What draws someone to choose one job over another? Why do some people feel great loyalty to an organisation, often going beyond their self interest by putting in extra effort? What is it about work that generates high levels of personal satisfaction and happiness?
Take a moment to reflect on your current job. Do the critical activities in your job match your work preferences?
Preferences are dimensions of individual differences in tendencies to show consistent patterns of relationships, thoughts, feelings and actions. They determine the conditions we set up to allow our mental and psychic processes to flow freely. They guide our behaviour, but if we have to work outside them at various times then we can usually cope. Preferences are just another name for what we like doing. Often our preferences at work are different from our preferences outside of work, leading to the distinguishing labels of work preferences and non-work preferences.
Preferences are usually transparent and are often the first thing we notice in others - 'He's rather quiet, isn't he?' or 'She never stops talking.' Some people prefer to think things through on their own whereas others need to talk out loud to clarify their ideas. Preferences are readily visible to others and are usually the basis of first impressions.
When we are working to our preferences we set up conditions where our psychic energy can flow freely. If we are more extroverted we like work where there are lots of interactions with others, both inside and outside the organisation. If we are more introverted, then we like conditions where we can work on our own with few interruptions and a minimal requirement for meetings. Under these conditions our energy can flow freely with little resistance. Just as electrical energy generates heat when it meets resistance so our psychic energy generates tension and stress when it has to flow through areas that are not our preference. This leads to wasted energy and eventually lower performance, reduced productivity and even poorer health. So checking your preference overlap with your job is important.
A useful tool to analyse your job is the Types of Work Wheel that I developed with my colleague Charles Margerison. This classifies jobs into eight key critical functions (www.TeamManagementSystems.com) that make the difference between good performance and poor performance in a job. The critical functions are:
- Advising - Gathering and reporting information
- Innovating - Creating and experimenting with ideas
- Promoting - Exploring and presenting opportunities
- Developing - Assessing and developing the applicability of new approaches
- Organising - Establishing and implementing ways of making things work
- Producing - Concluding and delivering outputs
- Inspecting - Controlling and auditing the working of systems
- Maintaining - Upholding and safeguarding standards and processes
Most jobs can be classified into a distribution of these activities but usually there are two or three that are critically important. For example, a job analysis of 587 Finance and Accounting positions shows the top three work functions to be Organising, Producing and Inspecting. Compare this with 310 Design/R&D jobs where the critical work functions are Advising, Innovating and Developing.
Our research showed that people with preferences for extroverted relationships and creative information-gathering mapped most often into the Promoting area whereas those with introverted relationship preferences and practical information-gathering most often preferred Inspecting work. Those who liked analytical decision-making and who preferred to work in a structured way showed a bias for Organising work, whereas those with beliefs decision-making and a more flexible approach to the way they organise themselves and others enjoyed Advising work.
The study is summarised by the Team Management Wheel.
Margerison-McCann Team Management Wheel
| Role preference |
Characteristics |
| Reporter-Advisor |
Enjoy the reporting function in a team by giving and gaining as much information as possible |
| Creator-Innovator |
Like to create ideas and diverge their thinking |
| Explorer-Promoter |
Tend to focus on exploring opportunities and promoting ideas and concepts |
| Assessor-Developer |
Will prefer to plan and analyse ideas to see how they can be made to work |
| Thruster-Organiser |
Enjoy thrusting into action to make things happen |
| Concluder-Producer |
Like to work systematically and deliver outputs |
| Controller-Inspector |
Prefer control processes where they can focus on details |
| Upholder-Maintainer |
Like to put principles first by upholding and maintaining standards |
The Wheel can be used to measure the alignment between your personal work preferences and the job you are doing. Analysis of hundreds of respondents shows a mean match of around two-thirds. An analysis like this can give some valuable answers to the question 'Where am I now?', by indicating critical areas where changes might be of benefit. Low matches could be an early warning of a possible low job satisfaction. If your match is low, you could:
- Meet with your supervisor to redesign the job.
- Undertake some personal development so that you are better suited to the job
- Possibly delegate those parts of the job with a low match to others
- Consider looking for a new job that is more in line with your work preferences.
It is important to realise that there is no relationship between performance in a job and the level of preference match. Many people are comfortable with performing well in areas where there is a low match. This is because other factors also contribute to an individual's job satisfaction. Salary and rewards, quality of supervision, perception of career prospects, autonomy, job variety, health, prestige, ability, experience, interpersonal skills, environment, corporate values, and co-workers are just some of the many variables that impact job choice and job satisfaction.
However, if there is a good preference match to your job it means that a large part of your time will be spent doing what you enjoy - and that leads to significant improvements in wellbeing, contentment and productivity. Happy employees increase staff retention rates, and that leads to happy employers. As anyone running a business knows, the cost of replacing an excellent employee far outweighs the cost of increasing their workplace satisfaction.
At Team Management Systems, we offer accreditation in tools that help individuals come to grips with matching their job to their work preferences. Check out the details on our accreditation web site.
About the author
Dr. Dick McCann is the co-founder of Team Management Systems (TMS) and is currently Managing Director of TMS Australia and a Director of TMS Development International, UK. He is also Director of the Institute of Team Management Studies, the organization that provides the research that support TMS products.
Dick has written many articles in areas of personal, team and organizational development. He is the author of The Workplace Wizard - the definitive guide to workplace behaviour and How to Influence others at Work. He is co-author of The Half-Empty Chalice, Team Management - Practical New Approaches, and Aesops Management Fables. He has presented at conferences throughout the world and consulted for many organizations worldwide. For more information on Dick McCann and TMS's 25 year anniversary, please go to www.tmsoz.com