Yesterday I attended an Action for Happiness event featuring Gretchen Rubin. She co-hosts with her sister, Elizabeth Craft, a very popular podcast, Happier, that I've been listening to for years. The podcast is one of my favorites and always has a lot of creative ideas and thoughts about happiness.
Anyway, Gretchen Rubin authored a framework called "The Four Tendencies" which I find quite interesting in which people fall into one of these four categories: Upholder, Obliger, Questioner, or Rebel.
I've written once before about the Four Tendencies and my thoughts about how they relate to Agile practices. My natural tendency absolutely is an "Upholder." I have no trouble with staying motivated to accomplish goals, whether it's an inner expectation or an outer expectation. I'm also a big "rule-follower" and have been throughout my life.
That being said, with maturity (and my Agile background), I've learned the value of questioning. Critical thinking requires us to question the "rules" we follow. Do we blindly want to follow along with every social norm or expectation without questioning whether or not that is right for us?
Many times "rules" were made for certain reasons that no longer apply, yet we do things because it's the way we were taught... many times without even knowing the reasons why.
An example of this is a story about a child who asks her mother why she always cut the ends off of the ham when she was making Easter dinner. Her mother told her that's just the way you prepare ham. "Isn't that right, Mom?" she asked Grandma.
Grandma answered, "I cut them off because my pan wasn't big enough!"
Too often we do things without understanding why. We just follow along with what we think the crowd expects or to fit in. We're afraid to question.
But it's by questioning that we discover better way to do things. We take into account changes that are happening. This is especially true in technology when changes happen so quickly! It's amazing how many organizations create reports that are obsolete and do work that's no longer needed just because "it's always been done" and they're afraid of what might happen if they stop!
Gretchen was asked whether people's tendencies might vary depending on the situation and she said if you think this might be the case, you're probably a Questioner. And so maybe I am a Questioner now.
This is Gretchen Rubin's framework and I respect her work. But I do "question" this thought that you are only one type that can't change. That sounds like a "Fixed" mindset and I think even personality traits can change over time.
What about you? Which tendency most resonates with you?
Here's the information about yesterday's event and links for you to find more about Gretchen Rubin, her podcast, and the Four Tendencies!
HAPPIER THAN BEFORE
The event video is here so you can watch it again or share with others.
You can also see the chat file from the event with lots of helpful comments.
LEARN MORE
- Take Gretchen's Four Tendencies Quiz
- Visit Gretchen's website
- Listen to Gretchen's Happier podcast
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1 comment:
I agree with you. I think that we all fall on a spectrum of these tendencies and that we may lean more toward certain tendencies in different situations. I am curious if certain personality traits tend to align more with any of these tendencies, although I don't know whether her tendencies have been empirically developed and tested. There are also several different measures of personality. This gets into the weeds but statistical models are only as good as the underlying data--i.e., garbage in = garbage out. Regarding personality, the current academic debate has shifted toward conceptualizing personality traits as a spectrum and, yes, there is evidence that our personality changes over time. I wrote a brief summary about this on my blog (https://www.stellamin.com/blog/behavioral-science/2020/10/03/personality-genetics-or-environment/). The research shows that big life events, particularly during childhood, are also consequential in shaping our personalities beyond our genetics. Life transitions in adulthood (e.g., work; marriage; parenthood) also seem to impact how our personality evolves over time, over and beyond genetics and the process of aging.
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