Episode 1. The Achiever
Some people are just achievers. Seems they just go for things and time and time again they achieve them. And whilst they can be a bit annoying from time to time, turns out – that you and I – we …
It’s great to be with you again at the beginning of a fresh new week. And as for this next couple of weeks on the program, we’re going to be doing something quite different.
I’m joined again today by Keith Henry. If you were with us last week you’ll know that we spent some time looking at the different personality types that Gods created in each one of us. Keith’s done a lot of work on this over the years and come up with this tool that he calls Personality GPS. It’s a way of locating who we are.
Last week we just had a quick overview really of the four groupings, if you like, of the different personalities. And to help us visualise that, Keith’s placed each of the different nine different personality types, based on the list in Romans chapter 12 in the New Testament, around a clock face.
So from 1 to 3 o’clock we have the holistic, intuitive people. From 3 to 6 are the heart people, the ones who experience the world mostly through their emotions. From 6 to 9 o’clock, the mind people, the thinkers. And then from 9 to 12 o’clock, the people who operate mostly from their will. They’re really strong people.
And over the next nine days, starting today, Keith and I are going to meet one of the each of the nine different personality types across those four groupings to help us dive into some more detail. To help you identify your personality type. And not just yours but the personality types of the people around us. Because if we can understand ourselves and others, it’s going to make much for a better life. That’s the whole point.
Berni: Welcome again to the program Keith and Leo, you’re first, you’re the first victim, specimen, I think guest is the word I’m looking for.
Leo: I think it’s because I’m an achiever, I have to be first.
Berni: (laughs) That’s it. You realise the first will be last. Okay, I’ll come back to you in a moment Leo. Keith we’re kicking off today at 1 o’clock on the personality GPS.
Keith: Yes.
Berni: On the clock face with his personality type that you’ve called the ‘achiever’ in that holistic, intuitive group from 12 ’til 3 on the clock face. People who use all three, their mind, their will and emotions. Now Keith, I want you to tell us, describe to us, first up, the ‘achiever’. How do I know if I’m an achiever? How do I know if someone that I know is an achiever?
Keith: The achiever comes from the encourager part of the personality. We break the encourager up into two. There’s the achiever and then there’s the social encourager. So what we’re looking at is the encourager who is motivating and inspiring but is set on achieving goals. They’re actually very positive and very ‘people’ orientated but they’re very motivated. These are the competitive people or what we might call passionate people. They love to win.
They are very focused on getting recognition, being the best. So in sales teams, in sport, they like to be the ones that wins the awards. They’re very much into self improvement but they’re very inspirational too. They’re a team people so they can lead a team, they can motivate a team. And you can just sense their energy, these are the high energy people, they can just keep going until they bust.
Berni: These are workaholics right?
Keith: These are the workaholics and they’re very goal orientated.
Berni: Tick the tick list.
Keith: A tick list, yep. And they must tick them off. So they have a lot of sense of purpose and a lot of sense of where they’re going.
Berni: Now you can’t miss an achiever, is that what you’re saying?
Keith: No, they stand out.
Berni: They’re not the little quiet wall flower that sits there in the corner?
Keith: No, not as noisy as the leader but they like being up front.
Berni: Okay, Leo, in a moment I’m going to ask you how you relate to what Keith’s been saying but first up, tell us about yourself. What sort of work have you been involved in over the years?
Leo: Over 37 odd years I’ve had various roles and primarily in the sales orientation. Anything from running major accounts, working for big organisations like IBM etc. Handling major projects. One of the largest projects I got to handle there was the Defence Department re-equipment of their whole logistics area which is like from everything from tanks to toilet paper. And it was the largest systems immigration project that IBM have ever undertaken.
Those kind of projects, been in capital equipment sales, everything from heavy earth moving equipment with wheels up to the roof, million dollar type ticket items to micrographics which is where Keith and I bumped into one another in the world where you sold very small things.
But always in that world of solution selling and that kind of approach. That has given me opportunities to be able to move rapidly through organisations where I’ve ended up running states and at the country level of various organisations that I’ve had General Manager sales type responsibilities and a variety of things including managing teams of up to one hundred sales people.
Berni: Okay, just a quiet life then?
Leo: Very uneventful.
Berni: I guess the sales thing is very much achievement orientated isn’t it? There’s awards and recognition.
Leo: Yeah. That’s always been something that’s motivated me. To have the opportunity to stand out from the crowd. It’s sometimes competing against myself. Just to be there, up front, having won the recognitions along the way. Various, wonderful trips that you get around the hey days of the ’80’s, particularly where money for those kind of things were still around. These days less frequent although just recently just come back from a wonderful trip with my wife in Mexico where I was the top achiever for the Asia Pacific region for the company I was working with.
Berni: Okay. Yeah, you can’t miss him. You can’t see this because we don’t have pictures on radio but let me tell you, he’s just this energetic guy, he’s brimming with energy this guy. He’s not sitting back sort of quiet and shy. He’s just brimming with energy. If you have two hours off, two hours free to yourself, what do you like to do?
Leo: I’ve probably ticked off four things during that time off my tick list. (All laugh)
Berni: This is time off, this is rest.
Leo: I had two hours this morning already and I thought to myself, okay I’ll do a little bit of exercise, I’ll get that done and out of the way. I also ended up painting a picture frame that I wanted to do and was able to do a couple of other things before I got here this morning.
Berni: Tick, tick. I’ve achieved that, I’ve achieved that.
Leo: Exactly, it’s frightening.
Berni: Do you ever relax? Do you ever just kind of just go ‘(sigh) ah well, I’ll just do nothing for a couple of days’?
Leo: A couple of days, haven’t got to that yet but working on it, working seriously on that but the trouble is I often feel guilty. When I’m not doing something I feel guilty. If a day goes by and I haven’t been able to tick something off or say I’ve done something, I feel like the day’s wasted.
Berni: Does obsessive compulsive kind of…
Leo: Look, those kind of terms are probably things that psychologists would use to try and describe people who are just good achievers. (Both laugh)
Berni: I love that. That if all else fails you’ll sell as a feature, right?
Leo: That’s exactly right. All benefit.
Berni: That’s really good. So you’ve achieved a lot of things, what things don’t you like doing? What are you not good at?
Leo: That’s a great question because I’ve only recently been just working through that myself. Trying to make sure that, as I look forward to what else I can achieve in life, that I’m eliminating some of those things that I’m not good at because they tend to cause stress. They tend to cause anxiety that really is unnecessary if you can eliminate them. Some of the things I don’t like doing, that I’m not good at, is being micro managed.
An achiever wants to get out there and do it and be independent and when somebody says, ‘you’ve got to fit into this mould and make it work this way’ it really is quite frustrating and so I don’t like that. Strangely enough I love my independence so to be accountable, Keith mentioned about working with teams and things like that, I love working with teams provided they don’t want me 24×7. If I can input into them and motivate them and give them something that helps them do what they do, leave me alone, I want to do what I want to do then.
Berni: And go and achieve what you want to achieve.
Leo: Exactly right.
Berni: Okay. What drives you nuts in other people? What really frustrates you in other people?
Leo: Well, I tend to have a detail orientation because I make meaning out of putting the pieces together. But that’s achieving things. Like I achieve putting things into some perspective so I know where things are and that, to me, is an achievement. What drives me nuts is disorder. Because I love to put things in order so that I can achieve things. I can do things faster and better and quicker. But if things are in disarray then that frustrates me because I think that’s not going to be very useful for getting to the end objective of where you want to go.
Berni: Well that’s great. Leo, thanks very much for your time. And Keith, I’m going to catch you again shortly.
Keith: Thanks Berni.
Berni: Bless ya.
Comments
bongo
Wow this is really interesting..how do I get the cd or get more info on this.
Thanks so much for you’re interesting real life and easy to understand talks