Shawnee Love   •  
August 11, 2016

Awhile back, we looked at what it took for people to change, and I basically argued that if the desire to change was there along with a plan, ownership, and autonomy, most people could change.  What I didn’t explain is that I was talking about skills.  People can become better managers, or communicators or public speakers when they want to if they have a plan and so on.

What is much harder (some would argue impossible) to change are personality traits.  Examples of traits include intelligence, energy level, intra or extra-version, dominance, etc.

For example, it is easy to learn how to throw a frisbee.  Throwing a frisbee is a skill.  If you practice, you can get really good at it.  Being right or left handed or ambidextrous is a trait.  And we all know how difficult it is to learn how to do something with our opposite hand.  Try learning to throw a frisbee with your “wrong” hand.  If you practice long enough, you might do a passable job, although it is unlikely you would be as good at throwing that frisbee as you would be if you practiced as hard with your dominant hand.

So it goes with changing oneself.  It is far easier to change skills than to change our traits which we were born with.

Doesn’t mean it is impossible.  Just that it is more work and we might never achieve the same aptitude (or sustain it) as we would with an equal amount of effort focused on improving a skill.

That is why skills are associated with our ability to do the work and traits are associated with our fit in the job, team and company. When having difficulty with an employee’s performance, consider whether it is a trait or a skill that is the issue.  If it is a skill, more often than not, improvements can be made if the employee wants to improve.  However if it is a trait that is the problem, rather than trying to change who the person is, you have to decide whether you can put up with the trait or not.  You also might want to amend your selection process to ensure candidates with that trait are weeded out.