The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator November 10, 2006
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Business, Communication, Entrepreneurship, Personal Growth, Psychology, Relationships, Studies, Work, Abilities, Leadership , trackbackThe topic of my term paper for the entrepreneurship course was collective entrepreneurship. Since I used the MBTI as one model on how to improve the productivity, communication and integration of a company I decided to use this material on writing the expected article on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.
As stated earlier, the MBTI is a tool on evaluating personality types and preferences. While this is most often used only on a personal level, Kari Helin of Innotiimi Oy has written a book (Ihmisten Erilaisuus - 16 tyyppiä työelämässä) also describing how teams and organizations should be formed using typology to be able to most efficiently communicate, make decisions, eliminate misunderstandings, fit people to their most suitable tasks, elicit change and renewal and be aware and working on all of the entrepreneurial aspects of a company.
This model consists of four innate preferences, but they can also be called polarities since they are not either/or’s even though a distinct combination of names is given based on the test results. It can’t be stressed enough that there are no right or wrong answers or preferences, but once the individually correct preferences are found, personal strengths can be made stronger and personal weaknesses can be worked upon. Here are the short descriptions of what the four preferences mean.
Introvert – Extrovert
A common misconception is that introvert people are shy, anti-social and have low levels of self confidence and/or self esteem. This preference merely explains where one rather spends their time, in the internal mind or the external world. Simply put, introverts drain their energy when socializing and gaining external input and need solitude to recharge themselves. For extroverts the energy movement is vice versa. Introverts gain thoughts through listening and extroverts gain thoughts through speaking out loud.
The most common untapped resource in organizations and companies is how to get introverts to speak their mind, ideas and solutions and make them understandable. While this is not as big of a concern in Finland, it is in Anglo-American countries where they can even be discriminated and bullied. Introverts can for instance first get the required background information, then think things through overnight and lastly, write their thoughts down on paper for everyone in the team to read. Exceptional ideas and solutions may be discovered.
Sensing – iNtuition
This preference refers to how you learn new information and how you define reality. Is it through the five senses or “the sixth sense��? – intuition. With a four to one population ratio, sensing people are focused on details and keep the world running while intuitive people think in a big picture and move the world forward. This is also commonly used to separate managers who want to do things right and leaders who want to do the right things.
Once again, the preferences work on a gray scale and any given person can be equally capable of both positions. Intuitive people’s thoughts are non-linear and take much effort to verbally or visually explain. These people are often pondering how to change, improve and create new things that provide a better solution to anything they put their mind to. Therefore, the work of gathering the details and components that actually put the idea into action is rather appointed to sensing people who like to use their hands to tangibly make for instance a machine to work.
Thinking – Feeling
Do you make your decisions based on reason and logic or emotions and morale? Rational thinkers can often be perceived as cold, distant, frank and demanding. Strongly feeling people can on the other hand be thought as overly sensitive, soft, unstable and too people pleasing. Thinkers want to lead things and structure while feelers want to lead people and well being.
Two people on both ends of this preference usually have very bad chemistry and instead of creating success, it creates conflicts and arguments. The innotiimi model of team structure adds link roles to work on this gap. This model and the OPERA-meeting system can be read and studied in-depth in Kari Helin’s book, if you understand Finnish that is.
Judging – Perceiving
The last preference describes people’s lifestyle and overall structure. Judging people are organized and precautious about their time, finances and surroundings while perceiving people are spontaneous, leisurely and take one day at a time. Judgers make decisions quick because they want things settled while perceivers feel no rush to decide because they want things open-ended.
In today’s companies about 70 % of leaders and managers are Thinking Judging, while this combination exists in about 25 % of the population. Since there is a shift going on from the industrial age to the information age this is where the change is constantly happening. With company well-being, HRM and personnel management getting increasingly important, feeling people are stepping up to take charge. Even perceiving people are rising in the corporate ladder since creativity and imagination can be an asset when planning intangible issues like good-will, brand development and network integration.
So what more is this useful for? One of the greatest pieces of information provided in the book is how to make changes happen successfully. Whatever the magnitude and object of a change is, it flows in three phases – Start-up, organization and completion. EN and IN people are naturally inclined to create new things and start the process of renewal. Then TJ and FJ people organize and structure the new idea. And finally the ES and IS who dislike or hate change make sure that it gets completed so that things are again working by routine. At this stage the iNtuitive have little interest in thinking about the change since their mind is already focused on a new innovation that improves the overall efficiency.
This is a perfect example of how important it is to have all kinds of people in the organization and most importantly, place them to do the job most suitable for them. It starts by first acknowledging which type oneself is and understanding the personal strengths. Then it can be taken further to understand other people and how to best confront them and build effective cooperation and collaboration. Finally if there is will it can be implemented to the whole organization. A collective entrepreneurship business can of course consist of 5 or 500 people so the time frame and resources needed to execute the change varies.
Outside the corporate world, for instance when attracting a suitable mate, there’s a certain system of combinations that notably work well. On the first preference it’s best that the two people are different. Introverts match well with extroverts since it’s a natural speaker/listener balance. However, the couple should share the same preference on the sensing - intuition scale. Down to earth people don’t mix very well with high flying individuals. The next preference is quite controversial. Mostly thinking and feeling people match best with their own kind, but sometimes a diversity adds a well needed counterweight to realize the importance of different-minded people. Lastly, judging individuals should find a perceiving partner. We’re just naturally more drawn to different people than ourselves, but in order to understand these combinations better, we need to dig deeper into the separate levels of functions, which I won’t write about in this article.
This presentation and the usefulness of the MBTI is mostly scratching the surface since going more in-depth involves greater insights on more personal matters which wasn’t too fitting in an academic presentation. I will soon present the most useful links concerning the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator for those of you who find this to be a fascinating subject to gain insight on.
(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)
- The Personality Page
- Personality Theory and Practice
- The Law of Polarity
- Faith and Belief
- Personal Development
Comments»
Excellent work-up of the MBTI. I’m on a forum designed expressly for introspectives and it’s a fascinating - and at times, weird - place.
But even in that narrowed-down group there are worlds of differences, so I agree that the Meyers-Briggs, taken by itself, is a hollow and misleading indicator.
Again, great article, and I’ll be watching your site closely, since I’m also on the verge of starting my website/blog after years of just having a “capabilites”-style site.
Thanks, Johan!
And I thank you in return for the comment.
I’m sure you’ll find more entries fitting your needs and interests in the near future when I write more about blogging as well.
Sifu Phil-
Do you teach kung fu? I took Ving Tsun for hot minute…
I wonder if there is a self-selection ratio (self-choosing) of styles particulary in Kung Fu with the different animal styles. For example, the Panther seems most appropriate with the description of the ISTP personality type. Anyone done any wrk on this?
Interested in Austin