D6

ORGANISATIONAL BEHAVIOUR

Frdric Tanon

Do you believe that the combination of personalities in your team will lead to performance?

Thodore Chastel Sacha Revillard Mikhail Stadnitchouk Gaston Decagny Julien Monin Abdoulaziz Nguer

Introduction Organisational performance emerges in the capacity to capitalise on and combine individuals differences. Thus, Strong fit will lead to performance, whereas no fit will make both organisations and individuals victims. It is important to have a team where each member has a different personality in order to be effective. If each member has the same personality, it could lead to conflicts and strengths of all the members could cancel each other. Thus, having an equilibrate team is the best way to get performance. The question now is: does the combination of our personality traits leads to equilibrium and then consequently will lead to performance? There are five major dimensions of human personality which refers to the OCEAN model of personality. For each trait of personality, we tried to evaluate the complementarity of all the members of our group.

1. Openness to new experiences The team's average score for Openness to new experiences is low with an overall mean of 34.86%. The team members' results are much contrasted, from 12% to 70% with only two members beyond 50%. Our low average score can be explained by our education and course: we are receptive and open-minded, but not necessarily searching something new. The individual results show that there is a high synergy between each member's seeking of new experiences. Otherwise, the lowest scores refer to jobs where tasks are well defined with a foreseeable future, e.g. most of the job in big companies. On the opposite highest scores are looking for more independent tasks, seeking what is "new", e.g. creating his/her own company. Indeed, current studies tend to determine the correlation between Openness to new experience and Creativity from 30% to 45%. This eclecticism is a great advantage for the team and will lead to a pretty natural sharing out among the different tasks. 2. Conscientiousness Conscientiousness represents ones ability to be organized, to plan ahead and to be well prepared. Therefore, though some of us had quite a low conscientiousness mark, the average of the group is not that low. It means that some individuals (mainly Thodore, Abdoul Aziz and Sacha) will have to organize and impose duties, in order for the team to be efficient. However, low-conscientiousness-scorers as Gaston, Frederic and Mikhail are not a liability for the group, as long as they respect the attendance and the organization agreed by the whole group. Finally, the group manages to be well balanced regarding Conscientiousness (average of 41,7%), with highly-reliable individuals and more impulsive members. This difference can either be an advantage for the group, granting them with dynamism and creativism, or a liability if organized-members are not setting boundries for the more versatile members.

3. Extraversion Globally we may say that our team obtained a low range score, but however bordered very closely middle range result. Despite the fact that we've obtained one very high percentage and one very low, the results are similar for the rest of the team (between 31% and 48%). That means that the overall tendency is introversion and an inhibited also serious and sober approach of the given tasks. Nevertheless, the highest result obtained (93%) characterizes a high activity level, talkative and dominant team member. His high extroversion states for an energetic and enthusiastic approach when dealing with other members of the team; in other terms his ability to take the lead in a group situation in order to organize teams' activities. This score obtained, the work pattern in the team becomes clearer: first step is to direct activities and then approach effectively and evenly the problem. 4. Agreeableness The test is designed to try to measure agreeableness of the teams member that is to say how much people can be considered being affable, tolerant, sensitive, trusting, kind and warm. These qualities enable people to have better communication between each other and tend to avoid conflict. Others could say that you need sometimes some rough discussions to really progress and then reach your goals. In our team, Agreeableness is the highest average score (45.7%). There are three different profiles. The major group (4 people) is composed by people scoring between 60% and 70%. These persons will encourage good climate in discussions meetings and in the whole work. The second group scores 27% (2 people). These people may have some argues with other members of the team but will fight conservative attitudes and the group effect. Problems may occur with the 14% score. It could be considered as a danger for the team being in constant conflict with all other members of the team. The melt of the first two groups will lead to a strong agreeable team, each group fighting against the weaknesses of the other. 5. Neuroticism We think that neuroticism is a trait which may have a great influence on a group performance. Indeed, an insecure people can have a bad effect on a group. We can distinguish two types of people in our group. There are three students with a very low score (under 15% on the test) who tends to be relaxed and calm, and who are able to contain the four others who tends to be more nervous and high-strung (between 30% and 60% on the test). However none of us is extremely insecure and that is a very good point because it would have leaded our group to poor performance. Moreover this combination of low neuroticism in our group increases cooperation and our work quality even under pressure.

Conclusion For each trait of personality, there is a complementarity between all the members of our group. For each trait, there is a compensation between those who have a low score and those have a high score. We are all different. Thus, we are convinced that the combination of our personalities may lead to an equilibrate team and consequently, to performance.

Test Results
O 70 59 20 24 35 24 12 35 C 41 52 21 17 13 69 79 42 E 93 42 31 31 9 48 53 44 A 27 27 14 63 69 57 63 46 N 55 60 60 9 37 9 11 34

Julien Sacha Gaston Frederic Mikhail Abdoul Aziz Thodore AVERAGE