Does your job match your personality? | Jordan Peterson | Big Think

Does your job match your personality?
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Your personality will partially determine how good you are at your job, especially if you have a complex job that requires more than rote behavior. So are you and your job a good fit? If you're a creative person who is open to trying new things—openness being one of the Big Five personality traits—you're more likely to succeed at jobs that require novel solutions over efficient ones. On the other hand, if you're conscientious—another Big Five personality trait—you're likely to be better off in a management or administrative position.
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JORDAN PETERSON:

Jordan B. Peterson, raised and toughened in the frigid wastelands of Northern Alberta, has flown a hammer-head roll in a carbon-fiber stunt-plane, explored an Arizona meteorite crater with astronauts, and built a Kwagu'l ceremonial bighouse on the upper floor of his Toronto home after being invited into and named by that Canadian First Nation. He's taught mythology to lawyers, doctors and business people, consulted for the UN Secretary General, helped his clinical clients manage depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, anxiety, and schizophrenia, served as an adviser to senior partners of major Canadian law firms, and lectured extensively in North America and Europe. With his students and colleagues at Harvard and the University of Toronto, Dr. Peterson has published over a hundred scientific papers, transforming the modern understanding of personality, while his book Maps of Meaning: The Architecture of Belief revolutionized the psychology of religion. His latest book is 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos.
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TRANSCRIPT:

JORDAN PETERSON: It’s not that easy to categorize jobs but here’s a categorization scheme that’s kind of general but that’s actually accurate.

Okay, so the first dimension is complexity. Jobs range from simple to complex. A simple job is one that you can learn and then repeat. You don’t need high levels of cognitive function for a simple job. If you have high levels of cognitive function you’ll learn the job faster, but once you learn it you won’t necessarily do it better.

Now, a complex job is one where the requirements change on an ongoing basis. So most managerial jobs are like that, and all executive jobs are like that. And that requires a high level of general cognitive ability. That’s the best predictor of success in complex jobs. Okay, so that’s axis number one.

Axis number two is creative/entrepreneurial versus managerial/administrative. Okay, so for creative/entrepreneurial jobs you need people who are high in the personality trait “openness to experience,” Big Five personality trait that’s associated with lateral and divergent thinking. Those are creative types.

And for managerial and administrative jobs, and those are jobs that are more algorithmic—So imagine the guardrails. You’re a train on a track and you want to go down the track fast. You don’t have to be creative to go down a track that’s (already laid down) fast. You have to be conscientious. And so the best personality predictor for managerial and administrative jobs is trait “conscientiousness”.

Okay, so there’s a tension in organizations between lateral and divergent thinking and efficient movement forward.

Now if you know what you’re doing, what you want is conscientious people. Because if you know what you’re doing you should just do it as efficiently as you can. But the problem is is the world changes around you unexpectedly.

And so if you don’t have people who can think divergently when the marketplace shifts on you—which it most certainly will—then you don’t have anybody who can figure out where to lay new tracks. Now it’s really, really difficult for people, for corporations to get the balance between the entrepreneurial/creative types and the managerial/administrative types correct.

And what I think happens—and I don’t know this for sure and the research on this isn’t clear yet—What seems to happen is that when a company originates the creative/entrepreneurial types predominate, and they have to be flexible and move laterally to get the company established to begin with and take risks and break rules and do all sorts of things that conscientious people are much less likely to be able to tolerate (let alone think up).

But as the company establishes itself the managerial/administrative types pour in and take over. But if they take over too much then the com...

[JaeEnceeti]

He looks like he's telling me this for the 5th time and I still don't get it and he's tired of me... :p

[radimm]

The title is kind of misleading though. It's more of a ''how to run a successful company'' topic.

[jynxkizs]

Key points:
1) Creative people are a distinct minority with a Pareto distribution, not a normal distribution.
2) Creative people get chased out by managerial types.
3) Companies die without creative people.

[rammevilcaballero]

Jordan Peterson helped develop Adeo Ressi's incubator The Founder Institute, he made the psychometric exams to judge incubees, called "Predictive admissions test" and "As of 2014, over 1, 300 companies had been created from the program, 89% of which were still operational." Peterson talks about it in his Personality lecture, when speaking of the Big 5. So he does have a good background on what he's explaining here.

[tikigodsrule]

With 20 years in the silicon valley and direct experience in 4 startups I can confirm he's absolutely correct. VC's bring in the bean counters and fire the founders. Then we call that company "the walking dead".

[rudylabsilica]

1:40 Anybody who works in orporate management NEEDS to listen to this, so they can understand their business.
2:20 Thank You Mr. Peterson for explaining the importance of creative people in corporate workforce.

[magicdaveable]

I am now retired. It was my experience throughout my "career" that "corporations" are the most rigid non-creative entities in the business world. I made my way with really extensive skill sets. I covered the spectrum from blue collar to management and back again. From employee to independent business owner. What I found was a wasteland filled with idiots that qualified for their positions because they had a bachelor's degree. Incompetent fools that perhaps should have been hired as a trainee but certainly not in any supervisory capacity.

[dragonhold]

All the creative people are there at the beginning.
They get chased out until you have nothing but managers and administrators.
Then the environment shifts, then the company dies.
—Jordan Peterson

[whenraindropsfall]

I always get the feeling that he's mad at me haha. I feel guilty for no reason

[null_viod_zip]

Jordan Peterson may be one of very few that can promote his idea on Big Think and PragerU within days, and be positively received by audience of both.

[nicholasr]

This is true! I usually start a job with great enthusiasm, but over time I quit or get fired because my bosses are so rigid.

[munderpool]

He stays on point brilliantly and doesn't pull punches. I think he's a catalyst for introspection and it makes many people uncomfortable, ergo the endless criticism - which he endures with remarkable stoicism! His haters should take heed and follow his example.

[davidraath]

I just realized who I am. Mr Peterson has said in 5 minutes and 33 seconds what I've tried to figure out for 30 years! Thank you Big Think! This is pure informational gold.

[ericciaramella]

He's absolutely spot on regarding creative people at the start of companies being replaced by process biased people as the the company scales and matures.

I've seen and experienced exactly this numerous times.

[johnholmes]

He’s right. I worked for an investment bank that went from 0 to 53, 000, 000 in revs in 2 1/2 years and then they brought in all the managerial types and all the people that brought in the revenues left because they got disrespected within a year the company was bankrupt

[racoonface]

I could listen to Jordan Peterson talks for hours and never get bored . He's so interesting . My world view and the way I look at people had drastically changed because of him .

[igotpicklesheyheyhey]

Love Jordan Peterson, learned about him through H3H3 and I'm so happy I did. Now I watch his lectures regularly. It's life changing stuff.

[Valtolife]

I like that he makes clear distinction between things based on statistical analysis (everything except when he explicitly states otherwise) and when he puts forth his own hypothesis on a given subject. Many public speakers skirt that responsibility and just state "facts" on any given subject freely.

[Peter_]

I am low in Extroversion, high in Agreeableness, low in Neuroticism, high in Openness and medium in Industriousness.
Not sure what kind of job that would fit me the best, but probably something where I educate one person at a time or something.

[knotwilg]

I find myself in a managerial/administrative job while having the creative/divergent personality type. It may appear a mismatch but I tend to think that this is exactly the antidote or balancing act an organization needs to get out of the gridlock of being either chaotic with a start-up mentality OR being rigid but efficient. I'm part of the tension described here. I may even create it.