One of my clients sent me a fascinating survey called the Culture Index Report. Answer a billion questions, and the results are remarkable. Not only did this survey accurately describe me, honing in on the things most pertinent to me, but it also suggests how I can better negotiate the world and tell others how to best work with me.
If I were dating again, I would hand the survey results over on the first date and say, “Here. This is me. What do you think?”
It’s that accurate.
Elysha also took the survey, and her results were, similarly, eerily descriptive.
Amongst the many surprising revelations in the survey was this:
I am constantly adjusting my behavior between my work and personal life to a degree I never would’ve expected.
This surprised me. If you asked my colleagues, I suspect they would say I don’t adjust my workplace behavior enough. In their minds and mine, I am very much myself at work, which can occasionally cause friction, angst, and even discord.
I speak my mind, disregard authority when it strikes me as inane or shortsighted, and plow through the workday being me, which is appreciated by many but certainly not all.
I have unfortunate, objective, overwhelming evidence of this fact.
However, as much as that may be true, my colleagues still do not get a full measure of who I am, at least according to this survey. Though it indicates I behave like my true self at work more than most people, I am still adjusting to a degree I never would’ve predicted.
But I guess it’s true. When I reflected on my 26 years of teaching, I was quickly able to identify moments when I adjusted my behavior to meet the needs and expectations of the workplace, either because I saw the need and opted to adjust or, in many cases, the need was pointed out to me.
Years ago, a teacher went to my principal with a complaint about me. When he brought it to my attention, I replied — perhaps more heated than necessary:
“Why didn’t she just tell me? What the hell is wrong with her? It’s like I feel like I’m playing some ass-backward game of telephone with a child. Grown-ass adults don’t play games like this.”
His response:
“Maybe she came to me because she thought you might respond like this.”
I was still annoyed. I still thought it was stupid and cowardly not to speak directly to me. Years later, I still think it was stupid and cowardly not to speak to me directly. But I took his point.
I can be difficult to deal with in a verbal confrontation. People avoid arguing with me whenever possible. I’m not gentle.
Some I adjusted.
I can think of a lot of moments like that.
But here’s why I’m surprised:
If I had answered the jobs behavior survey thinking only about the time I spend with my students — the vast majority of my workday — I suspect the results would be strikingly similar to the survey of my personal life.
Adults demand greater adjustment from me, whereas kids tend to like me just the way I am.
It may seem fairly obvious, but this was a real epiphany for me — a massive, sense-making realization:
Alongside family and closest friends, my students know me best. I get to be myself in their presence. I remove all filters while teaching and am the closest version of the real me I can possibly be while spending time with them. The person inside the classroom with my fifth graders is slightly different than the one who exits the classroom door and walks down the hallway to a meeting.
I’m certainly still myself in the presence of adults, but it’s a slightly muted version of me. A more accommodating, more malleable version of myself. More conforming. Slightly less authentic.
It’s not a lot, but now that it’s been pointed out to me via this survey, it’s clear as day.
I’m slightly more measured and calculating in the company of my colleagues. Less sarcastic. Less inclined to be amusing. Less silly. A little less joyous and playful.
But my students get the concentrated version of me. They get all of that and more.
No wonder why leaving teaching often feels so impossible.
I’ll be forced to leave my people. My little people.
The people who know me best.
The people who I like best.
