Eastern Michigan University Professor Greg Huszczo (Hus-ko)
admits that he has been guilty of trying to be a perfectionist
and that it sometimes gets in the way.
"I would always find a flaw in what I was planning to
do instead of just moving forward and trying to help," said
Huszczo, a professor of organizational behavior and development. "I
realized that when I tried to be something I wasn't, it
didn't work that well. When I was myself, things were much
easier and I felt like I was making a difference."
 |
BE YOURSELF: Greg Huszczo, an EMU professor
of
organizational behavior and development, poses
with a copy of his new book, "Making a Difference
by Being Yourself, Using Your Personality Type
at
Work and in Relationships." |
Huszczo knew he wasn't alone. If you Google, "making a
difference," you get 35.5 million hits. He has now written
a new book, "Making a Difference by Being Yourself, Using
Your Personality Type to Make a Difference at Work and
in Relationships," (Nicholas Brealey Publishing,
2009).
Huszczo, who has written several books about team building
and leadership, said that this book is more about helping
people help others. The book focuses on identifying "who
you are" by identifying your personality type and then
consciously capitalizing on the strengths of your personality
to improve things at work, in personal relationships and
in one's community.
"The most important thing is to find out about the core
of who you are and then live that consciously," said Huszczo. "Figure
out what you do well and how you can make use of it."
"We surveyed more than 500 people and asked them when
they felt they had made a difference at work; when they
had made a difference in a relationship; and when they
felt they had made a difference in the community," Huszczo
said.
The results, combined with information from each participant's
Myers-Briggs Type Indicator assessment, supported that
different personality types make a difference differently.
"The people in my study were not the Barack Obamas or
Oprah Winfreys. They were ordinary people, but they all
made a difference in some way and that was basically by
being themselves," Huszczo said.
Huszczo has more than 30 years experience coaching and
providing organizational consulting services for hundreds
of organizations and their leaders in a broad range of
industries. His clients include Ford Motor Company, Visteon,
General Motors, La-Z-Boy, Kellogg and a variety of hospital
systems.
