Persuade

8Personality

“The ability to understand people is one of the greatest assets anyone can ever have.”

– John C. Maxwell, Becoming a Person of Influence/Talent Is Never Enough

We have talked so much about influencing that it makes sense to step back and ask: Whom are we influencing? Up to this point, this book has provided you with resources for persuading others requiring little adjustment based on your audience. However, whom you want to influence should impact how you approach the situation, perhaps none more than the other people's personalities. So, in this chapter, we will provide a crash course on diagnosing the Big Five Personality Traits and how to adjust your behavior accordingly when influencing each.

Characteristics, Traits, and Types

Personalities can be described by their characteristics, types, or traits. These words are often used interchangeably; however, some distinction exists.

Personality characteristics can be thought of as features. Individual aspects of one's personality that together describe our personality types or traits. Creativity is a personality characteristic. Organized is a personality characteristic. Outgoing is a personality characteristic. Characteristics are the individual features of our personality.

Personality type research emerged in the first half of the 20th century as a new way to study and understand personality. Personality types are classifications of people based on their personality characteristics. You have probably heard of ...