Hey boss - what's your colour?

Yesterday, the CBC radio program The Current analysed a new trend in today’s workplaces: personality testing.

CBC focused on Insights Discovery, a company who uses personality tests to categorize employees by colour: cool blue, earth green, sunshine yellow, and fiery red, which focuses on their preferences for thinking, working, and communicating.

As someone who’ll be entering the workforce full-time within the next few years, I was interested. And as I listened further – concerned.

Of course, there’s the issue of stereotyping, which can have both positive and negative side effects.

Our brains use stereotypes as cognitive shortcuts, making it easier for us to process information quickly, so knowing the personalities of our co-workers can make it easier for us to understand and communicate with them. Sounds good.

But stereotypes also make it easier to process who’s in our “in-group” and who’s in the “out-group”. And that means it may influence who should get that promotion.

According to David Zweig, professor of psychology at the U of T, “we’re all cognitive misers: we don’t like using our brains any more than we have to. So if I can identify you, for example, as blue, that’s how I’m going to code you. And every interaction I have with you, I’m going to think of it in the context of “oh, you’re blue.” So perhaps when it comes to deciding who I’m going to promote, I may think so-and-so‘s not good for this job because she’s a blue. We need a green.”

Err... not so good.

And consider this: the majority of employees being tested are those in entry-level positions. In the United States, 1 in 3 workers between the ages of 18-24 reports that they have taken these types of workplace personality tests.

The danger here is being “labelled” as a certain personality early on in their career and limiting their potential.

And not being able to account for change is crucial.

When first setting foot in my new work environment, I may be quiet, shy, and prefer more formal modes of communication like memos and business meetings.

Taking the personality test as this early stage may categorize me as a colour I may no longer “be” a few months, or a few years, down the road as I become more comfortable with my work environment and co-workers, evolving into a more open, less shy person who prefers more informal methods of communication like meeting over lunch.

That’s not to mention employees arriving from other workplace environments where they may have had to develop a certain type of personality to fit in. At first, they may approach their job with the same personality as they did their old job, but over time, adjust their mannersims to fit their new workplace

People are not static, and neither are their personalities, so one test will not reveal all. But if companies opt for periodic testing to account for change, exactly how much time should be devoted to the process?

And in the end, as Anna Maria Tremonti, the host of The Current, said: aren’t we just saying that everyone’s multidimentional and do we need a test for that?

Personality tests do have their benefits, in that sometimes we don’t know ourselves, and these tests are a way of discovering who we are.

But in the same way, this benefit is also a problem.

If there is one common thread I’ve noticed from taking personality tests, it’s that people (myself included) do not always answer the questions honestly – either intentionally, or unintentionally.

Some of us would rather not admit that we react badly to stress, while others may simply not be aware of the fact.

It’s like being asked at those get-to-know-you sessions to “tell us something interesting about yourself” – sometimes it’s better to ask those who know you and witness your behaviour.

The way we see ourselves is not necessarily who we are, so in placing ourselves in these personality categories, are we really creating a true representation of ourselves, or just a model of who we think we are?

In the end, you’ll still have people who are red, blue, yellow, and green, only they may say they think, work, and communicate in certain ways, when in reality, they’re just the opposite.

Maybe it’s better to put the colour wheel aside and let time, interaction, and experience help you decipher who’s who in the office.

Download The Current's podcast on workplace personality testing here.