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How do you picture yourself? Do you thrive like House because of your brilliance even though you create stress, inconvenience and headaches in your wake? Or are you more like Wilson, always considering your effect on others?
In the abstract, there’s no “right” or “wrong” personality. That’s not the same as saying all personalities will succeed equally well in all settings because they won’t. If you’re a new associate in a law firm and you’re not as brilliant as House, and if you don’t have a boss as forbearing as Cuddy, then you may need to think about how you’ll make your way. I have two pieces of advice for you: Know yourself, and get over yourself!
To me, a big part of knowing yourself is having emotional intelligence. Think of yourself in terms of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Be aware of your basic personality and your impact on others. Even if we are unhappy, most of us really wouldn’t want to change our basic temperaments. How could we? We are who we are and can’t really “know” how it would be to be someone else. We tend to think our way of being is the “best.” (Certainly we think our way of being is “natural” since it is how we are, naturally.)
We also tend to think others will understand our best intentions when our actions don’t hurt others or don’t make sense, and will “see” us as we “really” are, not how we appear. This probably isn’t the case. Although we tend to judge ourselves by our good intentions, aware of the invisible mitigating circumstances limiting our successes, we tend to judge others by their failures, oblivious to those same mitigating circumstances that limit them. What this means is that not only do we tend to not give others the benefit of the doubt, but also that others tend to not give us the benefit of the doubt.
Understanding these tendencies is all part of knowing yourself—which is necessary but not sufficient for success at your new firm. You also have to get over yourself. By this I mean figuring out how you fit in among others. You need to be true to yourself while respecting that others are different, respecting their differences, and then working with them in the ways they need.
Think of yourself in your new firm as if you were traveling in a foreign country. When you are in Mexico, do you speak Spanish or do you insist that the local population understand English? If you don’t know Spanish, do you speak English but loudly, hoping volume alone will help you be understood? Do you label the locals “stupid” when they don’t understand you? Do you blame yourself as “bad” when they do not understand your English?
Probably not. Most of us do know that we all speak different languages. We may regret that we can’t converse with someone who isn’t fluent in a language we understand just as we may regret that we can’t accomplish certain goals during a conversation, but we tend not to blame the other or ourselves for the communication impasse. Do we believe the same about personality differences? Or do we think most people are like us—or should be like us—and that people who are different are wrong or bad? Maybe we wonder if we are wrong or bad for being different from the others. These assumptions hinder us from fitting in.
Because most of those we live and work with speak the same language, we are lulled into thinking we are all the same. But this isn’t always true. Keep in mind that the lawyers you meet in your new firm may be different from you in ways you probably don’t think about or appreciate. They have their own personalities and their own culture. You are the one who’s new. They are busy, stressed, and probably not mindful of what they are doing—to themselves, let alone to you. Frankly, most people aren’t mindful at all.
Their primary concern is not to make you feel wanted or help you fit in. Some people take umbrage at this. But think about it—if you were independently wealthy, would you be working there? In truth, you need the job more than the job needs you. You were hired to solve the firm’s problems. And since the firm is signing your checks, these are the problems you need to pay attention to, not your own.
Rather than wonder why it’s not all about you, figure out how you can fit in, solve problems, and add value. Rely on what you know about yourself. Using your knowledge of MBTI types, help your colleagues negotiate misunderstandings, identify blind spots in the problem-solving process, and bridge cultural and gender differences by focusing on type similarities.
As you work with others, keep these social psychological principles in mind:
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People want to think they are good.
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People want to think their actions are consistent with their being good.
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People want to think their actions are consistent with their previous actions.
After you prove yourself and demonstrate that you can do what those in the firm expect you to do, then you can begin to explore what you want from them.
