Five voices personality types, is this clash resolvable?

[Boxina]

I work in a small team in a unique role and have increasingly been finding it frustrating to work in, things feel much more difficult to get anything done now, and lots of hoops to jump through. In particular my line manager is often abrasive and makes me feel small, and often does this in meetings so I am humiliated.

We recently all did the five voices personality test as part of team building, and it turns out that most of the team are now Guardians, including my line manager, whereas I am a Connector.

This means my way of communicating and working is totally different to theirs, and explains a lot of my frustration and upset.

I'm wondering if this is going to be resolvable or if I should just leave?

Increasingly they are introducing numerous forms and templates we have to fill in for absolutely everything, whereas I'm used to working in a less structured way and being more creative.

Does anyone know about how these types can work together well and give me some tips on how to approach things? Or is it a lost cause?

My boss inherited me but has taken on a lot of the people who have turned out to be the same type as her. So I'm obviously not the type she would choose!

This type of reply is very dismissive, teams work best with all sorts of personalities in them including ideas people. A key benefit of doing these kind of assessments is so that individuals can take on roles suited for their abilities. OPs team is very unbalanced.

I think you're confusing processes and communication. She quite reasonably wants details but that doesn't necessarily mean it's your job to supply them.
The bottom line is that she has to get what she needs to get her job done and you need to facilitate that. At the moment you're focusing more on what you need. This is understandable, but to move forward you have to find a way you can both get what you need rather than just hoping you'll be able to change her way of operating.
Can you have a conversation starting with ' I could be more help to you if I understood better how you want me to present new ideas, please can we talk about that?' Try to understand whether she wants a full written plan with all the details covered, just an outline, a concept, whatever. If she needs something that previously hasn't been part of your job description then you can say that and ask whether there is anyone on the team she can suggest you work with or learn from in order to get it right for her. Whatever she says will give you an idea of whether this is going to be workable for you or not.

They don't though. I do that afterwards, once the idea has been discussed and agreed as a goer. I project manage and deliver all my ideas, I'm the only one in the team who does what I do, and I also support others by providing my skills as support for their workstreams.

The issue is to my mind my boss works backwards, and also crushes my ideas and enthusiasm by demanding minutiae as soon as I float any kind of idea. It's stifling.

The thing is, I can't cost it. That has to be done by other people, because there are labyrinthine processes in place for even booking a room, let alone finding out costs for catering etc. So to do that first means delays of weeks. It's pointless to my mind in doing that bit first before agreeing the idea is worthwhile in principle.

The one time I did get costs myself because she asked for them, I ended up being told off very severely.

The way I work best is by exploring the idea, getting everyone on board with it being worthwhile, and then I am prepared to go and battle with the horrible processes.

I did recently try doing a business case first but because I can't get the costs myself and I'm also not allowed to contact the people who can, I gave to go via other people because that's the process, I was still told to go away. So I just give up.

Then talk to her

Involve HR

If you can't sort it out, leave

The personality types are a red herring

No I never undermine her. She has a go at me because she doesn't understand the way I work. Other people greatly value my contributions and there's an irony in the fact that my role is one where I'm supposed to offer challenge. I didn't put it in the OP because I didn't want to distract, but I'm a contractor whose role is to question the way things are done!

I think that stifling creativity with forms is unproductive. My boss is the one who wants us all to work better together, as a team, which is why she's done this personality stuff, and my question was about how to work better together.

If the answer is "be someone you're not, work in a way that frustrates and depresses you and forget about any creativity because everything is going to be death by forms" then I'll quit. And the business will be worse off as a result because they can't do the work without creativity.

But I hoped there might be a way of resolving this, which is why I posted.

These tests are nonsense as far as I am concerned.

But you do need to resolve you communication issues with the rest of the team/your manager. Raise this in your next one to one meeting and focus on showing that this is affecting your ability to deliver your work and suggest some positive solution.

However if the whole organisation culture is now based on heavy admin and rigid processes, you are never going to change this as an individual and might need to accept this is no longer the right fit for you and find another role.

If you really want to work with her, and personally I wouldn’t because I don’t think she will change her approach and value you, you need to put some time in her diary, sit down with her and have a frank conversation about how she shuts you down before you have the opportunity to explore your ideas at a conceptual level and also challenge how she belittles you in meetings. Then put it in an email so it’s recorded

This is my fear. I used to love this role but now I find it so frustrating. I know I can do it because I've been doing it well with excellent feedback for nearly ten years, but the way she works and speaks to me at times makes me feel that I'm stupid.

I just thought there might be a way to resolve it and I was interested in how other people had worked out a clash like this. But the thread seems to be mostly telling me my personality and ways of working are wrong which is unhelpful and untrue.

No one's ways of working are wrong if they achieve the right results, but where there are clashes then both sides need to look at how to resolve it. I have done my bit by doing the forms as much as I can but I've reached a point where they actually prevent me from doing my job well because of how I need to work.

When I'm allowed to work my way I do excellent work which is well received.

Yes I guess so, but after a previous conversation with her when she was so awful I ended up in tears and signed off with stress by my GP because I had an anxiety attack every time I went near my computer, I'm scared of meeting with her alone as the way she speaks comes across as so rude and aggressive. And she's actually lovely! She doesn't mean to be like that but it's her natural response to anything which isn't a form or pinned down in email. She admits herself she cannot do creativity, but she does want the team to be more creative.

Argh! It's so difficult. I feel I'm fighting my corner all the times instead of being able to actually get on with my work.

Why are you so wedded to staying? Reading what you’ve put here I would so move and go somewhere where I would be appreciated.

You do need to sit down with her and discuss what her expectations are of you and how that might not align with your understanding of your role and remit. Do you have a job description and do you feel she's preventing you from adhering to it?

It might be this can't be resolved and you need to leave but it would be worth speaking to her manager if you don't get anything from her before you do that.

Sometimes we work with people who will never get us. I've worked in a certain kind of role my whole career, progressing through the ranks, and have always been praised for certain aspects of my work. Several years ago I had a manager who felt I wasn't doing well at things I had always received praise for everywhere I had worked previously, and which I knew were absolutely my strengths. I left because the problem was him, not me. The turnover of staff below him is high but he'll never change.

I'm similar to you with a boss and company quite like yours. It's hell at times but there are good reasons for it- financial controls is one- and I have had to take on feedback I haven't liked to hear and also consider my way of working. It may even be the case that she was hired specifically to put more structure around the team and has KPIs linked to that. Her questions around building a business case for projects do not sound remotely unreasonable. You don't sound prepared to "hear " your boss though. A freelancer's role is very different to an employee, especially a team manager. I think you should consider next steps if you really feel you cannot accommodate her way of working. But lose the "I wouldn't suggest an idea if it wasn't a good one' shtick seriously- it is not going to do you any favours win you allies internally.

Looks like this manager has put you in a Catch 22 situation. You can't get approval for your ideas without a plan and you can't make a plan for your ideas without approval?

Why stay? Set out the issue as you see it in an email or have a meeting with the head of department/ CEO whatever. Then follow up with a resignation once you have secured another job. If they can't respect your way of working then find a company that does.

I worked for years in an organisation that did not value me. I learned a huge amount about myself and my resilience but it is soul destroying. I left and found a place that actually recognised my skills and trusted me, and it has been a revelation! Work doesn't have to be this hard.

On the personality test aspect, it can be helpful to reflect on the outcomes of these tests. DH is an introvert in a team of extroverts and in a role traditionally attractive to more outgoing creative types. He is more process driven but it is helpful to have processes and structure to support creativity. Ideas without grounding or sense checking are not always feasible you need people scanning the horizon for potential threats as much as people willing to take risks! It is all about balance!

So assuming she won’t adapt her style you need to adapt yours. Have the information you know she will ask for ready, or an answer that she will find satisfactory. Once she has the answers to those questions she will hopefully listen to your ideas. The other thing to do is find out what she sees the value as from all the red tape and either accept it or find a way to show what it misses/stifles. It sounds like she is very practical so play to that. You may find once she sees you are ahead of her thoughts she stops asking as she knows you will have it sorted. Or look for another job

She wasn't hired for that reason. I was on the interview panel. She was actually a very different person in interview to how she is now, it's a very stressful role and I know she's under pressure from higher up, hence cutting her a lot of slack so far.

I very nearly left after the episode where she upset me so much I was signed off, but we had a very open conversation and I decided to stay. For a number of reasons, one of which being that this role is very flexible and I need that level of flexibility. I wouldn't get that in another position very easily, if at all.

Re the ideas, it's not shtick, it's a statement of fact. It's true that I wouldn't suggest something that's not good and workable but I also value discussion with the team around ideas and am always happy to change tack based on others' ideas. I'm a collaborator, I like to work with people and create something with everyone's input and that's supposed to be my role. Why have an ideas role/person and then shut them down?

Presumably those tests were conducted to achieve an outcome rather than just as a jolly way to spend a few hours.

The outcome should be to provide the team with tools to improve communication, address any disputes and improve the way you work together.

What tools were you given as a result of the assessments?

Have they been implemented!

If not, what was the point of the exercise?

I'm a connector btw. You may have been on the panel but not have the full picture (which would not be unusual or someone being secretive.) Is anyone else complaining about her/ feel that she is not evolving the team in the way she was hired to do?

Yes! Balance is exactly it. Our team is heavy with process people and so we have that grounding, it's important, but they are literally taking over and that's a problem.

Plus, I used to run an entire organisation doing what I now do within my current team, so I know all about budgets and project managing and doing the grounding stuff. I'm not pie in the sky, I focus on the end goal and get there.

But yes, work doesn't have to be this hard, that really resonated with me. There are other issues with this role in a wider sense not to do with my manager, so this is a final straw situation for me I think. I'm fed up of fighting. It's just that what I do, what my team does, is so worthwhile and valuable and I believe in it, that I've held on. Maybe I need to let go.

We have another meeting next week to look at next steps, this post is part of me trying to prepare for that and go in with some ideas on how we can improve the team working now we know for sure how unbalanced the team is.

But we didn't leave the day with any tools. Maybe they were given directly to the SLT though and they will share them next week.

Yes, some other team members are unhappy as well. I am not party to what the next layer of management might think but I know she's under a lot of pressure so that could hint at issues or could just be that it's a pressured sector, especially at the moment.

But she was brought in to work alongside someone else, who then left so she stepped up. Officially she wasn't actually interviewed for the role she does but for a slightly different and less senior one. She's not been brought in as a troubleshooter. However the landscape in which we work has changed a lot since she was hired as well.

I don't have any issues with her in general, I think she's competent, focused, capable and works hard to build the team. I think she's great in lots of ways. I just find her natural style at total odds with my own and would like to find ways to work better with her without changing who I am.

It sounds like you are more experienced than you current boss and she doesn't have the skills to manage someone who is technically more senior to her. If you've previously run an organisation.

Managing someone with more experience than you have in key areas is hard.

I think we have complementary skillsets, if she would only let me use mine!

I wouldn't say I was more experienced, but hers is in straight management at lower senior level, and mine is in running and setting up businesses, and developing them. We are both experienced in managing teams but in different ways. She likes to be in control of how things are done whereas I like to let people work in the ways that suit them best as long as they are producing results.

She admits she isn't good at people and has to effectively fake it, whereas I think people are our most important asset and would focus on developing them rather than processes. It's just we have very different approaches and I'm not really used to being treated like an employee, that's why I'm a contractor!

She 'stepped up.' Oh dear.