Throughout the journey of my life, I have been a part of many work related as well as personal groups. Be it a group of family members, or friends in school with whom I used to study, or a professional group of my peers in office during my various internships or the study group at IIM Ahmedabad, I always found people with different personalities, behaviours and attitudes. I found this difference to be helpful at times, but otherwise unproductive most of the times. These differences often led to confusion, unnecessary discussions and arguments or waste of time and energy. No one could explain the reason of this then and no one could solve the differences as well. I never bothered to find out the reasons for such differences and just assumed it to be a part and parcel of group dynamics. I believed in the saying “Too many cooks spoil the soup.”

A couple of weeks ago, in the MCDO class, as we were going through the first lecture on ‘Appreciating Differences’, the professor told us about how every individual has a different personality which could be found out using a simple Myers Briggs Type Indicator Test. MBTI is based on four dimensions, i.e. source of energy (extraversion vs. introversion), information processing (sensing vs. intuition), decision making (thinking vs. feeling) and speed of decision making (judging vs. perceiving). As we filled out the questionnaire to find out our respective personality types, I found out that I was an ENFP, i.e. Extrovert, Intuitive, Feeling and Perceiving type. When the characteristics of each personality type were being discussed in detail, I could totally relate to it and could figure out why I behaved in a certain way during group activities etc. I came to know that ENFPs are called ‘The Advocates’ and my personality type is that of enthusiastic, expressive and charismatic leaders. Being quick with the solutions for any difficulty and our willingness to help others in times of difficulty is what gives us the title of ‘An Advocate’. We are spontaneous as we often rely on our ability to improvise instead of preparing in advance, wild and possess a great zest for life. We are driven by values and we strive to do whatever interests us and be the best in whatever we do. Also, we are resourceful, visionary and creative. However, we were warned that MBTI is not a developmental tool. This personality type generally does not change over a short period of time and is not a measure of intelligence, emotional quotient or level of stress etc.

After having found out all this, I could relate to most of the points, though not all. I sat down with my study group from the first year to reflect on the learnings from the class. We wanted to understand how and why we behaved the way we did in the study group. After having discussed the points with the study group, I reflected on the discussion and tried to extend it further to my family discussions and to my group dynamics during internship. Everything was starting to make sense.

In my study group, I always felt that I was different from the members of my group, though that was not the case when it came to informal groups like my friends etc. I was always more outgoing and wanted to know people more and talk to them and have conversations. I was very enthusiastic during the group meetings and liked to discuss random things in between not related to the project etc. to prevent the meeting from getting boring and keep the energy level up. I thought it would work as an energy booster for the group, whereas most of the people from my group always wanted to finish the work allotted as soon as possible and leave the meeting. Also, I always preferred sitting together and read the case or situation in hand and discuss things as and when they come. On the other hand, my group members came well prepared in advance with a timeline and a fixed approach leaving little room for any sort of diversion or discussion. Many such instances and others made me feel that I was a bit different from most of the group members. Though I tried to adjust many times and made conscious efforts, given the majority of the introverts, but I could not really succeed. This was most probably because of the fact that however hard we try; the personality does not change so easily in the short run.

In my professional group during the internship, where more people were like me (extroverts, easy-going, enthusiastic about adventurous activities etc.), I felt better and could express myself better. We used to have long discussions on random stuff like current affairs, social topics, personal life etc. I felt more connected to the members in that group. However, there were a couple of co-interns who were not exactly the majority type. They were generally shy, remained silent, did not take part in random discussions and focused only on the work and left for home as soon as it got over. People started to treat them as outsiders or in a mocking way. Comments were passed on them to make them feel like they were not as cool as other members and how they were too focused on work and were not enjoying life. This created a large gap between the two sub-groups in a short span of two months and no one actually cared about what was going on.

As I already mentioned, there were instances in my study group, when I felt different from others and felt excluded. Initially, I tried to change myself and become more like the other members of the group. I put in real conscious efforts to do the same, bit I could not do it for more than couple of days. It was becoming difficult for me to change as a person for such a minor thing. As a result, I started distancing myself from the group meetings. I started asking them for my part of job to be mailed to me and I would finish that up in my room or library alone and send it back to them. I started feeling that my opinions were not considered valuable, as I was stereotyped to be the guy who always loves to have fun and discussions on topics not related to the course, or someone who was not serious about studies. Neither the study group cared as long as I was doing my job, nor did I as long as I had other friends.

When I, as a part of the professional group did the same to those couple of students, initially I felt good, maybe because of the human tendency. I used to feel like my team within the larger group is winning against the minority personality type. But, what we had lost in between was the larger vision of the team or goal to be achieved. This was not the best way that the job could be done. There were minimal discussions on the job going on and everybody did whatever he/she thought was correct. Later, people used to try to collate everything and submit the report in the best possible manner. However, when the HR Department got a hint about such differences, we were given a session on how people are different and no one is right or wrong. We were told about the benefits of working in a diverse group and how we needed to appreciate the differences instead of making fun of them. The situation improved a little after that over a month.

Having seen differences in my study group and professional group, I went on to talk to students from other study groups and ask them how do they handle such instances where there is such diversity. It was a great learning for me when one of my close friends from a different study group told me that whenever such incidents happened in the beginning and the group mired down in confusion, they actively encouraged discussions and differences. He made me realize that the PGP Office makes group keeping in mind the academic and cultural diversity (not the personality type diversity) to encourage such disagreements and discussions, so that everyone gets to see at the same thing from a different perspective and then choose the best option out of available alternatives. However, most study groups fail to materialize these benefits and the members start losing interest in the group meetings etc. Students, instead of discussing the whole assignment together, start dividing projects into parts and start allocating them to be done alone in rooms and later collate it and submit it. This defeats the whole purpose of forming study groups and most of the students just see it as something that has been imposed on them. After this discussion with my friend, I proposed the same idea to my group and the group dynamics improved compared to what it was before.

Having been through many classes and a session on diversity by HR Dept., I now completely appreciate and respect diversity in a group. I understand the importance of diversity and I think everyone should pay due attention to diversity and the differences arising out of it. Diversity among members can help get better performance and results based on different ideas available and vast range of options. It stirs constructive conflict around the task at hand and helps deliberate the best course of action. In fact, I believe, the worst kind of group that wants to be creative and innovative is the one in which all members are alike and think the same way. In fact, as management students, we all need to exploit the widest range of possible experiences and perspectives so that we can understand the people, the employees, the clients and the other stakeholders better. The more we encourage diversity, the more the society benefits.