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Introduction
Diversity means understanding that every individual is unique in their own way while recognizing our own individual differences such as ethnicity, race, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical attributes, religion, etc. As an Australian-born male with a Russian background, it has sometimes been very difficult to truly understand the unique differences of others due to my natural personality traits and attitudes that have been derived from my own cultural background, such as stubbornness or being too emotional. However, through the concepts of diversity and self-analysis, I have been able to learn much more about people that come from other backgrounds and cultures across the world. Additionally, tools such as the Johari Window, DISC, and MIBT and relevant work experience with conflicts have also allowed me to learn more about myself by helping me discover unknown personality traits and attitudes within myself.
Self-Analysis
By comparing my own culture with that of others and through self-analysis, I was able to learn not only about cultural differences but also more about my own. It has taught me that working across different cultures increases my level of ambiguity and uncertainty, while always having the opportunity to learn about something new at the same time. Self-analysis has also allowed me to better recognize and understand other people’s emotions better. Additionally, it makes me think twice about my own actions and attitudes, and how certain actions or behaviors that might be appropriate within my culture, might not necessarily be acceptable or appropriate in another culture, especially when affiliating myself with new people from international backgrounds. These behaviors can vary from a simple choice of words to body language to physical gestures.
Personality Tools
Tools such as the Johari Window, DISC, and MBTI tests have also given me the opportunity to learn more about my own personality and attitudes through interaction with other people from different backgrounds and cultures. For example, by completing the Johari Window exercise with my peers in class that come from a wide array of cultures, I was surprised to discover that my peers believe that I am confident and idealistic. These were discovered through my “Arena”. While I do believe that I am a confident and idealistic person, it was a shock to see that others think the same, as I have always believed that I do not make these attitudes evident when I first meet people. Furthermore, through my “Blindspot” I found out that a lot of my peers believe that I am very extroverted when I think quite the opposite of myself. From this, I have learned that the way we present ourselves to others may not necessarily reflect the way people view us.
Additionally, the “DISC” and “MBTI” tests have allowed me to further learn more about my own personality and behavioral patterns. Upon completing the DISC test, I learned that I have almost no dominant personality traits and am very compliant and steady with a high drive towards accuracy and high standards. As a male who is very competitive and usually works mainly in his own ways, it was a surprise to see that I had only a mere 7% of dominance within my personality traits when compared to more compliant traits (42%). However, the “MBIT” test provided some rather relatable results, suggesting more introverted behavior with a moderate preference for “feeling” over “thinking”. The results have also concluded that I have a slight preference for sensing over intuition. This to me was also a surprise, as I believe that a lot of decisions made by me are subjectively fast and usually somewhat effortless due to making those decisions early and on the basis of recognition. Results for my DISC and MBIT tests can be found in Appendix 1.
The most surprising thing I learned about myself is the fact that I actually don’t know myself as well as I think. Through diversity and self-analysis, we are able to meet people who are so different from us, which will make us look deeper within ourselves on the inside. Communication with diverse people has also enabled me to see certain parts of my own personality and attitudes that I believe are far less prominent than others, which encourages me to work on them. Additionally, interacting with others that come from diverse backgrounds and cultures, has allowed me to become more tolerant of characteristics and attitudes projected by others, which I may not have been used to dealing with in the past.
Strengths and Weaknesses of my Personality
There are several strengths and weaknesses within my own personality that may affect communication with others in a professional environment. Someone who is very kind and friendly with others no matter what makes it very easy to get along with people and may reduce the chances of workplace conflicts related to personality clashes. However, as I am more of a compliant person, who is more introverted at the same time, this may make communication within the workplace more difficult for me personally, due to a compromising nature and not feeling confident in speaking up, demonstrating this personality trait to be one of the weaknesses within an organizational setting.
Examples of Conflict (Workplace Experience)
One of my most recent conflicts within a work environment occurred in a retail job over a preferred working method. I and one other co-worker were trying to figure out what the quickest method was to cut open boxes to unload stock, but both of us disagreed with the method provided by the other. This created unnecessary arguments and an almost toxic work environment that made things even slower at the time, as all employees had to follow the same technique. As I have a more compromising conflict management style and a compliant personality, I eventually gave up and just agreed to use his method, even though I was not familiar with it and didn’t like it. We had both failed to manage this conflict correctly, simply because both of us were too stubborn to listen to one another and did not take the time to find common ground in order to find a simple solution that we were both happy with, thus creating dysfunctional conflict within our work environment. Looking back at this situation, there were multiple things I would do to better manage this conflict. As discovered from self-analysis, sometimes what we think is best, may not always actually be the best, so it is important to take the time to listen to others first before jumping to conclusions. The first thing I would do is suggest an appropriate time and place discuss this matter with my co-worker so that it doesn’t interfere with our job at the time of the conflict. Secondly, I would take the time to actively listen to his preferred method, while calmly clarifying my insights on his recommended method before suggesting my own. Finally, by using a collaborative conflict management approach, I would offer to explore all the possible methods we could both use until we develop an agreement that will feature a method we were both happy with and would be accommodating to our needs, thus turning the situation into a positive conflict that promotes a healthy work environment to get the job done.
Another example of conflict within the workplace in my experience, occurred when I was assisting a small business owner with her social media marketing, where I would create and monitor her social media content. There was a large language and communication barrier between me and my boss as she had recently moved to Australia from South East Asia and could not speak much English. This resulted in her being unhappy with the content I produced on her social media since I would often misunderstand what she requested me to do due to this language barrier within our communication, thus creating a slight conflict between what had to be done. In this situation, I had failed to appropriately address this conflict due to an “avoiding” conflict management style and my introverted behavior within this working environment, by simply not wanting to communicate with her about these issues in case it would create even more conflict. Instead of clarifying exactly where I went wrong, I would avoid asking her about what I did that made her unhappy, while telling myself that I know exactly what the issue was. Going back, I would have taken a different approach to address this conflict appropriately by applying a more accommodative and compromising conflict management style. I would first acknowledge that this conflict exists instead of simply ignoring the issue that persisted within my job. Secondly, I would use the “compliant component” of my personality to my advantage and take the time to stop and try to really understand why exactly my boss was unhappy and if needed, take extra steps such as involving the use of translation tools to ensure that I understood everything, if necessary. Finally, I would establish an agreement in our communication that is fair and future-oriented so that a conflict relating to the language barrier would not occur again.
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