Ep 216 - The Science of Connection: Personality in Team Dynamics with Lindsey Bingaman

Have you ever wondered how personality impacts team dynamics and leadership effectiveness? 

In this episode of The Quiet and Strong Podcast, host David Hall sits down with Lindsey Bingaman, a coach and leadership development expert, to explore how understanding personality traits can transform team functioning and enhance leadership. Listeners will gain insight into the importance of emotional intelligence, discover how tools like the Prism software integrate psychometric data and AI for better organizational insight, and learn why an appreciation of individual differences can lead to greater collaboration and success. 

Tune in to uncover actionable strategies for harnessing personality insights to create stronger, more cohesive teams. 

Listen now, learn, and be strong.

Episode Link: QuietandStrong.com/216

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Lindsey Bingaman is a coach and leadership development professional specializing in the integration of psychometric data, technology and AI for leadership, team and organizational development.

Connect with Lindsey:

Website: SurePeople.com

Socials: LinkedIn

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Contact the Host of the Quiet and Strong Podcast:

David Hall

Author, Speaker, Educator, Podcaster

quietandstrong.com
Gobio.link/quietandstrong
david [at] quietandstrong.com

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Transcript

Lindsey Bingaman [00:00:00]:
Over the past thirty, forty years in the research around literature, all the research points to emotional intelligence as being the differentiator between good and great leaders. And emotional intelligence is, are you self aware? Can you manage yourself? Are you socially aware? And can you navigate relationships skillfully? So, you know, all this stuff does is provide you with self awareness. And I and it's it's also interesting to me. You know, one of the exercises we did in all of our leadership development courses was at the beginning kinda making the case for emotional intelligence and why this stuff is important in leadership. And we did this exercise where it was, like, worst boss, best boss. And you had the whole group talk about the worst boss, and then the whole group talked about the best boss. And, you know, consistently, people the theme for best boss was never they're the smartest person in the room or they're a great strategic thinker. It was always about how they helped the person.

David Hall [00:01:02]:
Hello, and welcome to episode two sixteen of the Quiet and Strong podcast, especially for introverts. I'm your host, David Hall, and the creator of quietandstrong.com. This is a weekly podcast dedicated to understanding the strengths and needs of introverts along with strategies for success. Introversion is not something to fix, but to be embraced. Normally, we will air each episode on a Monday. Be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform. Leave a review or rating. That would mean a lot to me and also help other people find the show.

David Hall [00:01:32]:
Tell a friend about the podcast and help get the word out there. The introversion is a beautiful thing. Lindsay Bingaman is a coach and leadership development professional specializing in the integration of psychometric data, technology, and AI for leadership, team, and organizational development. Alright. Well, welcome to the Quiet and Strong podcast, Lindsay. Lindsay, it's so great to have you on today.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:01:56]:
Yeah. So great to be here, David. I I love the concept of your podcast and have been listening to some of the episodes. I'm so happy to be here today.

David Hall [00:02:03]:
Awesome. And we're gonna talk about your work with personality. I I saw LinkedIn you call yourself the personality explainer, and I'm just really excited to get into all that. First, just tell us a little bit about yourself, your journey to the work you're doing now.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:02:18]:
Yeah. So, you know, I've been fascinated with personality pretty much my entire life when I look back on it. I remember my grandmother had these tapes by a woman named Florence the Tower and literally audio cassettes that I would listen to about the four different I think it must have been based on the disc model, the four different types of personalities. And then later in high school, I got obsessed with Myers Briggs. It was literally like, oh my word. I have a manual for my body. Like, how did I never know this existed and, you know, went on for the next four years of college to, like, type every person who came across my path for more than five minutes. And then, you know, from there, it was like, okay.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:02:53]:
How do I do this for a living? So that led me, you know, step by step. And it it was not like one of those fields where you're like, oh, I wanna be a nurse, so I'm gonna go to nursing school, and then I'll get a job as a nurse. It it was a a field, you know, that's kind of broken up and called different things in different places. So I kind of just found my way into figuring out how to use this for a living, which for me led me to a consulting firm. I was very fortunate to get connected early on to a dear mentor, Fran Johnston, and worked with her at Telias Leadership Institute for, you know, pretty much the the first fifteen years of my career and the design and delivery of emotional intelligence based leadership programs. And as an executive coach that focused on emotional intelligence and and now as a coach educator. So that's kind of been the the foundation, the core of my career in using these types of concepts to help people build self awareness. And now I work at a a software company, tech startup, that uses personality data and integrates it with AI and technology to help people be more self aware and have stronger relationships.

David Hall [00:04:02]:
Awesome. And we are gonna get into all of that. How would you describe your own personality?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:04:08]:
Oh, it's a great question. And it's I mean, it brings up for me, like, what's so hard about talking about this stuff because in some ways, you can reduce it to a real simple kinda on this or on that. And in other ways, you're like, well, where do I even begin? There's the complexities of there. But I would say, like, just superficially or just kind of to to make it really succinct, I am like a double fisted people person. I when you look at my chart, and we'll talk about this, I'm sure with Prism, the tool I use, it measures 54 traits and attributes, and all my a lot of my points are really about people. I wanna talk. I wanna listen. I wanna understand them.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:04:46]:
I wanna see people patterns. So I think warm I'm warm. I'm cooperative. I'm I want harmony, and I'm a people person are kinda how I would describe myself in a nutshell.

David Hall [00:04:56]:
Awesome. And, of course, not everybody is like you, and that's what we're really gonna get into is really understanding our personalities. And I was as I was telling you before we hit record, you know, a lot of my focus isn't on introversion, extroversion because I see some really misunderstandings and and common misunderstandings. But we're on this show, we're interested in all the aspects of our personality, and I'm looking forward to getting into that.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:05:25]:
Yeah. That's great because there are many different ways of slicing the pie and looking at it.

David Hall [00:05:29]:
Yeah. For sure. And, you know, not all of us are alike. We we share some common things that we can learn from, but we have to get to know ourselves too. And so how do you do that? How do you help people become more self aware?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:05:42]:
I I think that you can you know, as many things come at it from a lot of different angles. And I think one of the best authors or speakers I've heard on this is Tasha Urich. She did a lot of research on self awareness, and she talks about two different types, external and internal. So So with internal self awareness, it's really about using tools like, you know, Myers Briggs or Prism or DISC or other, you know, values, worksheets, things that help you reflect and explore who am I, what are my preferences, what do I like, what do I value. And then external self awareness is more about, you know, how do other people experience me? What's the energy that I bring into a room? How do they feel about themselves when I'm there? So I think, you know, the twofold, helping people reflect using tools and then helping them get a little bit of feedback so they understand the impact they have on other people or kind of the two broad ways I think of in in supporting people to develop self awareness.

David Hall [00:06:37]:
Yeah. It's definitely not enough just to understand yourself, but what's the impact that you're actually making, you know, versus the impact that you wanna make? And how how do you how do you do that?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:06:51]:
A %. And it's I'm kinda continually amazed that the impact that people have is can be very far, you know, spread from the impact they think they're having.

David Hall [00:07:00]:
Right. So tell us about Sure People.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:07:05]:
Yeah. So Sure People is, as I mentioned earlier, a tech start up, and we're kinda really on the vanguard integrating psychometric data, which is kind of a I hate to use that word. It's jargony. I really kinda think about personality data, integrating it with artificial intelligence and technology. So, you know, taking and, really, I think what we're we're pioneering is thinking about using these dimensions of personality as a legitimate dataset that companies especially have at their fingertips to understand their people and to help people work better together and to think about placing their people. Whereas a lot of times, I think sometimes it's like, oh, I'm a rat or I'm an owl or I'm a this instead of kind of a hard dataset that can be integrated with technology and used in really powerful ways.

David Hall [00:07:53]:
Yeah. I'm a lion. A quiet lion.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:07:58]:
I love that.

David Hall [00:07:59]:
Yeah. I've probably Yeah. I've probably taken them all. So the software that you use, Prism, how is it different from other things? Like, you brought up the disc. You brought up Myers Briggs. I also like CliftonStrengths. How is it different from these instruments?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:08:16]:
Yeah. It's a great question. And in a lot of ways, Prism, you know, like I said, it measures 54 traits and attributes. It does integrate echoes of it's a model based on some of the Jungian work and some based on the work of William Marston, which is the what the disc is founded on. There's conflict styles, motivation. So, you know, in some ways, it it definitely has echoes of some of these other models. But in other ways, I think one differentiator is that it's pretty comprehensive and that it brings them all together into one portrait. So I'd like to think that it's like a if a bunch of cameras came around a person at a moment in time and got a snapshot.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:08:47]:
Snapshot. But then I think the biggest differentiator is just the integration of that dataset with on a tech platform with AI where it takes the insights. You know, for a lot of these assessments, people take them, you ask them about it. They're like, oh, yeah. It's in my desk drawer, or my team's data is in a folder on my desktop. But what where with Prism, we're kind of taking all that data and putting it in technology so that it gives you action. It tells you what to do with it. Okay, Lindsay.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:09:16]:
You're a warm hearted people person, but but you need to become our our science backed algorithm tells you you need to become more assertive, and you need to learn to speak more directly and make sure you're following through on your execution. Oh, and by the way, you have a meeting later today with David, and remember, he's more internal, and he's gonna need more time to think about things. And, oh, to be successful, you could send him some things ahead of time. So it really just takes that insight and and moves it into action both for yourself and for your relationships.

David Hall [00:09:44]:
Yeah. I'd peg David. David does take time to think and process, and he does good work that way. You know? So it's saying you need to be more assertive. K? I'm guessing that it's gonna tell you to use differences to be assertive if it was telling me I needed to be more assertive. Does that make sense?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:10:06]:
Say that again?

David Hall [00:10:08]:
So is it is it coaching you differently with your personality to be more assertive? If it was saying I needed to be more assertive, would that look different for me or no?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:10:19]:
You know, it's a a great question. They're all all the different dimensions are attached to what we call prism practice areas. So it would probably take us both to the same prism practice areas. But then if you use the the coach in the app and it looked at all of our different dimensions, it would probably give you different advice there than what it would give me based on because it you know, you might have aspects of your personality where you need to be more assertive, but then other points in your personality were actually to kinda balance that. So it might be more of a balanced person in that way than myself. So it's there's a lot of kinda factors that go into it.

David Hall [00:10:52]:
Yeah. No. Thank you. That's good. And how are companies or individuals using this?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:11:00]:
So I think, you know, there's a lot of different applications. The one I think is the most interesting and powerful is the application with Teams. And, I mean, we've all know what it's like to work in a team where people are miscommunicating or work for a leader that's got no emotional intelligence. What this data does is really, you know, helps people onboard more quickly because they understand their entire team's makeup and then helps people communicate or, like, bring information and and talk to each other in a way. And, also, there's so much ambiguity in organizational life, and we constantly are making up stories. So, you know, if I didn't know that you were internal and we were interacting, I might think, like, oh, man. David doesn't he doesn't really care about what we're talking about. You know? But then I could see, oh, I I have access to your profile.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:11:49]:
Like, I see, no. David's just internally. He's quietly processing everything, and I make up a totally different story than if I didn't have that kind of information. So I think, you know, it keeps the

David Hall [00:12:00]:
line Yeah. It's like, that's that's a real struggle. You know? And sometimes with me or other introverts, our emotions aren't our our face isn't reflecting our feelings. You know? It it's it's a problem. And where I'm thinking, you might think, oh, he doesn't have anything to say. He doesn't care. But I'm doing my best work. I'm just processing internally before I share, or somebody else might need to talk out loud.

David Hall [00:12:34]:
And another way to put it is I am not gonna share a half baked idea normally. But some people, that's how they work. They share a half baked idea, and other people and it it it and sometimes I engage like that. But for the most part, I'm gonna think through my ideas and put them out there, you know, well formed. Or somebody else, they need to, again, for lack of a better word, just release an idea that's not fully formed, but they're that's how they they make it fully formed. It is the process of conversation. And if you don't understand that, there can be some conflicts for sure.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:13:10]:
Exactly. And I love that you use that term. That's when we throw around a lot, the half baked ideas. It's such a classic interaction of, like, somebody may come to you who's external and intuitive and spontaneous and say, like, hey, David. I've been thinking about this thing. And, you know, a classic kinda miscommunication is the you or somebody similar to your profile might be like, well, how's that gonna work? And tell me about this. Well, have you thought about this? And then I walk away feeling deflated and thinking, like, well, I'm never sharing my idea again with David, and you walk away thinking, like, why is she bringing me stuff that is not grounded in reality or that she hasn't really thought through?

David Hall [00:13:44]:
Right. Right. And there's so many things like this. I think this that's a really good example of where if you don't understand it, you can definitely have some misunderstandings. But understanding it can make you powerful to work together and and understand, you know, this is how this person works. That's how this other person works. And it goes in our relationships too. One of my favorite books on introversion is by doctor Lori Helgo, and I had her on the podcast with her extroverted husband.

David Hall [00:14:14]:
Oh. And and that was the conversation. He was just like, I'd like to talk through things. And she's like, I like to think about things and then share. And he's like, you know, that's not how it works. But, you know, ultimately, over they've been married forty years. Ultimately, when he started editing her book, he's like, oh, I get it. I get it.

David Hall [00:14:34]:
But it was the same kind of back and forth. So it definitely happens in our workplaces. It happens in our relationships too.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:14:40]:
A %. Yeah. And I think you find a lot of extroverted, introverted couples out there. One wants to go out and socialize, and the other one is happy to let them carry the conversation.

David Hall [00:14:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So what what's some, ahas that you have seen with teams? Like, okay. You know, beyond what we're just talking about, is there another example of something that this has really helped teams come together?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:15:07]:
Yeah. I mean, it's what's interesting is, like, you think about an individual having a preference, but then you're like, what happens when 10 individuals get together who have that same preference and they're tasked with getting something done? And I think that's where it's so interesting to see, like, when you roll these things up to the team level, what are this team's collective strengths or blind spots, and and what are the patterns that they get stuck in? And then as a team facilitator or, you know, somebody that's in my previous life, I I did more of you can see these dimensions play out in a meeting. You know, somebody drops a piece of information or ask a question, and the big picture people go to the big picture. The detail people start looking in, you know, to the fine weeds and the details. Or, you know, another example I've seen is, you know, some people are more structured and really wanna form a plan and keep a plan, and others are more open ended and spontaneous. And when you have a team of spontaneous people, what can happen is a decision will get made. And then the next week, the team's back together, and it gets revisited. And then the next week, it gets revisited again.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:16:14]:
And so the team can start to to feel frustration around, why are we not able to make a decision and stick with it? Why are we continually revisiting this? But then when you have the data, it's like, oh, it's a decoder. I see what's happening. It's that we're all spontaneous, and we're staying open to information. How do we support ourselves to manage around that dynamic?

David Hall [00:16:34]:
Yeah. So if you have only spontaneous people, you can have that issue. Yeah. You know? And on teams, sometimes it's it's a lot of times, it is kinda balanced. It just naturally works out that way. And somebody is is gonna do more processing, and you just gotta balance that out. Like, okay. You can think about this, but at some point, we have to make a decision.

David Hall [00:16:59]:
And, you know, other way around.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:17:02]:
Yeah. I do think sometimes people intuitively, you know, sense these things and find each other to kinda pull together more balanced pairs or teams, but it's kinda like a shortcut.

David Hall [00:17:12]:
Yeah. How how do teams how do organizations and teams make this part of their culture? Like, how do they it I mean, sure. It's an ongoing, you know, continuous education because it's not something that is just intuitive to everybody.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:17:30]:
Yeah. Well, I think the great thing about what we're doing at Sure People is that everything lives on an

David Hall [00:17:34]:
app. K.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:17:35]:
So it's like your data, your team's data. Everyone's data is, like, right there on your phone, and most of us are, you know, for better, for worse, probably for worse, our phone's an extension of our hand. So, you know, individuals, teams, organizations are able to integrate this into the way they think, into the way they speak, and able to use it in the flow of work. Like, I'm going into a meeting. Let me pull that up really quickly. So I think just kind of the ease of technology and tying it to this really makes it that much more scalable and able to kinda have that data at our fingertips to use it on a regular basis instead of having to, like, go back, find the document, try to figure out what that means for how I interact with another person. So it's you know, I think that's where when people start to think in terms of traits and attributes, it you start to move as a team or a organization from a culture of kind of perception. Oh, Tim seems like a jerk to traits and attributes.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:18:37]:
Oh, Tim's not a jerk. He's just a direct communicator who, you know, is bold and decisive. So that's, you know, that's how I might experience him instead of kind of this perception that he's being too abrasive for my style.

David Hall [00:18:50]:
Oh, I love that. That's I need to know more about this. This is awesome. So what's the initial training look like before the app?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:18:59]:
So, you know, it's one of the things I I like about Prism and the dataset is that it's incredibly accessible. And one of the things we're we value is, like, democratizing this data. So it's something that anybody can take. You know, if you took it right now, you'd get your report. You'd be able to read it and digest it. It'll be pretty, you know, direct and straightforward. That being said, we do have, like, certification for people who are coaches, who are facilitators, who are, you know, team process facilitators inside organizations where we go more into a deep dive and help them think about how it shows up or how to coach people using the data and the tools. But by and large, for the average person, they're able to get the report and put it into action with the app pretty quickly because the app's telling you basically what to do to interact with the person more effectively or to develop yourself.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:19:44]:
So it creates a lot of, like, woo, moments as people see themselves in the data and then are, you know, helped guided as to how to bring it to life.

David Hall [00:19:52]:
So I hope this question makes sense. Like, how how many people might you have access to? Is it your immediate team or the whole organization? I'm sure it just depends on the organization. But do you understand what I'm asking?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:20:05]:
Yeah. Absolutely. And it does. It goes down to kinda sometimes organizations will come and we'll get a team on board, and then it starts to expand from there. Other times, it's an entire organization that everybody has visibility. And sometimes, there's different kind of confidentiality agreements if especially if some organizations tend to be a little bit more hesitant. So we'll keep the confidentiality around who can see who's a little bit tighter. So there is some variation there.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:20:30]:
But in an ideal world, we would, you know, love for the whole organization to see the the whole organization because I think you get the maximum value out of this when everybody's able to see the data and information of any other person they might be interacting with at the at the organization at any given time.

David Hall [00:20:45]:
Does there ever come conflicts with how the data's interpreted from this app?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:20:50]:
Oh, you know, people are people, David. There's always concrete.

David Hall [00:20:53]:
Of course. Of course.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:20:55]:
Yeah. No. It's it's interesting. I mean, because there's people there's people who are naturally hesitant about their data and how it might be weaponized. There's people who are worried about AI. You know, there's people who are worried about privacy. I mean, so you get a lot of having to navigate this and do it responsibly and do it safely as a company. But then there's also you know, this has not happened a lot, but people who get the report and have trouble seeing themselves.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:21:19]:
And in my experience, it it boils down to three things one of three things. One, often there are certain type of personality. There are precise personalities who are, like, looking at every line and kind of thinking like, oh, I don't know if that word actually represents, you know, me, or they've been through a lot of change in the past few years, or they work in an environment that might be toxic or that forces them really to operate outside of their preferences. And so they're having a little confusion about who they are and how they're showing up.

David Hall [00:21:50]:
Yeah. Yeah. Because I see that where, you know, somebody takes an assessment and and they're like, well, this isn't me or whatever. But you really have to look at it and and see what it's telling you. And and and with anything, you still take it with a grain of salt. Right?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:22:07]:
Absolutely. And I you know, this comes from my coaching perspective. I always hold that the person is the expert on themselves. So let's take a look. Let's dive in. Maybe there's a blind spot here or something or an identity you haven't fully integrated into how you think about yourself, or maybe it's just not the right read. But I'm never gonna sit there as a coach or a person with an assessment and say, like, well, David, if you just look closely enough, this is who you are. You know, I'm always gonna let the person be the expert and kinda say what fits and what doesn't.

David Hall [00:22:37]:
Yeah. I love that. You are the expert on yourself, and tools like this are tools that give you some great information. But, ultimately, you're the one that self reported the information, You know? And and you are the expert. It's just it's some really good tools to help you get to know yourself, uncover some blind spots. But, you know, ultimately, it's it's a tool.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:23:01]:
You know? Exactly. And I think that's where we as practitioners and people who are advocating for this data or these tools have to be really careful. And and I know a lot of people use them very successfully for hiring for selection, which is I think it's often very predictive, but I also never wanna see somebody be kept out of a position that they could be successful in because they're you know, they didn't look like they could do the job when in fact, like, I believe absolutely in the growth and our ability to grow and develop as adults and as humans. And so my stance with this stuff is always kinda like, oh, let's take a look at your preferences based on your current context, which ones are serving you and what might you need to develop to go get the things you want most in life.

David Hall [00:23:45]:
Yeah. Let's talk about hiring. So how is it used in in in hiring? And, you know, I also know that there's many different personalities that can do the same job that just might do it differently. So how is it used in hiring, or how could it be used in hiring?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:24:05]:
Yeah. So for our tool, it's not, validated for hiring and selection, so we don't k. Advocate for that Okay. At all. But I know for others, you know, it's and I couldn't speak to this quite as in-depth because ours isn't used this way.

David Hall [00:24:18]:
Okay.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:24:19]:
But I know there are, you know, whole teams of IO psychologists that are out there validating the dimensions or the kind of preferences, the traits and attributes that have led to success in certain roles and finding people who fit those dimensions and and using it for predictive success and hiring and selection. And I, you know, I don't know. I don't have a firm stance on it, but I it always kinda makes me a little like, you know? That's how I feel about it.

David Hall [00:24:45]:
Yeah. I kinda have the same reaction because, you know, just just talking about introversion. There's so many myths. Like, introversion can't introverts can't do this or can't do that. Well, no. They absolutely can. It's just it's good that it might look different. You know?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:24:57]:
Exactly. And then we were talking about this a little bit before we started recording, but there's there's not introverted activities or extroverted activities. There's about where you draw your energy and how you process information. And, you know, I'm guessing if people said, like, hey. Let's have a podcast show, and this person's gonna be need to be interviewing people and public speaking and doing all these things. You know? They they would be like, oh, we need an extroverted person, when in fact, no. That's not at all the case. You know?

David Hall [00:25:21]:
Yeah. And and that's a really good example. It's like, I love this. I I don't get nervous. When I was younger and I didn't understand introversion, yeah, speaking or doing something like this, which, of course, didn't exist, but would would have just really I would have been so afraid. But what I learned was, oh, I just gotta prepare. You know? And I sent you questions ahead of time whether you needed them or not just so I could kinda have something to go off of. And if you needed them, great.

David Hall [00:25:53]:
And then afterward, I don't have anything planned for an hour in case I need to recharge. I might not. This this conversation is not draining me. In fact, fact, you know I'm good.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:26:05]:
I'm glad.

David Hall [00:26:06]:
It's energizing. You know? And that's the other that's the other myth I bust often is some conversations for introverts can be very energizing. But we like the one on one. We like the small group. And for a podcast, I'm talking to you one on one, which I love.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:26:21]:
It's perfect.

David Hall [00:26:21]:
But then many people can hear it. So, yeah, so many misunderstandings.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:26:27]:
Yeah. And just to kinda share also my own personal journey in relation to that, you know, in our profile, I have an amiable personality, which can often be people who don't, like, want the spotlight, and it can be hard to public speak or be in front of people. And one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life is to be seen at the front of the room. Okay. And yet, you know, it's something I've worked really hard at, and I still don't love it, but but I can do it. And I think this is where, like, it's so important for us as introverts or as amiables or as people people who tend to be more quiet but observant to really push through and find our voice because often we have some of the most powerful insights or observations to share if we're willing to kind of take what feels like risk and put our voice out there.

David Hall [00:27:13]:
Yeah. And, I mean, we could talk about this for a whole episode, but, definitely, it's realizing, guess what? I do have something important to share. You know? Another thing that's really helped me is, hey. I'm not perfect, but nobody is. Anybody listening to me is not perfect. So, yeah, those are all good things. Another application I think is probably pretty important is is how does this how does this help people with their leadership?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:27:40]:
Yeah. It's so important. And, you know, it's it's again, it's, like, fascinating to me. Over the past thirty, forty years in the research around literature, all the research points to emotional intelligence as being the differentiator between good and great leaders. And emotional intelligence is, are you self aware? Can you manage yourself? Are you socially aware? And can you navigate relationships skillfully? So, you know, all this stuff does is provide you with self awareness. And I and it's it's also interesting to me. You know, one of the exercises we did in all of our leadership development courses was at the beginning kinda making the case for emotional intelligence and why this stuff is important in leadership. And we did this exercise where it was, like, worst boss, best boss.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:28:23]:
And you had the whole group talk about the worst boss, and then the whole group talked about the best boss. And, you know, consistently, people the theme for best boss was never they're the smartest person in the room or they're a great strategic thinker. It was always about how they helped the person and how they facilitated getting great results out of that person or saw things in them that they didn't see in themselves. So I think when it comes to leadership, being able to be self aware and understand your emotions and under and manage them and then to understand your impact and how to support other people and and build strong relationships, it's incredibly critical once, especially once you've moved past being an individual contributor.

David Hall [00:29:06]:
Yeah. So a leader with the app could check out their team members.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:29:12]:
A %. And that is what I think is one of those brilliant pieces of this. Because now as a leader, I can understand my people. I can have a window into them. I don't need to call HR. Every time I have some sort of people issue, I can look and I can think, okay. I can see that my direct report is motivated this way, or I can see that they're an internal processor, or I can see that they're energized by doing this, or this is how they handle conflict. And I can use that dataset to solve my own problems, to motivate my people, to navigate, to help move my lower performers up to high performance by understanding what might be happening.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:29:52]:
So it's like you can use this dataset to interpret what's going on and then to pull the dials that you need to make get success out of the people that you're leading.

David Hall [00:30:01]:
Yeah. Do you have any examples of a leader that's used this that had some good success?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:30:07]:
Yeah. I'm trying to think about this exact context that we're talking about. Thinking more about relationships kinda going the opposite direction where people knew that their boss was a concrete processor, and they were highly intuitive. And so they they went out and got information, you know, prior to the meeting that made them more successful in those conversations. As far as leaders using it with their team, you know, I think a classic example that I think of that we see a lot is, you know, on our dimension scale, some people are more attainment of goals and others are more recognition for efforts. So, you know, classic example is a high attainment of goals leader seeing, like, oh, I'm I have a total blind spot around giving my this person positive feedback or helping them, you know, dial up their energy by by acknowledging them and their their effort and what they've done. You know, another example in in, oftentimes, these bold, direct, decisive personality types, we call them powerful personalities in our model, will not realize that some other people on their team have more of the gentle, calm, warm qualities of some of the other types and that they need to say good morning. And they need to allow a little more space, And they need to show that they care because, in fact, they do care even though it doesn't feel like it or seem like it all the time.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:31:28]:
So I think those are some of the the classic examples, or the one we've talked about, like, the extroverted leader who realizes they need to set their introverted team up for success by the way they design meetings or how they share information or the time they give in between meetings before a decision has been made. You know, those are some of the examples that are coming to mind.

David Hall [00:31:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. Just in that example, provide an agenda. You know?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:31:52]:
Exactly. It's not that hard.

David Hall [00:31:53]:
What are we gonna what are we gonna talk about? Let let people prepare. If it's a large meeting, you know, think about that. You know, is everybody getting a chance to participate? You know? Do you need to have some smaller meetings or even one on one meetings? You know? All of that. It is everybody getting a chance? You brought up like recognition, and that's a tricky one because as people, some people like to get recognized. And I think we all like to get recognized, but it looks different from person to person.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:32:24]:
A %. Yeah. Because for some people, like, the worst nightmare is to be in the middle of a room and have somebody call them out and the whole you know, like, the group clapping. It's like, oh my word. Please no. But to have that same person pulled aside and quietly told what they're they mean to the team and that everybody has seen, you know, what they've done is is a totally different story. So you have

David Hall [00:32:47]:
I saw somebody retire after many, many, many years at the company, and they didn't wanna party. And to me, that's just that was just crazy. It's like, yeah. If you've worked here for so many years, why don't you wanna party? But just some everybody's different.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:33:02]:
Yeah. When retirement's a big milestone for a lot of people, so it's hard to know sometimes what what's going on with people in that that transition as well.

David Hall [00:33:10]:
Yeah. And then you've talked a bit about AI. Definitely wanna get into that more. How does AI play into all the that we're talking about?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:33:19]:
Yeah. So let me just say, I am just like my breath is taken away at the speed at which this is integrating into our lives. And so with AI on our app, it will take all of the psychometric information and pull on it to give you guidance or insight about yourself or the the problem that you're you're struggling with. And so an example, I call it Sure Coach. I asked Sure Coach one time. I I was working on a big project. It was taking me a really long time, and I was getting frustrated that I wasn't making progress more quickly. And so I asked the app, you know, like, what's going on with this? Why am I struggling? And it told me, like, oh, Lindsay.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:33:55]:
Like, you have a flexible work style, and you have an incredibly people oriented personality. And so you might be kind of flexing your priorities as immediate needs of other people come up. And in fact, I was like, oh my word. Like, it just felt I felt so seen in that moment that it really knew and understood because it had all my information.

David Hall [00:34:16]:
Yeah. And we wanna feel seen. That's that's very interesting that you felt seen by the AI.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:34:22]:
Yeah. It took my breath away for a moment because I was like, that's exactly what it is. And I think that's actually these datasets allow for these moments of seeing, whether you're using the AI or you're just you know, I've been with people. There's a woman I can think of who sat down and saw, like, she was, like, 80% feelings decider. And it was just, like, this moment of, like, oh my word. Yes. That is my that is what's going on. Like, I knew I kinda attended that way, but now I can see it brought into focus with this data.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:34:57]:
And so I think at its best, this kind of data allows us to see ourselves and to feel seen by others because they're they get us. I was gonna say, I think it's one of the brilliance of introverts. I think often being some of the best listeners, observers, people who are so gifted at kind of listening and helping people feel seen and understood in our world.

David Hall [00:35:18]:
Yeah. And it's funny. I always say that introverts can be good listeners. Just because they're being quiet doesn't make them a good listener. So, hopefully, they are active listening. We are observers. Superpower of introverts is we we reflect on things, and a lot of good comes from that, just really sitting back and and thinking about things and observing. And, definitely, we can be good listeners.

David Hall [00:35:44]:
Hopefully, we are.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:35:46]:
A better chance than extroverts. Let's put it that way.

David Hall [00:35:48]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, just because somebody's talking doesn't mean listening's going on. Hopefully, it is. But at the same time, if someone is doing a lot of talking, hoping they're stopping to listen as well. Mhmm.

David Hall [00:36:01]:
Yeah. So we talked about team dynamics and leadership. Is there any other applications that that we haven't talked about?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:36:09]:
Team dynamics, leadership. The other thing I would love to see for some of this stuff, and this is part of what I'm trying to build out at SurePeople, is kinda, like, personalized development at scale. So how do you give somebody an app with, like, their information so they have all this awareness? And then how do you support them through experiences where they can develop what they need to develop to round themselves out? So I think it really kind of helps people, individuals and organizations, own their own development in a way that can be difficult because depending on where you're sitting in an organization, sometimes there's not opportunities to develop until you get to the director level or, you know, certain positions where there's money being invested. So here with this kind of data and technology, I feel like you can give an entry level employee or a lot of these deskless workers who are in retail or in these professions where they're moving quickly. They don't they don't have time to, like, sit at a desk and pull out a bunch of data. They just have their phone to help them understand how they might be coming across, how they can maximize their potential, and then how they can develop. So one of the things I'm doing is designing a series of classes based on all of our prism practice areas where people can have the algorithm tell them the skill they need to work on, and then they can come into our academy at SurePeople and attend in our class on, you know, owning your power and authority or on deep listening or on project planning. So that's just kinda the last thing that came to mind when we talk about how to use this in a really powerful way at that individual level, which often you ask people in organizations, well, what do those people get at the entry level? And they say nothing.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:37:53]:
They don't get anything because we don't have the money to scale at that at that level.

David Hall [00:37:57]:
Wow. I love that. I love that because that's what this show is all about is really all of these things, personal growth, you know, how to function well in teams and leadership and and all of that. So with the AI, is is the information being constantly updated since AI is changing so rapidly?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:38:18]:
Everything is kind of constantly in flux because of technology and AI changing so rapidly. But with our tool, it's almost like you you know with chat g b t, it goes out into the Internet and pulls all

David Hall [00:38:29]:
Yeah. Right.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:38:30]:
This information. Where if you think about Sure Coach on our app, it's more of, like, a closed container that holds just your psychometric information.

David Hall [00:38:37]:
Gotcha.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:38:38]:
So, yeah, when it goes to pull, it's just being pulled from your dataset. So in that case, it's more static.

David Hall [00:38:44]:
Okay.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:38:45]:
But how integrate other things, I think, is is changing really quickly. So it, you know, could be very different in six months than what we're talking about now.

David Hall [00:38:53]:
Yeah. Yeah. For sure. So, Lindsay, I could talk with you all day. This has been a wonderful conversation. Is there anything else that we didn't talk about that you would like to?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:39:02]:
I'm sure I'll think of it later tonight.

David Hall [00:39:04]:
Yeah. Of course.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:39:06]:
Because I am 50% introvert.

David Hall [00:39:09]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:39:10]:
Okay. Yeah. Absolutely. It's such a such a fun conversation, David, and I had a great time. And there's so many things here to talk about and explore, and I really appreciate you having me on.

David Hall [00:39:20]:
Yeah. Of course. Where can people find out more about you and the work that you're doing?

Lindsey Bingaman [00:39:24]:
My LinkedIn is always on that probably more than I should be. And then, you know, Sure People is our company website, surepeople.com, and also on LinkedIn, the company's on LinkedIn. So those are the best bets.

David Hall [00:39:36]:
Very cool. Alright. Thanks again.

Lindsey Bingaman [00:39:38]:
Yeah. Thank you, David.

David Hall [00:39:40]:
Thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate you. I hope you take the time to explore other episodes and learn from other amazing guests. Remember, if you're interested in getting to know yourself better, there is now a free Typefinder personality assessment on the Quiet and Strong website. This free assessment will give you a brief report, including the four letter Myers Briggs code. I'll add a link in the show notes. And I'd love to connect with you. Reach out at david@quietstrong.com or check out the quietandstrong.com website, which includes blog posts and links to social media for Quiet and Strong and much more.

David Hall [00:40:16]:
Send me topics or guests you would like to see on the show. So many great things about being an introvert, and so we need those to be understood. Get to know your introverted strengths and needs, and be strong.