Boost Your Productivity by Understanding Your Workstyle – Holger Reisinger Jabra
Increasing productivity requires more than just granting additional autonomy to individuals. It also requires understanding our workstyle and those of our colleagues. Use the Jabra Work Potential Test to explore your workstyle.
I am a Genius.
And since 28% of us are, there’s a pretty good chance you’re one too.
In this context, Genius is one of four workstyles that describe how we prefer to conduct our work. It’s all detailed in a new whitepaper that addresses one of the biggest challenges our organizations face today: How we can become more productive at work without sacrificing our happiness and well-being.
We already know what doesn’t work: Mandating that knowledge workers perform their job duties in highly structured ways. That method of coaxing additional productivity is counterproductive, often resulting in greater frustration, poor morale and reduced productivity.
Instead, successful organizations know that granting employees more freedom to perform their jobs as they see fit is a great way to unleash the creativity, productivity and innovation that lies within all of us.
The next step in understanding the dynamics of high-performing and agile organizations is to look at the idiosyncrasies of the individuals making up our organizations and allow for the diversity in how we prefer to complete our job functions and how we best organize our work. Fortunately, there’s a tool, the Jabra Work Potential Test – which we also discuss in the whitepaper – that enables us to do just that.
The Jabra Work Potential Test is just 20 easy questions and takes less than 5 minutes to complete. And the insights may surprise you. You’ll discover plenty about yourself, like how to best organize your workday and things to avoid to be at your best.
From your test results, you’ll be classified into one of four different work types that describe your general work preferences. Which one are you?
Game Changers (18% of the working population) are always on the move, applying energy to everything they and their colleagues do. They devise bold new solutions to challenges and always seem to know someone, somewhere, who can get the job done. Their agenda is packed with appointments. Often, they are forced into making swift decisions where they would have preferred more time.
Gurus (31% of workers) are the inspirational colleagues who create new knowledge and share different perspectives and insights. They love challenges and work with others to perfect everything they do. After long workdays engaged in interesting discussions, they often need to work after hours or at home, which is the only place they get time to think for themselves.
Geniuses (28% of workers) know how to keep their cool, stick to the facts and create solid, lasting solutions. Their memory is crucial; they know where to find vital information or the knowledge to get to the next level. Colleagues look to them to cut through the clutter and make the proof of concept. They prefer to communicate via email, which saves time over endless meetings and keeps everything documented in writing for further distribution or use.
Guardians (23%) keep the ship tight and on course. They possess outstanding project and people skills and prefer meetings for getting everybody on the same page. Between meetings, they continuously communicate with the team to move the project forward. This may steal time from their own work, leaving them somewhat stressed and disorganized, especially when the unexpected arises.
Understanding Yourself… and Your Colleagues
From my Genius classification – and personal experience – I know that I do my best work during the morning, in my office, sitting at my computer. I see work as continuous learning process and I prefer my day be as structured and planned as possible.
In addition to understanding ourselves, the real power of the tool is its ability to help us understand our colleagues’ preferences, which allows us to work with them more effectively and productively. From the test, I discovered that a coworker was a Game Changer. Now she has become my go-to person when I encounter a problem I can’t solve. I know I can rely on her to quickly pull together the resources to come up with a fast, creative solution to any challenge.
By understanding our own work preferences and those of our coworkers, we can promote greater harmony, clearer thinking and improved productivity in the workplace.
Additional Information
Find out if you’re a Genius (or Guru, Game Changer or Guardian) by checking out our whitepaper and Take the Test!
