not have the capacity, but they also don't tend to enjoy imaginative fantasy, fantastical types of conversations either. They're more uncomfortable with change. They tend to be more strict, especially with routine. If you're late, they might start a different task and tell you, too bad, too sad. I sat here waiting for 5 minutes. I'm not going to waste the rest of my afternoon. I've got things that I need to do. And they tend to be more traditional. They don't mind just following the steps that they've been provided. So in terms of differences between you and someone else when it comes to openness, you might think about some of the following

Questions: 13:16

Do you enjoy trying new activities, or do you prefer sticking to familiar routines? How often do you find yourself daydreaming or exploring abstract kind of ideas? Are you drawn to art, music, other creative kind of pursuits? That might mean that you're high in openness. And how comfortable do you think that you are with change? How comfortable are you with uncertainty in your life? So it's possible hearing me talk about those that you're already seeing some differences between you and the other person that you're dealing with. Like for me, I've got a number of family members who are very low in openness. My father-in-law, to be frank, was someone that I lived with for about 6 months while we were saving up money to buy our first house. And he's the kind of person that's very, very, very low in openness. Every day he eats the same thing for breakfast at the same time. He sits in the same chair. Afterwards, he goes and does the same activity next. Then he has the same cup of tea at the same time. On this day in the afternoon, this is the activity that he does. On this day in the afternoon, this is what he normally does. He really does just follow the script, so to speak. So for me, when I was dealing with that, when I was living with him as someone who's very high in openness, I had to figure out how to manage that. Now, part of it was using structure, like I didn't, continue to bring up topics that he seemed completely uninterested in. Like, we'd be watching the news or something, and I'm thinking about the underlying economic conditions that led to that, whereas he's just thinking practically about what the facts were that they talked about on the page, or that you've read, or that you've been told, etc. So those are the broad characteristics from someone who's high in openness or low in openness. But for me, a lot of the benefit when it comes to the Big Five personality characteristics is looking at the subcategories. One of the different versions of the Big Five tests is called the NEO Personality Inventory-Revised, NEOPI-R. Originally, I believe it was developed by Costa and McCrae back in the early'90s, and there's been many different revisions and different versions of the test that have become popular, sort of like different element elements come and go. So within that broad category of openness, there are also subcategories that you might notice a difference in personality. People can be high or low in the level of imagination and fantasy that they engage in, for example. That's one of the ones that I've referred to already. But there are other elements that could be, could exist alongside that. People can be high in their preference for aesthetics. Like some people really care about the office looking neat and tidy or having nice pictures on the wall or a nice view or something similar. Others wouldn't mind if they were working in a concrete box for the day and they're just staring at their computer. And then when they drive home, they're not particularly fussed if they've been in a space that's not very beautiful, so to speak. You might be someone who's quite emotional. You might be open to feelings. That's another difference that might exist between the two of you. You prefer to talk about these elements and you prefer to keep things very data-focused and fact-based. Are you more adventurous? Do you like exploration? Do you prefer constant change? That might be an area where you're different than someone in openness. So you could be high in the imagination aspect, but you really don't like having adventures, whereas someone else might really like the adventurousness aspect, but they don't have the same internal fantasy that they continue daydreaming on, etc. Are you someone who's more curious? Do you look at the underlying factors when it comes to learning something? That's another difference that could exist. People who are low in openness might tend to just prefer getting told the facts. People high in openness might be more curious about what's actually going on or how this element could be applied in this context or whatever. And then you might have differences in terms of tolerance to ambiguity. Like, I know a lot of people who are low in openness and they really don't like it when something's not clear. Whereas people who are high in openness might not have trouble managing that. So the fantasy, imagination, the preference for aesthetics, the focus on feelings and emotions, the liking or preference towards adventurousness, being more curious in terms of how you think about different topics, etc. And then do you prefer something that's very clear or do you not mind a bit of uncertainty that's built in? So if you're noticing a difference between you and somebody else that you work with, The first step that we need to do is to figure out what's going on. Is it openness, broadly speaking, or is it one of those subcategories that I talked about? The second step is to use structure where possible. For example, we might have more clear instructions for someone to do a task if I'm a little bit worried that they're an adventurous kind, kind of person and they're going to experiment with it and potentially put my project at risk. And then we want to find a way to discuss it if we decide to in that neutral and mutual kind of way. So just as an example, we could say to someone like, look, one of the things I really like working with you and I've noticed is that you tend to focus on the underlying facts. You're not just trying to understand the situation and what's going on today. You've also got a real capacity to understand the factors that led up to that. For me, it might be partly due to the role that I'm in, but also my preference in terms of the way that I work. I tend just to like coming up with a relatively simple way of dealing with issues. And I don't mind just following it again and again and again. Whereas for you, I can imagine you would be more inclined to experiment. Maybe there's a different option that would be more efficient, etc. Have I got that right? So we want to talk about that difference in a way that's neutral and mutual. And then assuming that they're on the same page or they agree, the discussion that we need to have should be focused on the future and on the solutions as much as possible. There is some benefit in understanding why we did what we did previously, debriefing about an issue that's happened, talking it through after a critical event, that kind of thing. But for me, I don't actually believe that people are very aware of their own motivations. So looking retrospectively, sure, it can be useful to understand what was going through someone's head when they did this or this. But I think there's a real risk in oversimplifying that. Whereas with the future and on the solution focus, we can talk about the practical arrangements that are going to work without dealing with that underlying motivation, or was that really what you intended, etc., etc. People high in conscientiousness are usually quite competent. They're seen to be good at their jobs. They tend to be more organized. They're more dutiful. They won't leave a task for someone else to finish. They'll do it themselves. They tend to be quite achievement striving. They tend to be self-disciplined, and they tend to be more considerate. Whereas people who are low in conscientiousness tend to be less competent. They might not finish a task completely or not do as good, as good a job as someone who's high. They tend to be more disorganized. They might come across as more careless. They tend to be prone to things like procrastination. They're less disciplined, and they tend to be more impulsive. So there's a few ways that this difference in conscientiousness affects workplace conflict, isn't there? Like, job performance is a very obvious one. Someone high in conscientiousness is more likely to do well in their job. Actually, this is one of the tools that some hiring managers use as a way of sorting out who's a good candidate versus who's not. Typically speaking, you would prefer to have most of your team members high in conscientiousness, for example. It could also be seen in things like impulse control, for example. It lets them complete tasks or it lets them achieve goals. People low on conscientiousness, you might notice that they're more prone to all sorts of impulses. Going and getting a second chocolate bar from the vending machine in the office, having an extra beer, even though that's going to mean that they're slightly hungover when they show up to work the next day. And that then, of course, leads to some association with difficulty completing goals or fulfilling requirements that their manager or other people might expect of them. They tend to be more disorganized. When you look at restructures that are going on, people low in conscientiousness don't like a lot of structure. They would be more inclined to think that they're being micromanaged by someone who's high in conscientiousness, for example. So for you, you might think about some of the following questions. For you, how important is it to keep commitments and meet deadlines? If you're 5 minutes late, is that something that stresses you out, or is it not such a big deal? Do you prefer to plan ahead, or are you okay with acting relatively spontaneously? How organized do you like to keep your living and working spaces, for example? And then the final one is how easily can you resist temptations or distractions when you're focusing on a task? I expect that probably some of the people who are low in conscientiousness might be diagnosed with something like ADHD, for example. It's possible that ADHD would be something that correlates with low conscientiousness. But I think a lot of the time that difference in the sense of duty or the sense of obligation is actually what might be going on there. People with ADHD can concentrate when there's enough of an incentive for them to do it, enough of a dollar amount, or maybe avoiding a potential issue that's causing them some distress, etc. So within conscientiousness, there are also 6 different subcategories that it talks about in the NEO-PI version of the test. They are self-efficacy, and competence. Some people might really have a strong value that they can stand on their own two feet, for example. My wife is very much like this. Some people might prefer order, orderliness, or organizing different things. Other people who are low in conscientiousness might prefer things to be a little bit more crazy, or they really dislike things like sorting and organizing, etc. You might see a difference in the obligation, the sense of duty, the dutifulness. If there was four different tasks on the to-do list, You might notice someone who's high in dutifulness will make sure that they do all of them. It could be achievement striving. They wanted to make sure that they don't look bad in front of their colleagues, for example. Sometimes people have high willpower or self-discipline. Others might be low. That's another of the subcategories. And then cautiousness is the final subcategory. I guess you could think about that as tolerance for risk. And so you might have two people that are both high in conscientiousness, but one of them really values the orderliness and somebody else might value the self-efficacy, for example. So if we're dealing with this in terms of the personality difference that's causing workplace conflict, we could follow those same 3 steps that I talked about. Identify the difference. Which of those subcategories is there a difference here, or is it broadly in conscientiousness altogether? Use structure where possible. Like we could remind people about tasks that are coming up so that they don't accidentally forget that it's there and then miss the deadline, etc. And we could discuss it in a way that's mutual and neutral. I know for you it's really important to keep things very organised, and I think part of that is because when things haven't been organised, one or two things slipped through the cracks back then. For me, I tend to be more creative in terms of the way that I approach my work, so I would need to adjust in order to probably meet what you need from me. Could we organize a time to talk this through just to make sure that we're on the same page moving forward? The third broad category that you might notice a difference in personality is agreeableness. Highly agreeable people are usually more trusting, and they tend to be more forgiving as well. They tend to be more straightforward. They call it how they see it. If they say yes, they're going to do it, they are. There's not like a subtle game of manipulation or deceit or something else that might be going on. They tend to be more altruistic. These are the kind of people that don't mind cleaning up all of the coffee mugs that have been left in the sink. They tend to be more compliant when they're asked to do something. They typically do. They tend to be more modest. They don't like self-aggrandizing kind of behaviors or public recognition as much as people who are low in agreeableness. They tend to be more sympathetic and empathetic, which means that they're more likely to be able to understand what's going on in someone else's head. And they might even experience some of the same elements when they're watching someone they care about being very distressed. For people who are high in agreeableness, that often causes them a level of distress as a result. It's like we're sharing each other's feelings to some extent. It's not just that I can get what's going on in someone else's head. It's like I have a hard time letting go of it after I've got that. People who are low in agreeableness tend to be more skeptical, more demanding. These are the people that it's my way or the highway kind of thing. They tend to be more insulting or more likely to be seen as belittling others. They tend to be more stubborn. They might be more show-offs and want public acclaim, public recognition. And they tend to come across as less sympathetic and potentially even less caring. And again, you might notice that there's a difference in some of these subcategories. Like maybe you've set up a business with someone and they're very trusting, they're very forgiving. Whereas for you, when you're hiring subcontractors, you really want to like hold their feet to the flame kind of thing. So that might be a difference that you would need to discuss with your business partner. I know for you, you tend to be more trusting. I'm a little bit more careful, and I tend to be a bit more guarded. What's going to be the best way of managing this meeting that we've got scheduled for tomorrow, given these different areas of our focus? So you might just reflect on things like, how easy do you trust others? Do you tend to find it easy to give them the benefit of the doubt, or do you hold on to what you assume to be their underlying intentions and motives? How important is it for you to avoid conflicts and maintain harmony? Do you find it easy to empathize with other people's emotions, perspectives, experiences? And how often do you put other people's needs before your own? Now, particularly when it comes to agreeableness, it can be quite challenging figuring out the mutual and neutral way of describing some of these differences. But I might say something like, look, I've just wanted to touch base with the different members of the team here. I've noticed that 1 or 2 people tend to be picking up a little bit more than their fair share of the work. And part of the reason that that's happening might be that they're willing to go above and beyond. From my perspective, though, I would like the work to be shared relatively equal between the different members of the team who are in the same role. So could we talk about a way to manage this moving forward that's going to work for you all? Okay, so the fourth category is extroversion. And this, I think, makes a lot of sense just on face value. People who are highly extroverted tend to be more sociable. They tend to be energized by social interactions. They're not drained by it in the same way as low extroversion people. They tend to be more excitement-seeking. They tend to be more happy to be the center of attention in a formal way as well as an informal way. And they tend to be more outgoing, whereas people who are low in extroversion tend to be quite happy in solitude. In fact, that might be the thing that really recharges their batteries. By comparison, when they're doing a lot of social activities, they might find that very fatiguing. They tend to be more reflective. They tend to be uncomfortable sharing the center of attention, and they tend to be more reserved as a result. So if you're wanting to figure out where you are on this, you could think about questions like, do you feel energized or drained after you've spent time with large social gatherings? How comfortable are you being the center of attention? Do you prefer working in teams or working independently? That might give you some clues. And how often do you initiate conversations with strangers? Similar to the other categories, though, I find a lot of the benefit when it comes to differences in extroversion actually exist in the subcategories. So there are also subcategories when it comes to extroversion, and these are as follows. The first one is warmth. The second is gregariousness. The third is assertiveness. The fourth is your activity level that you prefer. The fifth is excitement seeking. And the final one, the seventh, is cheerfulness, positive emotion, etc. So in terms of warmth, this is like how supportive the person might come across to the other members that they work with, other members of the team. If there's a new person that comes and joins the team, do you give them a big smile and say, how you going, and strike up a bit of conversation? Or do you tend to just leave it for now and the organic relationship can develop in time? Do you prefer a lot of activity? You prefer to be really busy? Is your ideal holiday cramming in as much excitement as possible? Or maybe you're someone who prefers less excitement or less in terms of the activity levels. So, when we can notice these specific differences in the subcategories, again, it often means that we've got something practical that we can anchor the conversation in. And then the final category is neuroticism. Neuroticism is the likelihood of people to be anxious or worry about something that might be going on, both the likelihood for that to happen and also the level of stress or distress that comes along with it too. So people who are highly neurotic, they tend to be more anxious, they tend to be more hostile, they come across as more easily irritated. More irritable. They tend to be quite easily stressed and often walk around demonstrating a very high level of stress. You could find differences in terms of self-consciousness. People who are very neurotic tend to be more self-conscious. In fact, for me, I'm very high in neuroticism myself, and one of the elements that I tend to experience is that I'm always thinking about what other people think of me. And I've noticed that my son is exactly the same. When he talks about how his day was at school or what happened at the soccer match, it's usually about how other people would have perceived him, as well as what his experience was. People high in neuroticism tend to be quite vulnerable. They're more easily rattled, more easily disturbed or distressed by something that happens, and they tend to experience more dramatic mood shifts. They might be happy one minute and then angry the next. Whereas people low in neuroticism, they don't have as much, especially of the sadness or the helplessness or hopelessness, etc. People low in neuroticism tend to be more resilient. They tend to be more confident. They're more emotionally stable. They come across as more calm, and they might seem to be a bit more laid back. This is another one of those really popular metrics used in recruitment. A lot of organizations prefer staff who are relatively low in neuroticism, because obviously that has the potential for being more of a smooth working relationship with the other people that they deal with. But it's important to note that none of these are good or bad. It's not like they're positive or negative. It's just the differences that exist between us. So if I'm finding a way to talk about this, that mutual and neutral language will be really key. And then finally, there are also the subcategories within neuroticism. The first one is anxiety, how likely people are to feel anxiety and how strongly they feel it when they do. The second one is anger. Some people are really prone to anger. Like I've noticed, I'll really raise my voice quickly when my son does something wrong. And almost immediately upon reflection, I wish that I dealt with it in more of a calm kind of way. But when we're busy and we're running late and trying to get out the door or something, I'm prone to that hostile way of coming across. I can remember when I once was talking to my son about something, like he was doing the wrong thing, and I was saying, you need to stop that now, whatever. And I can remember seeing him being very shocked by what must have been a very angry facial expression that I was using. And I paused, like it was so disturbing to me that I paused and took a step backwards. I didn't want to terrify this little 3 or 4-year-old or whatever he was at the time. And so for me, being a better parent, one of the things that I've needed to focus on is not coming across as hostile when I'm feeling upset about something. So they're different. Someone could be high in anxiety but low in anger, or vice versa. The third subcategory is depression, how prone they are to depression and how extreme that is when they're experiencing it. The fourth is self-consciousness. How much you're thinking about what other people are taking in about you, how other people are perceiving you. The fifth category is impulsiveness or immoderation. People who are high in neuroticism might be more prone to drink more than they should after a stressful day, for example, or gamble with money that they should have been saving, but they're more inclined towards that impulsive way of working. And they tend to be more vulnerable to stress. They might feel overwhelmed. They might feel like afraid. They can't stop thinking about something that's coming up. And they might develop something called learned helplessness, whereas people— this is where people are suffering from a negative experience, but they don't feel like they have any capacity to change it. So this gives us, again, a lot of fruit that we can use to talk about this and discuss it within our team. For example, we might say to someone, 'Look, it seems there are times when you're a little bit more hotheaded than the other members of the team. What's going to be useful in those moments when you're feeling yourself getting a little bit worked up so that you don't come across as unsupportive or critical or something similar?' So we observe the difference and then we talk to them about how can they manage this moving forward, or how can we manage this moving forward. I know to you this is probably just the way that you talk to all of your staff. It's probably similar to the way that your old boss I just used to talk to you. On my end though, I tend to be more prone to worrying about something, especially when there's a potential problem that's sitting there. So, instead of just letting me know that you need to talk to me, could you give me a bit of a heads up in terms of the topic that you'd like to discuss? That would be more helpful for me because I'm just a little bit more prone to worry about these kind of things than other people, and that's going to mean I can really focus on the task at hand. How does that sit with you? Does that sound realistic? Is that something that you think you might be able to agree to. So we would use those

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identify the difference, use structure to manage it where possible, and then if we do want to discuss it, find a way to do that that's mutual and neutral. But what do you think? Do you work with people who are very high in openness to experience, low in agreeableness, low in conscientiousness, high or low in extraversion, or high or low in neuroticism? Where would you put yourself if you were just going to use a broad brush kind of reflection? Do you think you'd be high or low in each of those categories? And which of those subcategories resonated with you? It's possible that your prevalence to trust each other or be altruistic or make sure that you've crossed all of the T's and dotted all of the I's is a difference between you and the people that you're dealing with. So my hope is that understanding some of the ways that this could affect you It gives you some potential ways of talking about it and managing it in a positive way moving forward. But what do you think? If you've got feedback about today's episode, a question, or maybe an idea for a future episode of the podcast, you can shoot me an email. The address is podcast@simongood.com. But otherwise, thank you very much for listening. Hopefully see you again in a future episode of the Conflict Skills Podcast. But until then, all the best.