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I'm not sure other industries do handle it better. I would argue that it's a prevalent problem. There has to be a reason, why there are a bunch of studies on s

I'm not sure other industries do handle it better. I would argue that it's a prevalent problem. There has to be a reason, why there are a bunch of studies on success and failure ratios of projects. A lot of them explicitly stating that the top issues are bad communications, lack of priorities etc. One of the standard PM exams even has frequent exam question about how sources of conflicts in projects in the following order: schedules, project priorities, resources, technical opinions, administrative procedures, cost and personality Personality is always last. Yes, there are exceptions. There always are, but in general lack of experience at the top gets pushed down the chain. Top performers are always the first to be negatively affected though.

user5994461 9y ago
Personality is not a thing as such. What matter is the environment. People adapt to their environment. Most character issues are a response to the work environment.
- Sevrene 9y ago
  I'm not sure I follow, maybe I'm not understanding you correctly. Are you actually saying personality is only a result of environment? Take for instance introverts vs extraverts. Introverts might be forced to be more social in an open office, but they would still work better in a private space and management has the ability prioritise their worker's personality and provide both open and private spaces for them.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    The way you behave at work is in great part a result of the environment. Let's say that every time you have a meeting, the manager and the client blame you for the project being late. Soon, enough, you probably gonna avoid them as much as you can or kill yourself in overtime, maybe both. It shouldn't take long before you get the reputation for being a dickhead and maybe someone will write a blog post about it. None of this is really about you personally, it's simply the social dynamics in your work place. I can give you a much simpler example. Put 10 people in an arena and give them a sword, gladiator style. The last standing gets to stay alive. Congratulations, you just discovered that any human can be turned into a murderer in 10 minutes! They adapted to their environment.
    - Sevrene 9y ago
      I believe I understand what you mean now, although it's possible we might be conflating the environment having a large impact on ones behaviour (which I agree you are correct on), and; someone's innate personality developed due to genetics and their collected experiences in different environments and as such behaving better, worse, or different in those environments. Essentially we are arguing Nurture vs Nature, or Environment vs Genetics, right? I believe they both have a large impact and can cancel each other out. For instance in your first example, a very charismatic person might not get a reputation for being a dickhead because everyone loves him due to his loveable personality, yet he's in the same environment and situation as the person who is known as a dickhead. > I can give you a much simpler example. Put 10 people in an arena and give them a sword, gladiator style. The last standing gets to stay alive. > Congratulations, you just discovered that any human can be turned into a murderer in 10 minutes! They adapted to their environment. Have you ever been in a disaster or life threatening situation? There's a fight or flight response and that response can be different depending what sort of personality you have, right? I imagine not everyone would fight in your hyperbolic example if we simulated it thousands of times. I guarantee there are many people out there that would drop to the ground crying in a ball rather than fight to the death.
sevensor 9y ago
> I'm not sure other industries do handle it better. They don't. The factory I used to work at routinely fires competent, productive engineers because they need scapegoats for management failures. The bigger the failure, the bigger the scapegoat, so sometimes it goes all the way up to director level, but that's only once every few years. Realizing that all it would take to lose my livelihood would be for me to be in the wrong place at the wrong time was one of the big reasons I left.

user5994461 9y ago

Personality is not a thing as such. What matter is the environment. People adapt to their environment. Most character issues are a response to the work environment.

Sevrene 9y ago
I'm not sure I follow, maybe I'm not understanding you correctly. Are you actually saying personality is only a result of environment? Take for instance introverts vs extraverts. Introverts might be forced to be more social in an open office, but they would still work better in a private space and management has the ability prioritise their worker's personality and provide both open and private spaces for them.
- user5994461 9y ago
  The way you behave at work is in great part a result of the environment. Let's say that every time you have a meeting, the manager and the client blame you for the project being late. Soon, enough, you probably gonna avoid them as much as you can or kill yourself in overtime, maybe both. It shouldn't take long before you get the reputation for being a dickhead and maybe someone will write a blog post about it. None of this is really about you personally, it's simply the social dynamics in your work place. I can give you a much simpler example. Put 10 people in an arena and give them a sword, gladiator style. The last standing gets to stay alive. Congratulations, you just discovered that any human can be turned into a murderer in 10 minutes! They adapted to their environment.
  - Sevrene 9y ago
    I believe I understand what you mean now, although it's possible we might be conflating the environment having a large impact on ones behaviour (which I agree you are correct on), and; someone's innate personality developed due to genetics and their collected experiences in different environments and as such behaving better, worse, or different in those environments. Essentially we are arguing Nurture vs Nature, or Environment vs Genetics, right? I believe they both have a large impact and can cancel each other out. For instance in your first example, a very charismatic person might not get a reputation for being a dickhead because everyone loves him due to his loveable personality, yet he's in the same environment and situation as the person who is known as a dickhead. > I can give you a much simpler example. Put 10 people in an arena and give them a sword, gladiator style. The last standing gets to stay alive. > Congratulations, you just discovered that any human can be turned into a murderer in 10 minutes! They adapted to their environment. Have you ever been in a disaster or life threatening situation? There's a fight or flight response and that response can be different depending what sort of personality you have, right? I imagine not everyone would fight in your hyperbolic example if we simulated it thousands of times. I guarantee there are many people out there that would drop to the ground crying in a ball rather than fight to the death.

sevensor 9y ago

> I'm not sure other industries do handle it better. They don't. The factory I used to work at routinely fires competent, productive engineers because they need scapegoats for management failures. The bigger the failure, the bigger the scapegoat, so sometimes it goes all the way up to director level, but that's only once every few years. Realizing that all it would take to lose my livelihood would be for me to be in the wrong place at the wrong time was one of the big reasons I left.