Comment on the concept of ability and personality.

 ABILITY

Ability means the mental or physical capacity to do something. It follows that an organisation cannot achieve its stated objectives in the most efficient manner without the support of its ‘able’ members. A person’s abilities are also determined by both genetics and environmental factors. Imagine someone who has the genes required to be a great sportsperson. However, he needs to nurture his inborn talent if he really has to become a sportsperson. Thus, although he is born with an advantage, it will get wasted if the environment is not conducive to his growth. The opposite is also true. A person who is not a born-athlete can also do wonders on the sports arena through continuous training and practice, especially since many who are naturally gifted do not turn up on the field due to lack of a conducive environment.

PERSONALITY

Personality is a set of characteristics or qualities that form a person’s distinctive character. This set comprises behaviours, thoughts, ideas, habits, perceptions and emotional patterns that originate from biological and environmental factors. The word ‘personality’ has been derived from the Latin word “persona” which means “mask” used by actors to change their appearance. Gordon Allport (1937) defined ‘personality’ seven decades ago as the “dynamic organisation within the individual of those psychological systems that determine his unique adjustment to his environment”. Kurt Lewin considers personality as “a dynamic totality of systems”. According to American psychologists Randy Larsen and David Buss, “personality is a stable, organised collection of psychological traits and mechanisms in the human being that influences his or her interactions with and modifications to the psychological, social and physical environment surrounding them”. J.F. Dashiell regards personality as “the sum total of behaviour trends manifested in social adjustments” (Aggarwal, 2014).

The concept of ‘personality’ is understood by both the common man and the OB practitioners alike. Lay people often refer to this concept when talking about people who have dashing ‘personalities’ or about people who have charming ‘personalities’. For OB practitioners, the concept of personality is crucial to understand and manage the workforce. It allows them to analyse why their employees are behaving in a particular fashion and why some of them are good organisational citizens and why some are not.

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