Research & practice
What 2,705 personality profiles reveal about collaboration
An analysis of 2,705 profiles: which recognisable preferences occur often, where differences are greatest, and what teams can do with those insights.
By Gijs HeerkensUpdated When collaboration becomes difficult, we often look first at roles, agreements, and processes. That makes sense, but it is not the whole story. Two people can read the same agreement and need something entirely different from it. One wants room to improvise. Another wants to know who will deliver what and when. One person thinks out loud. Another needs quiet before a useful answer appears.
I wanted to know how often those differences occur in our own practice. I therefore analysed 2,705 completed profiles on Personal User Guide. They are based on the Big Five questionnaire. No names, individual profiles, or personal stories were used. The report contains aggregates only, and every reported group includes at least fifty profiles.
The short conclusion is that there is no convincing average colleague. Every preference includes substantial groups. Treating one meeting style, planning method, or feedback format as normal is therefore a poor fit for many people.
Five word rows used in personal user guides
The analysis covers five kinds of preferences that appear in everyday life: dealing with innovation, planning, contact, interests, and tension. Personal user guides summarise each preference with three recognisable words:
These words are not grades. Progressive is not better than conventional, and focused is not better than flexible. Every preference has a strength and a risk. A focused colleague may plan reliably but seek too much control. A flexible colleague may improvise quickly but leave uncertainty unresolved.
Demo profiles that we created ourselves are excluded. Their answers were not provided by the people they describe, so they do not belong in research about real users.
The overall picture
No word row has one clear standard. All three preferences are well represented in every row. It is therefore better to ask what someone needs than to assume your way of working is normal.
The preferences around planning and contact show especially large differences. Do you prefer to form ideas together in a room, or think alone first? Do you plan early, or discover what is needed while working? Do you adjust as you go, or prefer to deliver something finished?
Progressive and focused are common, but never alone
Almost half the profiles are progressive. An equally large group is focused. That does not mean nearly half the population is good at innovation or planning. It means teams often include people who want to explore possibilities and people who want firm control over execution.
That creates a familiar misunderstanding. The progressive colleague experiences extra questions as brakes. The focused colleague experiences an idea without boundaries as unnecessary risk. Neither person needs to be difficult. They protect different things.
Give me room to explore three options first. After that, let us define the criteria, owner, and deadline together.
This preserves both creativity and structure.
Quiet, merry, and dominant need more than one meeting style
A quarter of profiles are quiet, 40% are merry, and 36% are dominant. A process based entirely on loud brainstorming will not work naturally for everyone. The reverse is also true: a fully written and asynchronous approach leaves others without the interaction they need.
Visibility is often confused with engagement. Someone who responds quickly and talks often looks active. Someone who processes first and returns later with a considered answer may appear distant. The distribution shows why that assumption is risky: all three preferences are well represented.
- Send the central question beforehand.
- Begin with two minutes of silent notes.
- Discuss ideas out loud.
- Leave room for written additions afterwards.
This small process choice respects quiet, merry, and dominant colleagues.
Undisturbable does not mean indifferent
Of the 2,705 profiles, 47% are undisturbable, 37% are relaxed, and 16% are sensitive. One preference is not better than another.
An undisturbable colleague may stay calm under pressure. A sensitive colleague may notice risks, tension, or social signals sooner. Teams benefit from both. Problems begin when calm is read as indifference, or alertness is dismissed as overreaction.
The same sentence, “this is not good enough yet”, can be a practical update for one person and remain in another person’s mind all evening. Feedback becomes more useful when intent, importance, and the next step are explicit:
The analysis is sound, but the conclusion is still too broad. Could you refine it tomorrow using these two examples?
Averages tell only part of the story
The averages are fairly close, but they hide how many people sit at different points in a word row. For collaboration, the distribution is therefore often more useful than a single average.
English and Dutch profiles differ a little
Two language groups exceed the privacy threshold: 2,090 English profiles and 607 Dutch profiles. This records a language preference, not a country or nationality. I therefore cannot say that Dutch people differ from English people.
Within these groups, Dutch-language profiles sit slightly further towards dominant and undisturbable than English-language profiles. Differences in the other three word rows are smaller.
These are useful questions for future research, not proof of a cultural effect. We do not know how age, sector, acquisition channel, or use case is distributed across both groups.
What the analysis cannot tell us
The current data model does not reliably record whether someone created a personal user guide for work, sports, family, dating and relationships, or personal development. Country is absent as well. I therefore did not compare these contexts or create a country ranking. That would make a more attractive story, but not a more honest one.
This is also not a representative sample of the general population. These are people who completed a profile on Personal User Guide. The analysis describes this population, not all employees or everyone in a country.
Turn preferences into concrete agreements
A word such as quiet helps only when it becomes observable behaviour. Do not write only, “I am quiet.” Write:
Send me a complex question beforehand when possible. I often listen first in a meeting; that does not mean I have no opinion. Give me room to add something afterwards.
Do not write only, “I am focused.” Make it useful:
I work best when the owner, goal, and deadline are clear. If they are still open, tell me that we are deliberately exploring.
Read how Personal User Guide works to turn preferences into practical agreements, or create a personal user guide for work. The value is not in the word itself, but in the conversation that the word helps you have earlier and more precisely.
Read next
Explore the most and least common preference combinations. To turn the words into action immediately, use the practical explanation for creating your own personal user guide.
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