November 3, 2025 • 35 mins
Join host Adam Larson for an insightful and refreshingly human conversation with Todd Thornock, Associate Professor at University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Academic Research Fellow at the Institute of Management Accountants. Todd brings a unique blend of academic research and real-world perspective to the art of understanding and motivating your team. In this episode, he explains why being “people first” matters even in a numbers-driven field like accounting and shares personal stories and surprising research findings on personality traits in the workplace. Discover practical tips to build trust, curiosity, and self-awareness as a leader, and learn how understanding the individual personalities on your team can transform your workplace culture. If you’re looking for thoughtful takeaways and fresh motivation to connect with your colleagues, this conversation is packed with useful insights and inspiration to help you lead with empathy and intention.
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Episode Transcript
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Adam Larson (00:05):
Welcome to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson.
Today, I'm thrilled to sit downwith doctor Todd Thornock,
associate professor at theUniversity of Nebraska Lincoln
and academic research fellow atIMA. In our chat, Todd explains
why we're people first even inthe accounting world built on
structure and numbers. He breaksdown how personality shapes
decision making, reveals theunexpected positives of traits
(00:27):
like physiological entitlement,and shares practical strategies
for managers looking to get thebest out of their teams.
Todd also speaks candidly abouthow personal experience drives
his approach to leadership andwhy curiosity and servant
leadership matter more thanever. Whether you lead a team or
just want new ideas for buildinga better workplace, there's
something here for you. Let'sget started. Well, Todd, I'm
(00:55):
really excited to have you onthe podcast today. And the
reason I wanted you to come onis is at our conference just,
over little over a month ago,you spoke about people power,
the art of understanding andmotivating your team.
And it's a conversation thatcomes up a lot, especially when
I'm talking with differentindividuals, talking about
cultures, talking aboutleadership. But you come with a
(01:16):
very unique perspective of youhave a lot of the research side
and the academic thought processbehind a lot of these things
that that people go through.We're all accountants. You know,
we're accounts who are listeningto this podcast. But one thing
you just said just just justbefore we started recording, you
said we're people first.
And maybe we could just startthere. We're people first. And
what kind of got you interestedin in looking into this topic?
Todd Thornock (01:37):
Well, it's such an interesting thing. I'm gonna
step back just a touch becauseI'm such an accountant. Know?
High school, I loved the orderof things, and my brother and
mom were accountants, and so Ithought, I thought, oh, I'm
gonna do accounting until Idon't like it. I just loved the
debits and credits, the order,the structure, the correctness
(01:58):
of a lot of parts of accounting.
But as I got more and more intoit, I realized accounting isn't
just that. Those are some toolswe use. But accounting is more
about communication, aboutpeople, about having someone on
either end. And as I decided toget into research and do my PhD,
it was the psychological side ofaccounting and decision making
(02:20):
that started to grab my interestand really pulled me into, you
know, the studies that I wasgoing to partake in, and it
naturally drew me to thesedifferences in individuals. And
we are people first, and myadviser had a had a quote in a
discussion that he did, youknow, that organizations don't
make decisions.
People do. And that thosedecisions are gonna be formed by
(02:44):
the and, like, I'm slaughteringthe quote, but but gonna be
formed by the personalities ofthose people. So that's all of
those decisions are informed bywho we are as individuals, as
people first. And so for me,it's been a very natural
progression, but I think I don'tthink I saw that if I in
practice, when I was in publicaccounting or even if I'd gone
to practice, I don't know if Iwould have made that connection
(03:06):
of how important per people andpersonality is to accounting and
decisions that we make withinorganizations.
Adam Larson (03:15):
And I can just imagine, like, somebody
listening to this podcast andsaying, wait. What about
personalities and the people fordecision making? Because when
you're hiring somebody or you'relooking to build your team,
you're always looking at, willthis person fit? Do they have
the skills that work? But inthat making sure that person
fits, that's looking at theirpersonality and looking at how
they interact with you and howthey might interact with the
(03:36):
team.
What are some things that peopleshould start keeping in mind
when they're thinking aboutpersonalities? Because it's when
you say the word personality,maybe maybe we can start by what
do you mean by that? Becauseit's like somebody might say
personality and say, okay. Well,that that person is is nice to
me. That's their personality,but it it means so much more
than that.
Todd Thornock (03:53):
Yeah. Personality has, a we have our connotations
to them. Usually, you say, oh,that person's a personality,
well, then you're like, okay.Well, they're they're they're
gonna be very unique orwhatever. Well, we're all
unique, and we're we have acombination.
We're formed of a combination ofof personal characteristics. We
have obviously those immutablecharacteristics. But really,
personality, as defined when wetalk about it from a research or
(04:17):
very specific side, these aredispositional characteristics of
an individual. How do we thinkand feel? These are usually
enduring, stable type traitsthat don't go any anywhere, and
these influence how we perceivesituations, maybe how we adapt
to things, adapt to challenges,and ultimately how we behave.
So, you know, I might care a lotabout something specific, and
(04:40):
that is is driven by apersonality characteristic. Now
these constitute ourselves,these qualities and
characteristics, a combinationof them will constitute who we
are. We might have onepersonality characteristic, and
we have another one that mighthelp offset certain things. I
shared at the talk a month agoat the conference that, you
(05:00):
know, I'm I'm relatively high inpsychological entitlement. And
if I go walk around saying, hey.
I'm entitled. I mean, it soundsreally funny, but when I think
about other characteristics thatmight help offset some of the
negative sides of entitlement,maybe. Mhmm. But we're a
combination, and so it's reallyhard to look at somebody and
say, I know exactly who theyare. But there are certain
(05:21):
traits that we can detect thathave consistent that interact
with the environment in a veryconsistent manner.
And so when we're meetingpeople, we're getting to know
them. Yes. I think one of thekey things and maybe the
question that you were askingwas, well, what what can we do?
I think being open and curious,being aware is probably one of
the biggest ways. Oh, oh, I'mcoming into a situation.
(05:43):
I'm interacting with someone Imay or may not know. Let me be a
little curious about who thisindividual is. Let me observe.
And I know that's not naturalfor me. It's something I've had
to learn over a lot of time, butthat is one of the things to be
aware, and differences in peopledo not create problems, really.
We talk about fit when we'rehiring, but fit comes in a lot
(06:04):
of different different manners.Is that fit meaning they're
similar to other people on theteam, or is that fit meaning
they bring a certain skill setthat the team actually needs
that doesn't currently have?Both of those could be
considered fit depending on thegoals or what the objective is.
And so being aware of that isimportant. And what I think
often we're not very informed, Iguess, on the benefits of
(06:29):
different personalities.
I think there might be a naturaltendency to get to the negative
side of certain personalitycharacteristics that we do
observe, because research hasshown that we are actually
really good observers ofpersonality, especially the
outwardly expressed ones. We'revery good at it as human beings.
But do we know what the the goodsides are and the bad? And that
(06:51):
was something that's driven someof my researches. I'm like, I
know this has got a negativeside to it, but what about the
positive sides?
I'm really digging into that.
Adam Larson (06:59):
So it's interesting you say the the positive and
negative sides because you youmentioned about, you said
entitlement, academicentitlement. Like, you have this
you have this psych like, sorry.The wording you use
Todd Thornock (07:11):
Psychological.
Adam Larson (07:11):
Yeah. Psychological entitlement. It's this it's
interesting that you say thatbecause when somebody says the
word entitlement, somebodythinks that person thinks so
highly of themselves. I don'twanna deal with them or, like,
you automatically go to thenegative side of that.
Absolutely.
But there's also positive sides.Right?
Todd Thornock (07:27):
And that yeah. So I'll talk a little bit about
entitlement. So entitlementYeah. I have a friend who does
research in this in inpersonality and did has started
way before that. And I wassitting at a conference,
listened to this.
This is right after I hadgraduated. I'd done a lot of
research on performancefeedback, something I find
really interesting for a numberof reasons. And he brought up
(07:47):
the fact that, you know, one ofthe sub traits of narcissism is
psychological entitlement andthat something he said linked
that to feedback, that theymight be different in how they
receive and respond toperformance feedback. And that
really struck me as, oh, I'dlike to learn a little bit more
about that. And so as I dug intopsychological entitlement, we
(08:07):
often think about the entitledgeneration.
It's all about me, me, me. It'sthe me generation. I think the
millennial generation was thefirst one where entitlement was
supposed to be, like, one ofthose characteristics that
seemed to be different thanother generations. And as we dug
into it, psychologicalentitlement is is a little bit
more common than we think. It'sthe believing that we deserve
(08:31):
more just because of who we are.
Right? So that could be anentitlement like I it's not the
deserving. Like, I didsomething, therefore, I'm
entitled to receive. You know,that's kind of transactional and
very understanding. This is moreI'm of value.
I think I should get somethingbecause I'm just who I am, and
that has both positive andnegative sides. But it's when
(08:52):
you think you can deservesomething regardless of your
actions, in a work environment,that can have some really,
really critical tensions. So oneof our studies, we looked at
that side of things where peoplecould self report their
performance, and we foundindividuals that were higher in
entitlement unsurprisinglyoverreported more, and that
(09:14):
means that they got paid more,and it wasn't because they were
necessarily lying, they justgave themselves the benefit of
the doubt when they wereevaluating their performance in
a way that was a bit selfish, tobe honest. And so there's that
negative side, for sure, thatcan manifest in a lot of ways.
And we also have seen otherthings with psychological
(09:34):
entitlement, where they don'tnecessarily have as much respect
for their peers.
They think themselves abovetheir peers. And so our first
study we looked at wasperformance feedback and
entitlement. And we found thatfor feedback provided by a peer
that the psychologicallyentitled, the higher you were in
that, the less you responded tothat negative feedback. We
(09:54):
focused primarily on negativefeedback because that's one of
the harder things to give is youdidn't perform as high as your
expectations or the goal orbenchmark. Not negative like
being mean or anything, justsaying, here's the benchmark.
You performed lower than that.And we found that with the peer
feedback provider, the highpsychologically entitled
(10:15):
responded very poorly to thatversus the low psychologically
entitled actually respondedreally well to a peer. The flip
side of that was a moreauthoritative supervisor like
feedback provider. That's wherethe pattern actually flipped
entirely. The highpsychologically entitled
responded way better, worked alot harder, improved performance
(10:35):
more versus the lowpsychologically entitled.
And we argued and had someevidence that this had to do
with psychologically entitledindividuals' views of their
peers, that they felt superiorto them. And this kind of led to
our second study. They caredabout how they were viewed in
the eyes of superiors, a littlebit of ingratiation.
Adam Larson (10:58):
It's interesting. Like, you say you're saying
that, you know, where the thepsychological entitlement, it's
there's that when a peer givesyou feedback, you you're not
more apt to hear those things.But sometimes the peer is
probably the most valuablefeedback because they're the one
doing the same work or doingsimilar work to you that they
can really give you thatfeedback. And I I wonder why
(11:19):
that is. Why is it that we haveand whether your cycle I wonder
if we all have a little bit ofthat psychological entitlement
in us because when when when apeer when somebody who's a peer
gives you feedback, it dependson the day.
Like, I I just I'm gonna reflectto myself. It depends on the
day. If I've had a really roughday and somebody and a peers
come to me saying, you did thisand, you know, and that's all
(11:40):
the how they deliver it, everall that stuff. But if a peer
comes and gives me feedback, onon some days, I'll be like, oh,
yeah. Thank you.
This is great. Like, I canreally improve upon myself. But
then other days, it's like, whyare you talking to me? How how
do you feel? Like, suddenly, youhave this emotion and it all
like, so why do you think thatis?
Why do you think there's thatthere's a up and down so much
with those?
Todd Thornock (12:00):
Well, that's a really great point. And this is
varying a little bit off of myresearch, but I think from what
I've kind of garnered. Andthat's okay because this is a
discussion. I don't need to bean expert to my academic peers.
But I've seen a lot.
And when it comes to how werespond to peer feedback, I
think a lot of it dependsbecause it depends on the day,
there are so many other factorsthat come into it. It's not just
(12:22):
the source telling us somethingnegative, but it's also, well,
what does that mean in thecontext of how our project is
going? Or what about will themanager see? Or, you know, do I
have rapport with this one? Havethey given me positive feedback
in the in the past?
You know, to balance that out,do I trust the individual? Trust
is one of those things,especially for peer feedback,
(12:44):
I've noticed is often reallyimportant. I get negative
feedback regularly. I'm gonnause my like, my wife gives me
negative feedback. Hey.
Here's something that we expect.You're here, and she's very but
there's trust. There's a levelof trust. And so while it might
not be fun to hear it, I also ammuch more willing to incorporate
it to do something different inour family organization. And I
(13:06):
would say that that that mirrorin there in a in a, you know, a
a for profit or even just reallyin any other kind of
organization.
I don't think profit is the onlything there, but if there's that
level of trust with that peerand that trust can be built up
in a lot of ways, then I think Ithink we can get to respond more
(13:28):
consistently and better. But,yeah, a lot of factors, Adam. I
think that that's a reallyinteresting thing. One thing I
failed to mention with the goodsides, and this one blew us away
when we were doing the secondstep, And I kind of alluded to
it a little bit where highpsychologically entitled
misreported more and worked lesswhen they could self report, and
there was no evidence that theythat would ever be seen. We had
(13:49):
them, like, filling out mazes.
So I know this is kinda funny,but we do this in experiment for
control. We hired them. We paidthem for every maze that they
completed. Better put, we paidthem for every maze they said
they completed correctly. And sowe they had to fill out the
mazes and then put the numberinto the computer.
And there are a lot of workenvironments where we can't
(14:09):
verify performance. We have torely on some self reports that
someone did something. Whetherthey did it right or not may
come to light at some point, andit may not. And so in one of the
conditions, there was noevidence that these MACE packets
would ever be looked at. And soall we were gonna do is we were
gonna pay them based on whatthey reported and not there's no
deception or anything associatedwith that.
(14:31):
And that's where we found thatinitial finding, and that is
consistent with the personality.Personality is I deserve more
just because of who I am.Therefore, I'm either going to
cheat or give myself the benefitof the doubt when it's kind of
hazy or, you know, maybe not beas careful when I'm auditing
myself. You know, there are alot of different ways that that
(14:51):
can manifest, and we show alittle bit of all of it. But the
the flip side, and this blew usaway, is once we introduced for
the other conditions, it's justsubtle monitoring.
We said these packets will belooked at at some point in the
future, and there were nomarkings on the packets to say
this is, you know, Joe or Jane'sor whatever. They're packets. So
(15:14):
there's no, like, interactionthere. I mean, these are
students, and they kind of knewwho we were as professors, but
they weren't our students. Andso Mhmm.
Maybe we'd see them in thebuilding or whatever. So there's
no real reason for them to careexcept for this is one of the
personality traits, like subtraits within a psychological
entitlement. It's calledsociotropy. They have a desire
(15:37):
to be seen well by others, forothers to think well of them.
And I think about that and go,oh, yeah.
I have that probably in spades,maybe a little too much, where I
do some things to be seen.
Adam Larson (15:49):
Mhmm.
Todd Thornock (15:50):
But that that motivates me. And so we, you
know, predicted that it wouldjust kind of reduce
psychological entitlements'desire to get more without the
work. Right? And what we endedup finding was it not only
reduced it, but theirmisreporting dropped to
extremely low levels below thelow psychologically entitled
group. They continued tomisreport about the same level.
(16:12):
And remember, that's not juststealing. That's also just being
wrong, not auditing yourselfvery well. But they were
extremely careful. Theirmisreporting dropped, and their
actual true performance, howmany of these mazes they
completed properly went abovethe low psychological entitle.
So not only did it just kind of,like, reduce the bad, it
(16:32):
actually magnified a good withinthat personality trait to
respond with greater effort anddiligence when there's some
level of accountability.
Now this isn't, like, harshoversight, and we're very
careful because there isresearch that shows that
psychologically entitledactually do buck at authority.
You're kind of, like, lookingdown on them and very but it was
(16:54):
just more accountability. Youknow what? We're gonna be
looking at this at some point inthe future. There was no penalty
attached to it.
No anything. It was just yourwork will be visible to other
people. And we found that thatthat not only reduced the bad,
but, manifested a reallyimportant trait of
psychologically entitled that ifmanagers can can access that
(17:17):
trait, their performance isgonna be higher in pursuing your
goals and objectives of thefirm. So I wanna that one one
blew us away. The first one waslike, oh, that's kind of
understandable with feedback andthings and stuff, but this one
really surprised us.
We were not expecting that.
Adam Larson (17:34):
Yeah. That it shows the positive side of the
psychological entitlementbecause we all have an element
of it. And how can you respondto it as a manager even just,
like, just that little bit of ofaccountability? Because as you
said, you know, when somebodyhad like, when you get to that
micromanager level ofaccountability, a lot of us
kinda bucket that because that'sa Yeah. It's not it's not a fun
(17:56):
environment to be on.
It's not it's not collaborative,and you're you're spending all
your time just updating yourboss on things and actually
getting work done. But that lowlevel accountability because
that what I was thinking whenyou first started talking, I was
like, well, are there positivebenefits? And then as you were
chatting, of course, you kind ofkind of show those positive
benefits. And it's kind of gotme thinking where how how can we
(18:19):
how can we help understand thepersonalities of people who we
work with a little bit better?Like, because there's all those,
like, there's all those tests,like, personalities tests, but
those those are cookie cutterput you in some sort of a box,
and and I don't know that thoseare the best form of of finding
that out.
Todd Thornock (18:35):
And, honestly, when people are filling those
out, they also know that they'rebeing monitored. And so if I'm
in a screening because a lot offirms do do screening
personality tests. Right?
Adam Larson (18:45):
Yeah.
Todd Thornock (18:45):
And, you know, how accurate are they if I know
that I'm gonna be evaluated andmaybe assigned on Teams based on
one thing or another, and it canbe turned into a game of some
sort. That is one way.
Adam Larson (18:58):
Yeah.
Todd Thornock (18:58):
Right? And it's a legitimate way, especially those
who are in the market of sellingthose kind of assessment
products are very cognizant of alot of that. I'm a little more
skeptical as an academic, but atthe same time, what measure what
ways do we have? That's a greatquestion. And so I've done I've
done quite a bit of just kindalooking into it.
So these kind of screening toolsare used. There's a lot of them
(19:21):
that get at some personalitycharacteristics or others. In
the academic world, we havethese metrics that can be used.
But, again, if they're linkedwith employment, are people
gonna be as honest with that?And so these self reports for
personality can have theirdownsides.
There's no doubt about it. Theyare surprisingly robust when you
look at broadly, but once youbring it into an organizational
(19:43):
environment, then they might notbe as accurate. Some of the
things that we've thought aboutbecause we had to think about
this a lot. In our research, weoften get, well, how is this
applicable? Like, you found thisthing in a lab.
Okay. Great. Well, how is thisuseful for managers? And so
we've been thinking about thissince that first paper eight
years ago.
Adam Larson (20:01):
Yeah.
Todd Thornock (20:02):
Like, how are we able to figure out personality?
I think the step one, we talkeda little bit about it offline,
this this idea for beingcurious. Right? We need to be
open and aware. Be aware ofpeople is what I said, and that
requires a little bit ofcuriosity, pulling back a bit on
judgment, which is hard to do ina very corporate, goal centered,
(20:24):
high speed, high pay you know,the fast paced world to kinda
step back and go, how can Iunderstand my people?
Like, what are some ways that Ican understand who they are? And
that requires a little bit ofself reflection. So if you don't
wanna understand yourself, whywould you wanna understand
another individual? And this issomething that I've learned over
the last five or six years. Istart to understand my people,
(20:47):
the people I'm around, whetherI'm supervising them or working
with them or not, understandthem better as I come to
understand myself better.
So probably step number one isbeing curious, kind of at the
self level first, withholdingsome judgment. It doesn't mean
that we can't make judgmentsabout behavior, but I think just
putting on pause all of ourpreconceived notions, I would
(21:08):
say, of who people are, maybeeven putting aside some of our
preconceived negative parts ofpersonality traits, and I'll get
to that in a little bit. But,you know, we do have an ability,
like research has shown thathumans are very good at
detecting personalities that arevery outwardly expressed. Like,
(21:29):
the inwardly expressedpersonality variables, those are
a lot harder to get out fromjust interacting with somebody,
but I'm sure anyone anyonelistening to this podcast knows
that they they can pick out asituation where they've met
somebody for the first time, andwithin, you know, within thirty
seconds or less, whether that'sthrough a body language, through
some of the words they say,certain personality
(21:50):
characteristics start tomanifest. Right?
And so Yeah. Yeah. Those are notinaccurate assessments of
personality. And they might notbe perfect. I mean, we don't we
don't you know, the the firstimpressions, because that's kind
of a first impression thing,those typically are are are more
accurate than we give themcredit for.
Although, would say not 100%accurate. So you always gotta be
(22:13):
a little bit careful with that,but it is a way that we can
start detecting personality andpersonality traits. And if I get
if I ever got a sense that Ihave an entitled employee, I
would be I would try to take thelessons I've learned on that to
go, okay. How can I use thelessons I've learned to help get
the most out of this employee?There might be some negative
sides for it that are notsuitable for the job, that, I
(22:36):
mean, of course, trying to findthe right fit, we'd have to
consider that as well.
So it's something else that sohow else do we see these things?
So I think we can observethings. This really hit home,
and I shared a story. It wasn'tplanned. But when I was doing
the talk at the conference, itclicked to me that it something
about my son.
So there's a quote that Ishared. It says, how knoweth a
(22:59):
man the master whom he has notserved and who is a stranger
unto him and is far from thethoughts and intents of his
heart. So how do we know anindividual that we haven't
served? So this really hit hometo me about eight years ago. I
changed jobs.
I moved from Iowa StateUniversity to University of
(23:21):
Nebraska, and we had just boughtour dream home in Iowa, and we
couldn't sell it right away. Soit's about a little over a three
hour drive between the two. Myoldest son was about to enter
high school, and it just madesense for us to find an
apartment in Lincoln, Nebraska.And during the week, we'd live
together, and he'd go to school,and I'd do my job. And then on
the weekend, we'd go back hometo the rest of my family.
(23:44):
So a little bit more backstory.This is my oldest son at the
time. He was 15 or so, and Inever connected well with my
son. I mean, just frankly, Ididn't understand him. We
actually didn't know this untilright about that time, but he
was autistic, high functioningautistic.
We could never figure it out asnew parents, why things were a
(24:05):
little bit different for ourson. And after talking to some
professionals, we were able toofficially get the diagnosis
that made everything click. Nowautism is not exactly
personality, but any of thelisteners know, and any of you
guys that know an autisticindividual, there are
characteristics that are similaracross autistic individuals.
And, you know, my son is veryhigh functioning. He lives on
(24:27):
his own now.
He's 23. He lives on his own,but he's there are a lot of
characteristics of hispersonality that are there. And
and for me and this was reallysomething I needed, I needed
that year of just me and himworking together, serving
together. I made food for him. Imade sure he had all of his
(24:48):
school appointments done.
I was the sole provider for myson who I did not understand his
personality at all. I mean, knewhim as my child, but not some of
these deeper characteristicsthat if I knew then or before
then what I know now aboutautism, how much better of a
father could I have been, howcould I have done better? And I
(25:10):
am not doing that to, you know,beat myself up, but that
opportunity to serve him for ayear helped me understand my son
and be able to help him get themost out of this life that is is
very difficult for that for forautistic individuals. And so
that connection of serving ourpeople and getting to know them
(25:33):
through that service can thenhelp us better be able to get
the most out of who they are asindividuals. And so, yeah, that
that changed my life, and Inever would have seen it happen,
and it it's a big deal, that weget to know the people by
serving them.
And that's where servantleadership comes in. That's not
(25:53):
the point of this podcast, but Ithink we get to know people as
we serve them.
Adam Larson (25:59):
I appreciate you sharing that that that that
story because there's there's alot of elements to that that
when you're when you apply it tothe workplace, it's it's it's
it's hugely important because alot of times we work with
people, so we're side by sidewith them, but we don't ever
actually take the time to get toknow them. We don't take the
time to understand them in a lotof ways. And I think that's why
(26:20):
it's so important to haveactivities that maybe are not
work focused, to have timeswhere you kind of have that
personable side. Because unlessyou have that personal
connection, can't really it'shard to build trust with people.
It's hard to move beyond justthe straight, you know, I'm just
doing these things to meet thesenumbers and to meet our bottom
(26:40):
line, and that's it.
But like we said when we firststarted the podcast, like we
said when we first started thepodcast, we are we are we're
humans first before we becomeaccountants. We're humans first
before we become somebody'semployee, before we become
somebody's boss. And rememberingthat and being curious seems
like it it it seems like it's animportant aspect of leadership
that is not always taught. Like,you teach it like, if if you
(27:04):
learn about servant leadership,you know, you kinda hear about
it from that side of things. Butwhen you're looking at typical
leadership courses, they don'tsay, hey.
You know, sit down and get toknow your people and serve them
a little bit. And and when yousay serve them, can you maybe
you could talk a little bit moremore about what you mean by
that.
Todd Thornock (27:19):
I think that's a great point. At the outset, it's
something I'm I'm very aware of.When we are in these
environments where we have goalsthat we have to meet and we're
trying to achieve the objectivesof the organization, those can
be I mean, those are the drivingforce for why we get together.
Adam Larson (27:35):
Yeah.
Todd Thornock (27:36):
And I'm not saying put those aside
completely to just get to knowpeople and become friends with
everybody because that's notgonna be the case. There are a
lot of people that we just won'tbe friends with, but the point
is trying to figure out how whothese individuals are, being
open to that. Maybe you becomefriends, maybe you don't, but if
(27:59):
you can understand where they'recoming from, you'll have a
better idea of how to get themost out of them, how to have
help them have a betterexperience, and it's not just
trying to use our employees, buttrying to get the most out of
them in these organizationalsettings. So when you said the
serving, on the serving side,these can come in lots of
different ways. I mean,obviously, a parent child
(28:20):
serving that service withbetween a parent and child are
very different than employees.
But I think what you're sayingis openness to other people,
seeing people for who they are.That could be that is so simple
to just ask them a question. Bekind of outside of yourself, and
there are a lot of, you know,lot of tips and tricks to how to
do this. It comes more naturallyto some than others, and and it
(28:43):
could just be in the littlethings. Right?
Mhmm. You know, you see thatsomebody needs help with
something, and you just go, hey.You know, let's let's help them
out. And I service comes in alot of different ways. I think
where it starts is just beingmindful of others.
Adam Larson (28:58):
Mhmm.
Todd Thornock (28:58):
Being mindful. Just being outside. I'm often in
my own head, and I'm walking anddoing my thing, whether it's,
you know, in the morning tryingto get ready for the day or
otherwise, but it's juststopping for a second and being
a little outside yourself to go,oh, okay. There are others
around me. What can I do?
And I think there are smallthings. Some people, that comes
very natural. Some, it doesn't.It's not the only way to get to
(29:20):
know your people, but it is avery quick way. And so I think
servant leaders come in a lot ofdifferent ways.
You gotta get that leadershipjob done. There are objectives
and goals, but along the way,what are are those
characteristics that you'redemonstrating to get to know
others? And I think it's more ofa mindset. I would call most of
that the serving side a mindsetbecause if you're aware of other
(29:43):
people, you are gonna see wheretheir needs are, and it doesn't
mean your needs can't be metbecause that awareness doesn't
have to be a 100% of the time.That awareness can be, you know
what?
I'm gonna take a little bit oftime to just think about my team
and think where I mean, I don'teven know how to spend that
much, but let me think througheach individual. And there have
been times where that has beensuper helpful in organizations
(30:03):
I've worked in of just takingtime, and let's talk about each
individual, not very long, notin gossipy, just what are their
needs, what are they doing, whatcan we do to help? And that
might be that that's anawareness that is not a time
consuming awareness. That's justbeing Yeah. Deliberate and
intentional about thinking aboutyour people.
And through that, you'll be ableto have those opportunities to
(30:23):
serve and get to know thembetter.
Adam Larson (30:25):
Well, and and if you find if you if you do those
activities and you're successfulat kind of being aware and being
mindful of the people around youand the people you work with, it
ultimately will affect yourbottom line because people will
be more helpful. They'll be moresatisfied in their job. They'll
be more excited and more engagedbecause they're connecting with
(30:45):
folks, and they have the propermotivation. Because that's the
hardest thing is getting thatproper motivation because
there's so many aspects of ourjobs and our lives that are
happening that affect how we doour daily job. And so making it
an easier transition for peoplebecause we have a lot of things
that we deal with outside ofwork.
And when you come to work,there's more things you have to
(31:06):
deal with, and you and and sobeing able to balance all those
things in a proper way allows usto be better employees, it
seems.
Todd Thornock (31:12):
Yeah. I I you know, at the outset of this of
understanding and motivatingyour people, the point is every
organization has strategies andgoals that need to be achieved.
If it's a for profit entity,that I mean, that's making the
shareholders happy. Right?That's that's making the sale.
It's doing all of those thingsthat are really important. And
if it's a not for profit entity,there's still constituents that
(31:33):
need the services or whatever'sbeing provided. So whatever
organization you're a part of,there are goals that need to be
achieved, and those need to beachieved through effort,
coordination, all of thesethings that we do because no
organization is, I mean byorganization, depends on how you
define it, but it's gonna bemade up of more than one person.
So then you have differentvalues and objectives and goals
(31:55):
that need to be brought inunison. As management
accountants, we're particularlygood at helping develop control
systems, tools, and other thingsthat help bring those
incentives, align those valuesclose enough together to be able
to get the job done.
And so, yeah, that drives a lotof what we're doing. But then
once we're in that space, whatmore can we do to amplify that
(32:17):
motivation, to achieve thoseobjectives? How can we achieve
more together? And it's oftenmaybe taking a step and thinking
about these personality thatwhat each of us bring to the
table as unique individuals, whoare a complex combination of
personalities together, andwe're trying to come together to
(32:38):
meet a greater purpose. It'sactually a really beautiful
thing when you step back, but itcomes with a ton of work.
It really does. And maybe thefirst step that is, in my
observation, the hardest is justthat awareness of other people,
just taking that little bit oftime to be curious and aware,
not that much. And for me whothat's not natural, I actually
schedule it in. So I actuallytake time to go, this is my
(33:01):
structure. I need to stop andthink about this in my family
organization, at church, at mymy coauthors, in my students,
you know, those things.
I take time to stop and thinkabout that, but I I often have
to book it because I'm too busyworking on the other things that
need to be done.
Adam Larson (33:15):
Yeah. I like that. Well, Todd, this has been an
amazing conversation. I reallyappreciate you coming and
sharing with the with ouraudience today, and it's just
it's just been it's beenwonderful. And I will definitely
gotta have you back as you domore research and we have more
chats.
Todd Thornock (33:28):
Anytime. I I mean, this just scratches the
surface of a lot of things thatwe're interested in. And as a
researcher, I'm alwaysinterested in what people are
seeing. What notes are outthere, what are they seeing? I
asked questions of the group amonth ago at the conference and
got some really interestinginsights about other things.
I I feel quite blessed that Ican you know, I teach my
students, but my ability to goand just spend time thinking
(33:49):
about this, I mean, it's aprivileged position I get to be
in to do research and to thinkabout this, and I feel a strong
obligation to be able to turnaround and talk about it, to go,
okay. What does this mean forthe real world, for people who
are having to live and and makedecisions in the real life where
I I get to kinda hang out in mymy little privileged seclusion,
(34:10):
call it the the ivory Tower alittle bit, but I don't like it
up there by myself too long. Ilike talking about it. So
anytime you want me there totalk about these things, I I
really appreciate it. And any ofthe listeners, if they have any
questions, is there a way that Imean, I they can always look
look me up, reach reach out tome directly if they have any
thoughts.
Adam Larson (34:26):
Yep. Check the link in the in the podcast notes. You
can connect with Todd on onLinkedIn or anywhere else.
Todd Thornock (34:31):
Because I I love talking and continuing this
conversation with anyone who'sreally interested in what we
found and how to apply it. Imean, I would love to help. So
thanks, Adam. Appreciate it.
Announcer (34:42):
This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing
you with the latest perspectivesof thought leaders from the
accounting and financeprofession. If you like what you
heard and you'd like to becounted in for more relevant
accounting and financeeducation, visit IMA's website
at www.imanet.org.
Welcome to Count Me In. I'm your host, Adam Larson.
Today, I'm thrilled to sit downwith doctor Todd Thornock,
associate professor at theUniversity of Nebraska Lincoln
and academic research fellow atIMA. In our chat, Todd explains
why we're people first even inthe accounting world built on
structure and numbers. He breaksdown how personality shapes
decision making, reveals theunexpected positives of traits
(00:27):
like physiological entitlement,and shares practical strategies
for managers looking to get thebest out of their teams.
Todd also speaks candidly abouthow personal experience drives
his approach to leadership andwhy curiosity and servant
leadership matter more thanever. Whether you lead a team or
just want new ideas for buildinga better workplace, there's
something here for you. Let'sget started. Well, Todd, I'm
(00:55):
really excited to have you onthe podcast today. And the
reason I wanted you to come onis is at our conference just,
over little over a month ago,you spoke about people power,
the art of understanding andmotivating your team.
And it's a conversation thatcomes up a lot, especially when
I'm talking with differentindividuals, talking about
cultures, talking aboutleadership. But you come with a
(01:16):
very unique perspective of youhave a lot of the research side
and the academic thought processbehind a lot of these things
that that people go through.We're all accountants. You know,
we're accounts who are listeningto this podcast. But one thing
you just said just just justbefore we started recording, you
said we're people first.
And maybe we could just startthere. We're people first. And
what kind of got you interestedin in looking into this topic?
Todd Thornock (01:37):
Well, it's such an interesting thing. I'm gonna
step back just a touch becauseI'm such an accountant. Know?
High school, I loved the orderof things, and my brother and
mom were accountants, and so Ithought, I thought, oh, I'm
gonna do accounting until Idon't like it. I just loved the
debits and credits, the order,the structure, the correctness
(01:58):
of a lot of parts of accounting.
But as I got more and more intoit, I realized accounting isn't
just that. Those are some toolswe use. But accounting is more
about communication, aboutpeople, about having someone on
either end. And as I decided toget into research and do my PhD,
it was the psychological side ofaccounting and decision making
(02:20):
that started to grab my interestand really pulled me into, you
know, the studies that I wasgoing to partake in, and it
naturally drew me to thesedifferences in individuals. And
we are people first, and myadviser had a had a quote in a
discussion that he did, youknow, that organizations don't
make decisions.
People do. And that thosedecisions are gonna be formed by
(02:44):
the and, like, I'm slaughteringthe quote, but but gonna be
formed by the personalities ofthose people. So that's all of
those decisions are informed bywho we are as individuals, as
people first. And so for me,it's been a very natural
progression, but I think I don'tthink I saw that if I in
practice, when I was in publicaccounting or even if I'd gone
to practice, I don't know if Iwould have made that connection
(03:06):
of how important per people andpersonality is to accounting and
decisions that we make withinorganizations.
Adam Larson (03:15):
And I can just imagine, like, somebody
listening to this podcast andsaying, wait. What about
personalities and the people fordecision making? Because when
you're hiring somebody or you'relooking to build your team,
you're always looking at, willthis person fit? Do they have
the skills that work? But inthat making sure that person
fits, that's looking at theirpersonality and looking at how
they interact with you and howthey might interact with the
(03:36):
team.
What are some things that peopleshould start keeping in mind
when they're thinking aboutpersonalities? Because it's when
you say the word personality,maybe maybe we can start by what
do you mean by that? Becauseit's like somebody might say
personality and say, okay. Well,that that person is is nice to
me. That's their personality,but it it means so much more
than that.
Todd Thornock (03:53):
Yeah. Personality has, a we have our connotations
to them. Usually, you say, oh,that person's a personality,
well, then you're like, okay.Well, they're they're they're
gonna be very unique orwhatever. Well, we're all
unique, and we're we have acombination.
We're formed of a combination ofof personal characteristics. We
have obviously those immutablecharacteristics. But really,
personality, as defined when wetalk about it from a research or
(04:17):
very specific side, these aredispositional characteristics of
an individual. How do we thinkand feel? These are usually
enduring, stable type traitsthat don't go any anywhere, and
these influence how we perceivesituations, maybe how we adapt
to things, adapt to challenges,and ultimately how we behave.
So, you know, I might care a lotabout something specific, and
(04:40):
that is is driven by apersonality characteristic. Now
these constitute ourselves,these qualities and
characteristics, a combinationof them will constitute who we
are. We might have onepersonality characteristic, and
we have another one that mighthelp offset certain things. I
shared at the talk a month agoat the conference that, you
(05:00):
know, I'm I'm relatively high inpsychological entitlement. And
if I go walk around saying, hey.
I'm entitled. I mean, it soundsreally funny, but when I think
about other characteristics thatmight help offset some of the
negative sides of entitlement,maybe. Mhmm. But we're a
combination, and so it's reallyhard to look at somebody and
say, I know exactly who theyare. But there are certain
(05:21):
traits that we can detect thathave consistent that interact
with the environment in a veryconsistent manner.
And so when we're meetingpeople, we're getting to know
them. Yes. I think one of thekey things and maybe the
question that you were askingwas, well, what what can we do?
I think being open and curious,being aware is probably one of
the biggest ways. Oh, oh, I'mcoming into a situation.
(05:43):
I'm interacting with someone Imay or may not know. Let me be a
little curious about who thisindividual is. Let me observe.
And I know that's not naturalfor me. It's something I've had
to learn over a lot of time, butthat is one of the things to be
aware, and differences in peopledo not create problems, really.
We talk about fit when we'rehiring, but fit comes in a lot
(06:04):
of different different manners.Is that fit meaning they're
similar to other people on theteam, or is that fit meaning
they bring a certain skill setthat the team actually needs
that doesn't currently have?Both of those could be
considered fit depending on thegoals or what the objective is.
And so being aware of that isimportant. And what I think
often we're not very informed, Iguess, on the benefits of
(06:29):
different personalities.
I think there might be a naturaltendency to get to the negative
side of certain personalitycharacteristics that we do
observe, because research hasshown that we are actually
really good observers ofpersonality, especially the
outwardly expressed ones. We'revery good at it as human beings.
But do we know what the the goodsides are and the bad? And that
(06:51):
was something that's driven someof my researches. I'm like, I
know this has got a negativeside to it, but what about the
positive sides?
I'm really digging into that.
Adam Larson (06:59):
So it's interesting you say the the positive and
negative sides because you youmentioned about, you said
entitlement, academicentitlement. Like, you have this
you have this psych like, sorry.The wording you use
Todd Thornock (07:11):
Psychological.
Adam Larson (07:11):
Yeah. Psychological entitlement. It's this it's
interesting that you say thatbecause when somebody says the
word entitlement, somebodythinks that person thinks so
highly of themselves. I don'twanna deal with them or, like,
you automatically go to thenegative side of that.
Absolutely.
But there's also positive sides.Right?
Todd Thornock (07:27):
And that yeah. So I'll talk a little bit about
entitlement. So entitlementYeah. I have a friend who does
research in this in inpersonality and did has started
way before that. And I wassitting at a conference,
listened to this.
This is right after I hadgraduated. I'd done a lot of
research on performancefeedback, something I find
really interesting for a numberof reasons. And he brought up
(07:47):
the fact that, you know, one ofthe sub traits of narcissism is
psychological entitlement andthat something he said linked
that to feedback, that theymight be different in how they
receive and respond toperformance feedback. And that
really struck me as, oh, I'dlike to learn a little bit more
about that. And so as I dug intopsychological entitlement, we
(08:07):
often think about the entitledgeneration.
It's all about me, me, me. It'sthe me generation. I think the
millennial generation was thefirst one where entitlement was
supposed to be, like, one ofthose characteristics that
seemed to be different thanother generations. And as we dug
into it, psychologicalentitlement is is a little bit
more common than we think. It'sthe believing that we deserve
(08:31):
more just because of who we are.
Right? So that could be anentitlement like I it's not the
deserving. Like, I didsomething, therefore, I'm
entitled to receive. You know,that's kind of transactional and
very understanding. This is moreI'm of value.
I think I should get somethingbecause I'm just who I am, and
that has both positive andnegative sides. But it's when
(08:52):
you think you can deservesomething regardless of your
actions, in a work environment,that can have some really,
really critical tensions. So oneof our studies, we looked at
that side of things where peoplecould self report their
performance, and we foundindividuals that were higher in
entitlement unsurprisinglyoverreported more, and that
(09:14):
means that they got paid more,and it wasn't because they were
necessarily lying, they justgave themselves the benefit of
the doubt when they wereevaluating their performance in
a way that was a bit selfish, tobe honest. And so there's that
negative side, for sure, thatcan manifest in a lot of ways.
And we also have seen otherthings with psychological
(09:34):
entitlement, where they don'tnecessarily have as much respect
for their peers.
They think themselves abovetheir peers. And so our first
study we looked at wasperformance feedback and
entitlement. And we found thatfor feedback provided by a peer
that the psychologicallyentitled, the higher you were in
that, the less you responded tothat negative feedback. We
(09:54):
focused primarily on negativefeedback because that's one of
the harder things to give is youdidn't perform as high as your
expectations or the goal orbenchmark. Not negative like
being mean or anything, justsaying, here's the benchmark.
You performed lower than that.And we found that with the peer
feedback provider, the highpsychologically entitled
(10:15):
responded very poorly to thatversus the low psychologically
entitled actually respondedreally well to a peer. The flip
side of that was a moreauthoritative supervisor like
feedback provider. That's wherethe pattern actually flipped
entirely. The highpsychologically entitled
responded way better, worked alot harder, improved performance
(10:35):
more versus the lowpsychologically entitled.
And we argued and had someevidence that this had to do
with psychologically entitledindividuals' views of their
peers, that they felt superiorto them. And this kind of led to
our second study. They caredabout how they were viewed in
the eyes of superiors, a littlebit of ingratiation.
Adam Larson (10:58):
It's interesting. Like, you say you're saying
that, you know, where the thepsychological entitlement, it's
there's that when a peer givesyou feedback, you you're not
more apt to hear those things.But sometimes the peer is
probably the most valuablefeedback because they're the one
doing the same work or doingsimilar work to you that they
can really give you thatfeedback. And I I wonder why
(11:19):
that is. Why is it that we haveand whether your cycle I wonder
if we all have a little bit ofthat psychological entitlement
in us because when when when apeer when somebody who's a peer
gives you feedback, it dependson the day.
Like, I I just I'm gonna reflectto myself. It depends on the
day. If I've had a really roughday and somebody and a peers
come to me saying, you did thisand, you know, and that's all
(11:40):
the how they deliver it, everall that stuff. But if a peer
comes and gives me feedback, onon some days, I'll be like, oh,
yeah. Thank you.
This is great. Like, I canreally improve upon myself. But
then other days, it's like, whyare you talking to me? How how
do you feel? Like, suddenly, youhave this emotion and it all
like, so why do you think thatis?
Why do you think there's thatthere's a up and down so much
with those?
Todd Thornock (12:00):
Well, that's a really great point. And this is
varying a little bit off of myresearch, but I think from what
I've kind of garnered. Andthat's okay because this is a
discussion. I don't need to bean expert to my academic peers.
But I've seen a lot.
And when it comes to how werespond to peer feedback, I
think a lot of it dependsbecause it depends on the day,
there are so many other factorsthat come into it. It's not just
(12:22):
the source telling us somethingnegative, but it's also, well,
what does that mean in thecontext of how our project is
going? Or what about will themanager see? Or, you know, do I
have rapport with this one? Havethey given me positive feedback
in the in the past?
You know, to balance that out,do I trust the individual? Trust
is one of those things,especially for peer feedback,
(12:44):
I've noticed is often reallyimportant. I get negative
feedback regularly. I'm gonnause my like, my wife gives me
negative feedback. Hey.
Here's something that we expect.You're here, and she's very but
there's trust. There's a levelof trust. And so while it might
not be fun to hear it, I also ammuch more willing to incorporate
it to do something different inour family organization. And I
(13:06):
would say that that that mirrorin there in a in a, you know, a
a for profit or even just reallyin any other kind of
organization.
I don't think profit is the onlything there, but if there's that
level of trust with that peerand that trust can be built up
in a lot of ways, then I think Ithink we can get to respond more
(13:28):
consistently and better. But,yeah, a lot of factors, Adam. I
think that that's a reallyinteresting thing. One thing I
failed to mention with the goodsides, and this one blew us away
when we were doing the secondstep, And I kind of alluded to
it a little bit where highpsychologically entitled
misreported more and worked lesswhen they could self report, and
there was no evidence that theythat would ever be seen. We had
(13:49):
them, like, filling out mazes.
So I know this is kinda funny,but we do this in experiment for
control. We hired them. We paidthem for every maze that they
completed. Better put, we paidthem for every maze they said
they completed correctly. And sowe they had to fill out the
mazes and then put the numberinto the computer.
And there are a lot of workenvironments where we can't
(14:09):
verify performance. We have torely on some self reports that
someone did something. Whetherthey did it right or not may
come to light at some point, andit may not. And so in one of the
conditions, there was noevidence that these MACE packets
would ever be looked at. And soall we were gonna do is we were
gonna pay them based on whatthey reported and not there's no
deception or anything associatedwith that.
(14:31):
And that's where we found thatinitial finding, and that is
consistent with the personality.Personality is I deserve more
just because of who I am.Therefore, I'm either going to
cheat or give myself the benefitof the doubt when it's kind of
hazy or, you know, maybe not beas careful when I'm auditing
myself. You know, there are alot of different ways that that
(14:51):
can manifest, and we show alittle bit of all of it. But the
the flip side, and this blew usaway, is once we introduced for
the other conditions, it's justsubtle monitoring.
We said these packets will belooked at at some point in the
future, and there were nomarkings on the packets to say
this is, you know, Joe or Jane'sor whatever. They're packets. So
(15:14):
there's no, like, interactionthere. I mean, these are
students, and they kind of knewwho we were as professors, but
they weren't our students. Andso Mhmm.
Maybe we'd see them in thebuilding or whatever. So there's
no real reason for them to careexcept for this is one of the
personality traits, like subtraits within a psychological
entitlement. It's calledsociotropy. They have a desire
(15:37):
to be seen well by others, forothers to think well of them.
And I think about that and go,oh, yeah.
I have that probably in spades,maybe a little too much, where I
do some things to be seen.
Adam Larson (15:49):
Mhmm.
Todd Thornock (15:50):
But that that motivates me. And so we, you
know, predicted that it wouldjust kind of reduce
psychological entitlements'desire to get more without the
work. Right? And what we endedup finding was it not only
reduced it, but theirmisreporting dropped to
extremely low levels below thelow psychologically entitled
group. They continued tomisreport about the same level.
(16:12):
And remember, that's not juststealing. That's also just being
wrong, not auditing yourselfvery well. But they were
extremely careful. Theirmisreporting dropped, and their
actual true performance, howmany of these mazes they
completed properly went abovethe low psychological entitle.
So not only did it just kind of,like, reduce the bad, it
(16:32):
actually magnified a good withinthat personality trait to
respond with greater effort anddiligence when there's some
level of accountability.
Now this isn't, like, harshoversight, and we're very
careful because there isresearch that shows that
psychologically entitledactually do buck at authority.
You're kind of, like, lookingdown on them and very but it was
(16:54):
just more accountability. Youknow what? We're gonna be
looking at this at some point inthe future. There was no penalty
attached to it.
No anything. It was just yourwork will be visible to other
people. And we found that thatthat not only reduced the bad,
but, manifested a reallyimportant trait of
psychologically entitled that ifmanagers can can access that
(17:17):
trait, their performance isgonna be higher in pursuing your
goals and objectives of thefirm. So I wanna that one one
blew us away. The first one waslike, oh, that's kind of
understandable with feedback andthings and stuff, but this one
really surprised us.
We were not expecting that.
Adam Larson (17:34):
Yeah. That it shows the positive side of the
psychological entitlementbecause we all have an element
of it. And how can you respondto it as a manager even just,
like, just that little bit of ofaccountability? Because as you
said, you know, when somebodyhad like, when you get to that
micromanager level ofaccountability, a lot of us
kinda bucket that because that'sa Yeah. It's not it's not a fun
(17:56):
environment to be on.
It's not it's not collaborative,and you're you're spending all
your time just updating yourboss on things and actually
getting work done. But that lowlevel accountability because
that what I was thinking whenyou first started talking, I was
like, well, are there positivebenefits? And then as you were
chatting, of course, you kind ofkind of show those positive
benefits. And it's kind of gotme thinking where how how can we
(18:19):
how can we help understand thepersonalities of people who we
work with a little bit better?Like, because there's all those,
like, there's all those tests,like, personalities tests, but
those those are cookie cutterput you in some sort of a box,
and and I don't know that thoseare the best form of of finding
that out.
Todd Thornock (18:35):
And, honestly, when people are filling those
out, they also know that they'rebeing monitored. And so if I'm
in a screening because a lot offirms do do screening
personality tests. Right?
Adam Larson (18:45):
Yeah.
Todd Thornock (18:45):
And, you know, how accurate are they if I know
that I'm gonna be evaluated andmaybe assigned on Teams based on
one thing or another, and it canbe turned into a game of some
sort. That is one way.
Adam Larson (18:58):
Yeah.
Todd Thornock (18:58):
Right? And it's a legitimate way, especially those
who are in the market of sellingthose kind of assessment
products are very cognizant of alot of that. I'm a little more
skeptical as an academic, but atthe same time, what measure what
ways do we have? That's a greatquestion. And so I've done I've
done quite a bit of just kindalooking into it.
So these kind of screening toolsare used. There's a lot of them
(19:21):
that get at some personalitycharacteristics or others. In
the academic world, we havethese metrics that can be used.
But, again, if they're linkedwith employment, are people
gonna be as honest with that?And so these self reports for
personality can have theirdownsides.
There's no doubt about it. Theyare surprisingly robust when you
look at broadly, but once youbring it into an organizational
(19:43):
environment, then they might notbe as accurate. Some of the
things that we've thought aboutbecause we had to think about
this a lot. In our research, weoften get, well, how is this
applicable? Like, you found thisthing in a lab.
Okay. Great. Well, how is thisuseful for managers? And so
we've been thinking about thissince that first paper eight
years ago.
Adam Larson (20:01):
Yeah.
Todd Thornock (20:02):
Like, how are we able to figure out personality?
I think the step one, we talkeda little bit about it offline,
this this idea for beingcurious. Right? We need to be
open and aware. Be aware ofpeople is what I said, and that
requires a little bit ofcuriosity, pulling back a bit on
judgment, which is hard to do ina very corporate, goal centered,
(20:24):
high speed, high pay you know,the fast paced world to kinda
step back and go, how can Iunderstand my people?
Like, what are some ways that Ican understand who they are? And
that requires a little bit ofself reflection. So if you don't
wanna understand yourself, whywould you wanna understand
another individual? And this issomething that I've learned over
the last five or six years. Istart to understand my people,
(20:47):
the people I'm around, whetherI'm supervising them or working
with them or not, understandthem better as I come to
understand myself better.
So probably step number one isbeing curious, kind of at the
self level first, withholdingsome judgment. It doesn't mean
that we can't make judgmentsabout behavior, but I think just
putting on pause all of ourpreconceived notions, I would
(21:08):
say, of who people are, maybeeven putting aside some of our
preconceived negative parts ofpersonality traits, and I'll get
to that in a little bit. But,you know, we do have an ability,
like research has shown thathumans are very good at
detecting personalities that arevery outwardly expressed. Like,
(21:29):
the inwardly expressedpersonality variables, those are
a lot harder to get out fromjust interacting with somebody,
but I'm sure anyone anyonelistening to this podcast knows
that they they can pick out asituation where they've met
somebody for the first time, andwithin, you know, within thirty
seconds or less, whether that'sthrough a body language, through
some of the words they say,certain personality
(21:50):
characteristics start tomanifest. Right?
And so Yeah. Yeah. Those are notinaccurate assessments of
personality. And they might notbe perfect. I mean, we don't we
don't you know, the the firstimpressions, because that's kind
of a first impression thing,those typically are are are more
accurate than we give themcredit for.
Although, would say not 100%accurate. So you always gotta be
(22:13):
a little bit careful with that,but it is a way that we can
start detecting personality andpersonality traits. And if I get
if I ever got a sense that Ihave an entitled employee, I
would be I would try to take thelessons I've learned on that to
go, okay. How can I use thelessons I've learned to help get
the most out of this employee?There might be some negative
sides for it that are notsuitable for the job, that, I
(22:36):
mean, of course, trying to findthe right fit, we'd have to
consider that as well.
So it's something else that sohow else do we see these things?
So I think we can observethings. This really hit home,
and I shared a story. It wasn'tplanned. But when I was doing
the talk at the conference, itclicked to me that it something
about my son.
So there's a quote that Ishared. It says, how knoweth a
(22:59):
man the master whom he has notserved and who is a stranger
unto him and is far from thethoughts and intents of his
heart. So how do we know anindividual that we haven't
served? So this really hit hometo me about eight years ago. I
changed jobs.
I moved from Iowa StateUniversity to University of
(23:21):
Nebraska, and we had just boughtour dream home in Iowa, and we
couldn't sell it right away. Soit's about a little over a three
hour drive between the two. Myoldest son was about to enter
high school, and it just madesense for us to find an
apartment in Lincoln, Nebraska.And during the week, we'd live
together, and he'd go to school,and I'd do my job. And then on
the weekend, we'd go back hometo the rest of my family.
(23:44):
So a little bit more backstory.This is my oldest son at the
time. He was 15 or so, and Inever connected well with my
son. I mean, just frankly, Ididn't understand him. We
actually didn't know this untilright about that time, but he
was autistic, high functioningautistic.
We could never figure it out asnew parents, why things were a
(24:05):
little bit different for ourson. And after talking to some
professionals, we were able toofficially get the diagnosis
that made everything click. Nowautism is not exactly
personality, but any of thelisteners know, and any of you
guys that know an autisticindividual, there are
characteristics that are similaracross autistic individuals.
And, you know, my son is veryhigh functioning. He lives on
(24:27):
his own now.
He's 23. He lives on his own,but he's there are a lot of
characteristics of hispersonality that are there. And
and for me and this was reallysomething I needed, I needed
that year of just me and himworking together, serving
together. I made food for him. Imade sure he had all of his
(24:48):
school appointments done.
I was the sole provider for myson who I did not understand his
personality at all. I mean, knewhim as my child, but not some of
these deeper characteristicsthat if I knew then or before
then what I know now aboutautism, how much better of a
father could I have been, howcould I have done better? And I
(25:10):
am not doing that to, you know,beat myself up, but that
opportunity to serve him for ayear helped me understand my son
and be able to help him get themost out of this life that is is
very difficult for that for forautistic individuals. And so
that connection of serving ourpeople and getting to know them
(25:33):
through that service can thenhelp us better be able to get
the most out of who they are asindividuals. And so, yeah, that
that changed my life, and Inever would have seen it happen,
and it it's a big deal, that weget to know the people by
serving them.
And that's where servantleadership comes in. That's not
(25:53):
the point of this podcast, but Ithink we get to know people as
we serve them.
Adam Larson (25:59):
I appreciate you sharing that that that that
story because there's there's alot of elements to that that
when you're when you apply it tothe workplace, it's it's it's
it's hugely important because alot of times we work with
people, so we're side by sidewith them, but we don't ever
actually take the time to get toknow them. We don't take the
time to understand them in a lotof ways. And I think that's why
(26:20):
it's so important to haveactivities that maybe are not
work focused, to have timeswhere you kind of have that
personable side. Because unlessyou have that personal
connection, can't really it'shard to build trust with people.
It's hard to move beyond justthe straight, you know, I'm just
doing these things to meet thesenumbers and to meet our bottom
(26:40):
line, and that's it.
But like we said when we firststarted the podcast, like we
said when we first started thepodcast, we are we are we're
humans first before we becomeaccountants. We're humans first
before we become somebody'semployee, before we become
somebody's boss. And rememberingthat and being curious seems
like it it it seems like it's animportant aspect of leadership
that is not always taught. Like,you teach it like, if if you
(27:04):
learn about servant leadership,you know, you kinda hear about
it from that side of things. Butwhen you're looking at typical
leadership courses, they don'tsay, hey.
You know, sit down and get toknow your people and serve them
a little bit. And and when yousay serve them, can you maybe
you could talk a little bit moremore about what you mean by
that.
Todd Thornock (27:19):
I think that's a great point. At the outset, it's
something I'm I'm very aware of.When we are in these
environments where we have goalsthat we have to meet and we're
trying to achieve the objectivesof the organization, those can
be I mean, those are the drivingforce for why we get together.
Adam Larson (27:35):
Yeah.
Todd Thornock (27:36):
And I'm not saying put those aside
completely to just get to knowpeople and become friends with
everybody because that's notgonna be the case. There are a
lot of people that we just won'tbe friends with, but the point
is trying to figure out how whothese individuals are, being
open to that. Maybe you becomefriends, maybe you don't, but if
(27:59):
you can understand where they'recoming from, you'll have a
better idea of how to get themost out of them, how to have
help them have a betterexperience, and it's not just
trying to use our employees, buttrying to get the most out of
them in these organizationalsettings. So when you said the
serving, on the serving side,these can come in lots of
different ways. I mean,obviously, a parent child
(28:20):
serving that service withbetween a parent and child are
very different than employees.
But I think what you're sayingis openness to other people,
seeing people for who they are.That could be that is so simple
to just ask them a question. Bekind of outside of yourself, and
there are a lot of, you know,lot of tips and tricks to how to
do this. It comes more naturallyto some than others, and and it
(28:43):
could just be in the littlethings. Right?
Mhmm. You know, you see thatsomebody needs help with
something, and you just go, hey.You know, let's let's help them
out. And I service comes in alot of different ways. I think
where it starts is just beingmindful of others.
Adam Larson (28:58):
Mhmm.
Todd Thornock (28:58):
Being mindful. Just being outside. I'm often in
my own head, and I'm walking anddoing my thing, whether it's,
you know, in the morning tryingto get ready for the day or
otherwise, but it's juststopping for a second and being
a little outside yourself to go,oh, okay. There are others
around me. What can I do?
And I think there are smallthings. Some people, that comes
very natural. Some, it doesn't.It's not the only way to get to
(29:20):
know your people, but it is avery quick way. And so I think
servant leaders come in a lot ofdifferent ways.
You gotta get that leadershipjob done. There are objectives
and goals, but along the way,what are are those
characteristics that you'redemonstrating to get to know
others? And I think it's more ofa mindset. I would call most of
that the serving side a mindsetbecause if you're aware of other
(29:43):
people, you are gonna see wheretheir needs are, and it doesn't
mean your needs can't be metbecause that awareness doesn't
have to be a 100% of the time.That awareness can be, you know
what?
I'm gonna take a little bit oftime to just think about my team
and think where I mean, I don'teven know how to spend that
much, but let me think througheach individual. And there have
been times where that has beensuper helpful in organizations
(30:03):
I've worked in of just takingtime, and let's talk about each
individual, not very long, notin gossipy, just what are their
needs, what are they doing, whatcan we do to help? And that
might be that that's anawareness that is not a time
consuming awareness. That's justbeing Yeah. Deliberate and
intentional about thinking aboutyour people.
And through that, you'll be ableto have those opportunities to
(30:23):
serve and get to know thembetter.
Adam Larson (30:25):
Well, and and if you find if you if you do those
activities and you're successfulat kind of being aware and being
mindful of the people around youand the people you work with, it
ultimately will affect yourbottom line because people will
be more helpful. They'll be moresatisfied in their job. They'll
be more excited and more engagedbecause they're connecting with
(30:45):
folks, and they have the propermotivation. Because that's the
hardest thing is getting thatproper motivation because
there's so many aspects of ourjobs and our lives that are
happening that affect how we doour daily job. And so making it
an easier transition for peoplebecause we have a lot of things
that we deal with outside ofwork.
And when you come to work,there's more things you have to
(31:06):
deal with, and you and and sobeing able to balance all those
things in a proper way allows usto be better employees, it
seems.
Todd Thornock (31:12):
Yeah. I I you know, at the outset of this of
understanding and motivatingyour people, the point is every
organization has strategies andgoals that need to be achieved.
If it's a for profit entity,that I mean, that's making the
shareholders happy. Right?That's that's making the sale.
It's doing all of those thingsthat are really important. And
if it's a not for profit entity,there's still constituents that
(31:33):
need the services or whatever'sbeing provided. So whatever
organization you're a part of,there are goals that need to be
achieved, and those need to beachieved through effort,
coordination, all of thesethings that we do because no
organization is, I mean byorganization, depends on how you
define it, but it's gonna bemade up of more than one person.
So then you have differentvalues and objectives and goals
(31:55):
that need to be brought inunison. As management
accountants, we're particularlygood at helping develop control
systems, tools, and other thingsthat help bring those
incentives, align those valuesclose enough together to be able
to get the job done.
And so, yeah, that drives a lotof what we're doing. But then
once we're in that space, whatmore can we do to amplify that
(32:17):
motivation, to achieve thoseobjectives? How can we achieve
more together? And it's oftenmaybe taking a step and thinking
about these personality thatwhat each of us bring to the
table as unique individuals, whoare a complex combination of
personalities together, andwe're trying to come together to
(32:38):
meet a greater purpose. It'sactually a really beautiful
thing when you step back, but itcomes with a ton of work.
It really does. And maybe thefirst step that is, in my
observation, the hardest is justthat awareness of other people,
just taking that little bit oftime to be curious and aware,
not that much. And for me whothat's not natural, I actually
schedule it in. So I actuallytake time to go, this is my
(33:01):
structure. I need to stop andthink about this in my family
organization, at church, at mymy coauthors, in my students,
you know, those things.
I take time to stop and thinkabout that, but I I often have
to book it because I'm too busyworking on the other things that
need to be done.
Adam Larson (33:15):
Yeah. I like that. Well, Todd, this has been an
amazing conversation. I reallyappreciate you coming and
sharing with the with ouraudience today, and it's just
it's just been it's beenwonderful. And I will definitely
gotta have you back as you domore research and we have more
chats.
Todd Thornock (33:28):
Anytime. I I mean, this just scratches the
surface of a lot of things thatwe're interested in. And as a
researcher, I'm alwaysinterested in what people are
seeing. What notes are outthere, what are they seeing? I
asked questions of the group amonth ago at the conference and
got some really interestinginsights about other things.
I I feel quite blessed that Ican you know, I teach my
students, but my ability to goand just spend time thinking
(33:49):
about this, I mean, it's aprivileged position I get to be
in to do research and to thinkabout this, and I feel a strong
obligation to be able to turnaround and talk about it, to go,
okay. What does this mean forthe real world, for people who
are having to live and and makedecisions in the real life where
I I get to kinda hang out in mymy little privileged seclusion,
(34:10):
call it the the ivory Tower alittle bit, but I don't like it
up there by myself too long. Ilike talking about it. So
anytime you want me there totalk about these things, I I
really appreciate it. And any ofthe listeners, if they have any
questions, is there a way that Imean, I they can always look
look me up, reach reach out tome directly if they have any
thoughts.
Adam Larson (34:26):
Yep. Check the link in the in the podcast notes. You
can connect with Todd on onLinkedIn or anywhere else.
Todd Thornock (34:31):
Because I I love talking and continuing this
conversation with anyone who'sreally interested in what we
found and how to apply it. Imean, I would love to help. So
thanks, Adam. Appreciate it.
Announcer (34:42):
This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing
you with the latest perspectivesof thought leaders from the
accounting and financeprofession. If you like what you
heard and you'd like to becounted in for more relevant
accounting and financeeducation, visit IMA's website
at www.imanet.org.
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