Ah, personality quizzes. In bygone days, one took these in magazines. My favorite story about magazine quizzes was when a friend and I went to our newly married friends’ house for Thanksgiving.  While they were preparing for dinner in the kitchen, Mark and I idly picked up a Cosmopolitan lying nearby and paged through it.  Imagine our surprise and delight when we came across a quiz in the magazine that had already been completed! There were two different ink colors used, and the subject had to do with, well, it’s Cosmo, so use your imagination. The couple walked into the living room with the appetizers, and Mark and I pounced.  We nonchalantly opened the magazine to the quiz and innocently asked who used the blue pen and who used the black one. The wife yanked the magazine out of our hands, and their faces were bright red as they stuttered and stammered.  It was fantastic.  Mark and I laugh about it to this day.

Now you can get your quizzes from BuzzFeed or Facebook. They’re the ones that determine which Friends/Golden Girl/Disney Princess you are based on your personality. They’re all scientifically based and peer-reviewed, so just like everything on the internet, the results are absolutely true.

I am a sucker for these, but they pale compared to the big-time personality tests you can take for work. My first foray into legitimate versions was taking the Myers-Briggs for the CiViC Leadership Project (the CVC’s flagship program) in 2009. For those of you who are Myers-Briggs aficionados, I am an ENFP. That means Extraverted Intuition with Introverted Feeling. I am (stunningly) off the charts in extroversion.  I am also curious, creative, warm, friendly, enthusiastic, and persuasive. What’s not to love?

Here is the downside of the real personality tests.  In addition to telling you how wonderful you are and how many outstanding qualities you embody, they also tell you what you don’t do well and could spend some time working on.  My qualities that need help include trouble focusing, failure to follow through, little attention to detail, and overextending myself.

As I have continued to take personality tests over the years, there are common themes. I am an Enneagram Type 7. The Enthusiast.  How odd. That makes me a quick thinker with great energy who makes lots of plans. I also multi-task and am reluctant to narrow down my options. Yep.

I am a solid I (Influence) style on the DISC assessment, with enthusiasm, action, collaboration, and support as my priorities. Unsurprisingly, Influence people are charming, social, talkative, and optimistic. We are also impulsive and disorganized and fear being ignored.  Always with the dark side.

The latest test I took was the Hogan Assessment for Leadership Wyoming. I will not delve into all the characteristics and scores; instead, I will highlight the three that stuck out for me. I scored 100 out of 100 on Interpersonal Sensitivity (charm, warmth, tact) and 99 on Colorful (gregarious, fun, and entertaining).  Conversely, I scored ZERO on Diligent (detail-oriented, high performance standards). The diligence score devastated me.  It’s not that I don’t know this about myself; I just thought maybe I was a little better at keeping it together.

My friend, Ken, is my polar opposite on every personality test. He has no time or interest in relationship-building, is brutally honest, freakish about details, hard-driving, and demands to know about the budget, bylaws, or policy concerning the plan.

His worst quality is that if a deadline is in 30 days, he will finish his project on Day 3 or 4. I will finish on Day 29. At midnight. This means if there is something Ken would like me to do for him, he lies about the deadline, so I’ll be finished early.  It took me a couple of deadlines to figure that out.  Now I’m on to him and make him wait (and sweat) because I can.

But I need Ken desperately, and he needs me.  We balance each other out. I have learned so much from him. Now I read bylaws diligently, ensure I have funds in the budget for my latest great idea, and appreciate a less stressful timeline. He is working on not hurting people’s feelings with his filter-less honesty and tries to temper his impatience by engaging in chitchat to get to know someone before a meeting.

Personality assessments are incredibly useful in realizing that having people around you who complement and contrast your qualities makes the project better. Those who have traits opposite to mine make my life more successful overall, even if we drive each other crazy in the process.

My ultimate takeaway from all those tests – I am Phoebe, Rose, and Ariel. And you should always invite me to your party but probably don’t want me to plan it.