Biosciencebiz’s Weblog

Just starting this post to keep track of all my favorite quotes..

Quotes that have inspired me, made me laugh, made me ponder….

• If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem
• The boundary of knowledge is also the boundary of ignorance
• Egoism the highest poverty of a created being- Freidrich von Schiller
• When you come to the end of all the light you know, and it’s time to step into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing that one of two things shall happen: Either you will be given something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly.
• “Often we may be in doubt as to what to do. It is no easy matter to decide what is right and what is not. One little test I shall ask you to apply whenever you are in doubt. It may help you. Never do anything in secret or anything you wish to hide. For the desire to hide anything means that you are afraid, and fear is a bad thing and unworthy of you. Be brave, and all the rest follows. If you are brave, you will not fear and will not do anything of which you are ashamed.” – Jawaharlal Nehru, First Prime Minister, India
• In the words of Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler, ‘Life’s a journey, not a destination’. The essential thing is not to have won, but to have fought well.
• In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurs.
• What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
• Appreciate life itself, even if it is not a bed of roses. Contentment is fulfilment of not what you wish for, but appreciation of what you have.
• It is not in the stars to hold your destiny, but in ourselves. – William Shakespeare

No.. This is not a personality analysis test that I took when I had NOTHING else to do in this world! I am taking a course called Designing of High Performance Organizations, the more fancy term for a course called Organizational Behavior. It’s a very interactive class where, as the name suggests, we talk about organization- types, structure, interpersonal communication, factors that make a successful organization- so on. Just recently we discussed Disney Land and the strong organizational culture that it has. Have you ever noticed how each and every employee at DisneyLand is always smiling and courteous to people around? How all their employees have a neat physical appearance and positive demeanor to the visitors? If you’ve not noticed, make sure you closely observe their behavior next time you visit DisneyLand. It’s all symbolic of their organization and the fantasy world that they are trying to create.

Anyways, I did not intend to digress from the main topic but I couldn’t stop commenting on the case study. So, coming back to the discussion, one of the deliverables for our course is to perform a critical self analysis and identify your traits by a thorough self analysis that includes online personality tests and deep, reflective thinking. We are supposed to identify the traits that make us a strong leader in order to create successful organizations. Lazy me preferred the first option of taking the online test!

The test is called the IPIP-NEO (International Personality Item Pool-NEO) and is based on the Big Five Dimensions of Human Personality. (For the ones interested in psychology, check out more on the Big Five Dimension on this link). The IPIP-NEO is not just another personality test. It throws 300 (yes.. 300) questions at you to come up with the results. The results are categorized into different facets such as

extraversion

agreeableness

conscientiousness

neuroticism

and many more..

With my experience of online personality tests, the IPIP-NEO has, by far, provided the most accurate and comprehensive analysis. For the inquisitive bunch, check the IPIP-NEO test and post in your comments!