top of page

Does knowing your Hogwarts house help build workplace relationships?


Just answer 10 questions to discover if you are

  • A friendly and fair Hufflepuff?

  • An intelligent and studious Ravenclaw?

  • An ambitious strategist in Slytherin?

  • Or a courageous and true Gryffindor?

You know the idea! These are fun games for children to learn about themselves and each other. But, is there any real difference between these and the 'personality' exams that have dominated team development across our workplaces over the last 20 years. Replace Ravenclaw with 'Introvert' or Gryffindor with 'Red' and the similarities are clear.

But, these workplace self assessments come with the seductive promise of improving relationships at your workplace.

Relationships matter - they really do!

  • 77% of employees view relationships with coworkers as the most important driver of engagement.

SHRM's 2016 Job satisfaction survey

We have learned alot about the importance of relationships over the last 10 years. Effective social bonding increases life expectancy, reduces illness, aides our recovery from setbacks and contributes to our achievements. Put simply, we're pretty useless without them. In her research, Juliet Holt-Lunstad levelled the health effects of loneliness to be equal if not worse than the dangers of obesity and smoking. Further demonstrating that as pack animals, socialisation is fundamental to our health and success.

So, it stands to reason, that most people are pretty good at forming relationships. In childhood, we become skilled at selecting the people we want in our lives, how to bond with them and how to maintain a relationship with them. Look at the actions (sometimes brutal) children will go to to fortify their friendships. Instinctively, we develop this essential aspect of our own existence.

The need for effective relationships at work is equally important. At work, we face a constant barrage of challenges and setbacks that necessitates access to a support system. But, our relationship building skills often let us down. Occasionally, we work with someone who we are happy to select and our skills of bonding get to work - fantastic. But, unlike the school playground, work often doesn't provide the wide pool of potential relationships to choose from. Sometimes, our selection is confined to a very small group. Sometimes, there is no-one at all we would choose to share our time with.

When there's nobody to select, our skills of bonding become redundant often resulting in isolation, conflict and poor performance. Most leaders, managers and HR departments recognise the severity and regularity of this situation so take action to develop healthy relationships in their workplace. Most will take a similar approach.

Boxed in

'If everyone does this self assessment then we'll understand each other better and enjoy better rapport.'

That is the most common solution - often expensive but certainly popular. Whether using personality profiling, learning styles or communication preferences - we put people into a box. Perhaps represented by a number, code or colour but make no mistake you are a ....?.... . And therefore you must possess all of the character traits of a ....?..... And your behaviour is now predictable to those around you.

Of course, there is no more scientific evidence to validate these 'personality' exams than the Hogwarts test and yet they are used widely in our workplaces to build rapport and improve relationships.

Rapport?

Often the science quoted to support rapport building self assessments as a relationship solution goes back to the experimental work of Milton Erickson. Erickson investigated the unconscious mind and was a pioneer of clinical hypnosis. To access a patient's unconscious, he observed how people made deep connections when bonding. He researched the unconscious communication between two people such as mirroring each others movements, posture and language.

One of Milton Erickson's guiding principles was that everyone is unique.

'Every person's map of the world is as unique as their thumbprint. There are no two people alike. No two people who understand the same sentence the same way. So in dealing with people, you try not to fit them to your concept of what they should be.'

Milton Erickson

The rapport building self assessment culture latches itself to this concept, 'Your colleagues are different to you and we can show you how - for only £2000 a head!'

Quick fix

The moment we categorise our colleagues as a Blue or a Thinker or a Visual or a Hufflepuff we allow ourselves to make assumptions. We stop looking for the unique truth and instead are encouraged to look for the predesigned characteristics we expect to see in that 'type' of person. Let's face it, it's a darn sight easier that actually getting to know the person for real!

But they completely contradict Milton Erickson's principle of uniqueness. So, why do people give positive testimony about these personality exams?

Having spent a lifetime of delivering such assessments in training sessions, I believe this process of categorisation appeals to our narcissistic nature but also helps people understand a watered down version of Erickson's principle, that people are different. Exploring this idea can be huge for some people but categorising colleagues oversimplifies and distorts our view on how we are different. We are all unique not just different.

The reality of improving workplace relationships

There's no magic self assessment to build rapport. No creative use of data that will help two unlikely people work effectively together. To achieve harmonious, respectful collaboration requires motivation, opportunity and most of all the development of skills such as:

  • conscious listening

  • conflict strategies

  • influencing techniques

  • emotional regulation

It's time for leaders and HR departments to ditch these expensive, dubious and misleading solutions to workplace relationships. Ask yourself, does your experience of the world tell you that there are three or four types of people in the world?


Featured Posts
Recent Posts
Archive
Search By Tags
Follow Us
  • Facebook Basic Square
  • Twitter Basic Square
bottom of page