Showpony or Workhorse?

Personality Types

In my first semester for grad school, one professor shared a case study with us about two new employees joining a new company. One person went out of his was to schmooze and make social connections while neglecting his upcoming deadlines. The other focused on delivery, neglecting politicking in order to complete his tasks on time. The moral of the lesson was met with little surprise by most of the class but shocked me. The character who worked to meet his deadlines was unanimously identified as ineffective. The professor and class felt that social connections were clearly first priority while deliverables were subordinate. I felt that this was both unethical and irresponsible. Despite my protest, the class and professor seemed dismissive of my point of view.

The Myers Briggs Personality Types Questionnaire | HealthGuidance

Years later, I'm still not convinced that the moral of the case study should have been so black and white. If it were a question of idealism versus practicality, I'd expect more of the class to share my idealistic opinion. There was something else going on.

In recent years, the value of empathy and diversity in the work place have become common in public discourse. I believe they've helped us strive to understand each other a little better. Considering the two characters from the case study empathically, one is likely an E#F# (Extrovert Feeling) on the Myers-Briggs personality gauge and the other an I#T# (Introvert Thinking).

It's possible that different personality types are more suited to particular types of work. If so, the moral of the case study could be justified if the characters held influence-based roles like marketing, sales, or even management. However, if they held technical, execution-based roles like engineer, electrician, or pilot, the social approach could be perceived as detrimental to their employers' objectives. Imagine if the flight never arrived because the pilot was busy mingling with the passengers!

Influence Versus Execution Based Work

For influence based work, the objective is to sway opinion in order to drive towards a desired action. Sales and marketing encourage customers to buy something. A managers job is, as Eisenhower said, "...getting someone else to do something you want done because he wants to do it." Their focus is people and their tools are those of influence: rhetoric and reputation.

An execution based worker is quite different. Their job is to use technical expertise to deliver a product or service to solve a problem. The outcome of their work is more binary. If they solved the problem they succeeded, if not they failed. Opinion and human response are often inconsequential.

No position is purely influence or execution based. In reality, most positions fall somewhere in the middle. As such, to be more effective at work it may generally be a good idea to improve on both fronts.

Engineering

Software engineering can be difficult. The computer is implacable. The product you deliver either meets your users' requirements or fails absolutely. This can cause engineers to focus myopically on the execution aspect of their work. However, a large part of a software engineer's work is also communication based. He/She is a translator between the computer and human. He/She is a technical writer. Sometimes he/she is even "logic counselor," helping the user to notice their own biases, assumptions, or blind spots.

If you've ever done paired programming, you may have noticed the abundance of time spent debating opinion. An engineer does need influence skills. As much as our output may be objective, the means to achieve it is anything but.

Solutions

As Plato said, "Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber." If this were widely construed as a cynical quip, Plato likely would have met with the same fate as his teacher Socrates, killed by an offended politician. However, Plato is generally thought to have been intelligent enough not to repeat such a blunder. Moreover he's thought to have died unremarkably. We can therefore speculate that his quote was intended as a call to action. For those gifted enough to participate but reticent to do so, to join in the political process. Perhaps Plato's advice is as applicable to today's execution-based workers as it was to the ancient Greeks.

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