One of the things a personality type model does is give a view on how individuals may describe their approach to success.

The way people do things has become their normality because it helped them at one point in their journey. It has become their personal best practice. And much of it has been determined in people’s environment of origin, that is their families.

The personality type models describe a template that often can be recognized, for example when working with others. The way a person translated it for themselves, however, is unique to them. It results from who they are as well as their experience and history.

It is so ingrained, that they never question it. And quite often, they then assume that it is the same for others.

The same is true for organizations and teams. They came to existence in a specific situation, one involving people, a project, and a context. Once their projects succeed, they take the way they did things as a blueprint for the next project. And so it goes on.

However, over the years, everything can change. The people involved, the product, and the context. What stays is the idea of how to be successful. It is not being questioned.

It makes it hard to change.

Change requires finding ways to embed the planned change in the way people do things while transforming it.

If, for example, being helpful is the strategy for success, then it won’t work to ask people to reduce their efforts of being helpful. Whenever a crisis comes up, they’ll easily fall back into the previous pattern. However, reviewing what helpful means and redefining the organization’s way of being helpful, can very well work.