Flattening and Shortening the Curve: Personality Matters
This article was featured on HOGAN ASSESSMENTS and HR Asia websites.
In the past few weeks, the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has escalated exponentially, with cases now reported in more than 150 countries. Rightly so, governments around the world have been implementing response strategies to tackle the pandemic. With measures ranging from partial or full lockdowns that are currently affecting one-third of humanity to aggressive virus testing and contact tracing in countries such as South Korea and Singapore, we can see that there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Nevertheless, a closer look at the situation reveals to us that it is fundamentally driven by human behaviour. For governments, the challenge thus lies in managing people, who have differences in personality and motivation.
This means that some people will be more predisposed to demonstrating behaviour that positively contribute to “flattening the curve”, while others may have a propensity for behaviour that harm themselves, their families and their countries. As we have observed over the course of this ongoing crisis, there are five best practices that can be examined through the lens of individual differences, using key scales from Hogan Assessments.
Published March 2020
Contributed by:
Zhen Yi LEE, Managing Consultant, Asia (zylee@optimalconsulting.com.sg)
Wan Leng HO, CEO, Asia (wlho@optimalconsulting.com.sg)
