The Dodo Club (58th Edition)- Reflections on Personality Traits and Scenario Thinking

A note from me:

Hi Folks,

First of all, of course, I hope you had a fine end to the old year and start to the new year.  I hope you have enjoyed a fabulous and regenerative festive season, whether or not your tradition is to celebrate the birth of Christ.  Despite being assailed and bombarded by commercial interests, I hope you found opportunities to connect with others and also with your own better selves in ways that celebrate our common humanity.

It was a somewhat unusual festive period in our household because Christmas Day was fairly quiet for us.  After years of being cared for by us at home, my mother is now in a lovely care home because of the level of professional attention she now needs.  Our elder daughter is a Church minister in London, so is hard at work throughout the whole Christmas period; our younger daughter lives with her partner in Los Angeles, and our son has his own apartment with his partner.  Adopted members of our household also had Christmas arrangements with their own families.  We did, however, visit mum in the care home, with our son and a friend, and on Christmas Eve we had a lovely evening celebrating the milestone birthday of a friend from a family we have - sort of - merged with over the past 45 years.  

So we arranged the big celebratory festive meal at our home for December 27^th after our daughter and her family could come over from London, and we could arrange special transport to bring mum here for a couple of hours.  With as many family members as we could gather, and a few close friends, we had 14 people around our dining table (actually two tables brought together)!  Surrounded by twinkling lights and 4 Christmas trees (as mentioned in the last Newsletter), we had that particular kind of enjoyable time together that brings warm feelings inside, and not only because of the wine and brandy butter!  I hope you were also able to experience some of that inner warmth over the period, although I appreciate this can be a poignant and difficult time for some.

The combination of our own large gathering, the Christmas Eve celebration, and a visit to a marvellous choir concert of seasonal music organised by a friend, has reminded me again of the significance of shared experience - of community - in bringing positive qualities, even joy, into our hearts.  This recognition seems easily lost in our fast-paced and busy lives, when so many of our relationships with those around us are transient and transactional, and our entertainments are passive.  Perhaps this sense of community was deeper in pre-industrial times, when life could be harsh and more obviously intertwined with the lives of neighbours and the rhythm of seasons?  I think of this whenever I consider paintings of 17^th century life in my adopted homeland (The Netherlands), such as this “Winter scene with Skaters, near a Castle” by Hendrick Avercamp (which can now be found in London’s National Gallery).

Of course, this image has been carefully curated by the artist, who led the way in making pictures of ‘life on the ice’.  His career began at the time when the Little Ice Age hit Northern Europe, and he spent his life producing such winter scenes.  He only rarely left his town of Kampen which is, itself, indicative of the prominence of close community in his life.

My Bi-weekly Guide:

Reflections on Personality Traits and Scenario Thinking

Much of our past, present and future is shaped by the choices we, and others, make.  These choices are guided, in part, by the unique characters and personalities of individuals.  So anybody interested in seriously exploring historical developments or future possibilities will benefit from paying some attention to “personality” and how this affects individual behaviour and brings social consequences.  

In addition, as noted in previous Newsletters, there are two prominent “crafts” in effective scenario thinking – an analytical craft to surface fresh insights, and a social craft to bring these to life in the minds, hearts, and behaviours of decision-makers (see Edition 3 and Edition 4).  This second craft greatly benefits from an understanding of the characteristics and personalities of the decision-makers in question.  

While I may be a long-experienced practitioner of the scenario crafts, I am far from being a professional or trained psychologist, so I can only claim a layman’s understanding, so I would greatly appreciate any better-informed guidance on personality traits from readers.  Please help me with this.

Of course, every individual is unique in nature and experience, but five core personality traits have been uncovered by researchers.  A meaningful description of the personality or temperament of an individual can be obtained through assessing their position on the spectrum of each of these dimensions. Below, I briefly introduce each of these dimensions, but I also comment on their potential relevance to scenario thinking.  I thought this would interest some readers as the “scenario mindset” is one of the aspects of “strategic character” I have highlighted in previous newsletters (see Edition 1 and Edition 2).

Reflections on 5 Personality Traits and Scenario Thinking:

The 5 core, essential, and distinct personality traits that have been identified are:  

1. Openness:
   This refers to the appreciation of diverse experiences as expressed in curiosity, imagination, and the enjoyment of new ideas and creativity.  A very high position on this scale seems to me to be essential for anyone who is going to both enjoy and also to be effective in scenario thinking. 
   

2. Conscientiousness:
   A high position on this spectrum denotes a person who is self-disciplined, organised, responsible and attentive to details.  As scenario development, particularly “craft 1”, is usually a complex project involving several moving parts that bring together multiple perspectives into a coherent whole, it seems likely that a person with a relatively high position on this spectrum would be an essential member of any scenario team.  I certainly found that to be the case for the teams I had the privilege to lead.
   

3. Extraversion:
   This refers to attributes like being sociable, energetic, outgoing, bold, and occasionally assertive.  In some, mainly Western, cultures, this trait is helpful in influencing others, and it presumably plays a role in having a desire to engage with and influence others.  I would need professional guidance on this, but I believe this dimension is not quite the same as the Extroversion/Introversion distinction highlighted in Myers-Briggs analysis, which refers more to an individual’s preference for external or internal sources of psychological energy.  For example, I believe I am an Introvert in Myers-Briggs terms (e.g,. I think more naturally through internal reflection rather than through deliberation with others), but most people would probably consider me mildly extroverted in personality.
   

4. Agreeableness:
   This dimension of personality refers to the degree to which an individual is cooperative, empathetic, kind, helpful, and concerned about social harmony.  As good scenario thinking involves working well with people having different perspectives and decision-makers under different pressures, a high ranking on this trait is of benefit.  However, care must be taken to avoid falling into groupthink in an effort to maintain social cohesion, so specific attention needs to be paid to this danger within any team comprised of people who rank highly on this scale.
   

5. Neuroticism:
   This trait refers to a tendency to have strong negative emotions such as depression, irritability, scepticism, suspiciousness, anxiety, feeling stressed, or anger.  It is not a helpful trait for teamwork, but may possibly be helpful in maintaining alertness to potentially negative signals from the external environment.
    

In summary, high openness seems essential for all members of scenario teams, along with reasonable agreeableness.  A degree of diversity across other traits is probably beneficial, reflecting also diversity in the bigger world, as long as there is sufficient conscientiousness within team leadership to drive projects forward and to a close, and neuroticism is sufficiently limited to avoid disruptions to teamworking.  

Flying higher in our helicopter, however, is there also the possibility that the framework of individual personality traits can be useful in analysing social developments and potential future scenarios?  Is personality “locked” within a person, or is there a way that social or cultural conditions can shape the personality traits of individuals in ways that, in aggregate, shape social and cultural developments in return?

From what I have read, core personality traits remain pretty fixed over the full lifetime of an individual.  However, for some traits, there seems to be a degree of plasticity in children and in young adults between the ages of 15 and 25 when their frontal lobes are developing.  So could this be a mechanism for the type of influence hypothesised above, particularly as this is the age range when people are just beginning to take fuller roles in society?  

I believe some examples of the “cohort” effect are well established e.g., most people drift towards becoming politically more conservative in their attitudes as they grow older, but their “starting point” on the radical/conservative scale seems set by their experiences and socio-political attitudes when they are 15-25.  So, over the coming couple of decades, we might expect emerging leaders in “the West”, who grew up in times of austerity and the aftermath of the 2008/9 financial crisis, to have quite different socio-economic attitudes to those of their Chinese contemporaries who grew up in conditions of enormous economic expansion and optimism.  

Has this type of phenomenon had an influence on our relatively recent history?  Have there been times when whole societies have become more or less “open” or more or less “agreeable” because of earlier shifts in the average personality traits of young adults?  I don’t know if there has been systematic, credible research on this, but it seems a possibility.  

The aftermath of the horrors of WWII and the need for societies to cohere to rebuild coincided with socio-political support for the US-led Marshall Plan and for developing welfare states in Western Europe, the “great compression” of income inequality, and the popularity of television series affirming the value of kindness and community.  Could such developments have been championed through a generation that developed “pull together” attitudes/personalities shaped in the period around WWI, with that general ethos continuing for some 40 years after WWII through champions shaped, when young, by similar experience and the aftermath of that conflict?  

By the 80’s and 90’s, however, social and political attitudes were being shaped by a generation that grew up in the post-war period of growing material prosperity and increasing individualism, so support grew for political choices and economic policies that have brought an explosion in wealth inequalities within most societies.  Has the current drift towards right-wing authoritarianism in several societies any relation to the personalities and attitudes of a voting population shaped by the experiences and conditioning of young people some 20-25 years ago?  

The differences in the current World Energy Council scenario foundations, Rocks and Rivers, are shaped by narrower or broader conceptions of self-interest.  Could this also be interpreted as societies being more or less “open” and “agreeable” comprising individuals with more or less of these personality traits?

Question of The Fortnight

Every fortnight, I’ll be asking a thought-provoking question in hopes of sparking interesting and enlightening discussion.

I’d love to hear your response! You can do so by simply responding to this email.

Today’s question is:

Given that the large-scale outcomes of Rivers would be preferable to most people over the longer term, could it be valuable and possible to promote and affirm the personality traits of “openness” and “agreeableness” in individuals?  Can kindness, for example, become contagious, particularly if directed towards younger people?

The Dodo Club Online Course

If you would like to learn more about the kinds of topics covered in these Newsletters, then please consider signing up for the introductory online course.

This covers scenario/systems thinking for grappling with uncertainty, an introduction to energy transitions, and the development of strategic character in leadership.

In the interest of avoiding the fate of that unfortunate bird, the Dodo, this course aims to help us secure our own personal legacies within a changing world and the energy transition - and to leave a healthier planet for future generations.

You can access the course through Udemy using the link below!

A series of follow-up courses that treat the main topics in increasing depth and detail will be provided if there is sufficient interest.