Personality Differences

Role

One of the most costly and widespread interpersonal errors is the assumption that other people are, at their core, similar to oneself — that given the same information, incentives, and circumstances, they would respond similarly. This projection leads to persistently ineffective communication (explaining things in the way you would want them explained rather than the way this person receives information best), leadership failures (managing everyone the same way rather than adapting to different motivational and communication profiles), and interpersonal conflict (attributing different responses to bad intentions rather than different personality architectures). Most people have detailed models of their own personality from years of self-observation and essentially no formal model of others' — producing an asymmetry that makes every interpersonal interaction more effortful and less effective than it needs to be.