Tag:

Balance

Three words that struck fear in the heart of many corporate denizens

by Ron Potter March 2, 2017

Zero Based Budgeting

The trend

This approach to annual budgeting has swept through many industries over the last few years. The old way of doing annual budgeting was to start with what your budget had been last year and then explain how much your budget was going to increase this year (it seldom went down) and explain the reasons for the increase with all kinds of documentation to justify the increase.

The new approach isn’t much different except for the starting point. Now, instead of starting with last year’s budget, you’re starting point is zero. Zero Based Budgeting. Now the justification includes everything and everyone from the ground up. If fact, the really disciplined versions start with the purpose of your group, department or project itself. Every expense from paperclips to the senior vice president must be justified.

Meeting madness

I think the verdict is still out on how this idea will fare over time but for now, it’s certainly in vogue. But there’s one aspect of corporate life that I haven’t yet seen this applied where I think it would be particularly useful: Meetings!

The average corporate life these days seems to be; arrive at the office, grab your coffee and get to the first meeting of the day, followed by back-to-back meetings for six, seven and often eight straight hours or more. People are burnt out and suffering. Ah, but there’s more, they still need to get their work done. When does that happen? Early mornings when the office is quiet or at the coffee shop before you hit the office or get in an hour before the rest of the family wakes up. Staying late, get home when you can see the kids off to bed, get in a few more hours before you collapse. Saturdays, Sundays, holidays, vacations! All because meetings are taking up the entire work day.

The proposal

But what if meetings were required to take the approach of Zero Based Budgeting? Start by justifying the purpose of the meeting itself. Then justify the resources you need; materials, equipment, people and time. Why do we need 12 people in the room when three of them will make the decision? Why do we need to sit through one or two hours when the only piece we needed to be there for happened in the first or last ten minutes? Why do we schedule in full hour increments? Why not 17-minute meetings? All meetings fill whatever time is allocated to them.

A client of mine put together one slide that explained the Vision and Mission of the company followed by the three key initiatives that needed to be accomplished that year for them to be successful. All meetings were required to start with that particular slide along with an explanation (justification) of how that particular meeting contributed to one or more of the key initiatives. If the meeting couldn’t be justified on those terms, the meeting was not allowed to be scheduled. Zero Based Meetings! That approach provided two great benefits. One, the purpose and goals of meetings became abundantly clear and two, they eliminated about 40% of the meetings from the calendar. Zero Based Meetings!

Zero-based budgeting for meetings.

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Flow

by Ron Potter February 9, 2017

Daniel Pink spoke often of getting into the flow in his book Drive. You know you’ve been in flow when you look up and you’ve completely lost track of time. You’re so engaged in your work that time is not a consideration. You’re in the flow.

Even though I experience it on a regular basis I hadn’t heard the word recently until an article by Srinivas Rao titled “What it takes to lead an extremely high flow life” caught my eye. The hints that it took to get into high flow included:

Avoid Interruptions
Work for long enough to get into flow
Do deep work

Sounds simple enough. Every team I work with lately is telling me how wonderful it is to avoid the interruptions of their daily routines. Avoiding the interruptions rewards them with the time they need to really get into some deep work. NOT!

Every team I’m engaged with is asking me to help them with the stress and pressure of their business lives. I’m observing mental stress, emotional stress, and physical stress. People are getting sick, losing touch with their family and friends and feeling that they never have enough time to get into the work that they’re good at, enjoy and have been hired to accomplish.

Why have we allowed these things to happen to us? Everybody seems to understand that it’s happening and it’s destructive but there seems to be a sense of helplessness to get out of the tornado, plant your feet on the ground and get some work done. Why?

I believe one of the reasons (maybe the main one) is that we’ve lost our ability to say No! I just finished reading “The Power of a Positive No”. It’s good to understand why we’re hesitant to say No. The book offers what it calls the Three-A Trap:

Accommodate: We say yes when we want to say no.
Attack: We say no poorly
Avoid: We say nothing at all

And The Combination is the deadly mix of all three. Our reasons for not saying No are powerful; I don’t want to lose my job, I don’t want to damage our relationship, I don’t want to look ignorant, and the list goes on. But what are we doing by not saying No? Destruction and falling short of our goals. Not good things.

The simple word decide can be an answer. Think of all the words you know that end in “cide”. Cide in Latin means “put to death”. When we decide, we’re not supposed to keep saying yes to everything. We’re supposed to declare what we’re not going to do so that we can accomplish the important things.

Have you decided what you’re not going to do today? It’s the only way to get into deep work and flow. Enjoy the journey.

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Blog Culture

Calm Down People, It’s Just Stress

by Ron Potter January 12, 2017

A lot of my consulting time last year was spent helping teams handle the stress of our fast paced, ever changing, globally connected lives.

One of the resources I often turn to is a book titled Performing Under Pressure by Hendrie Weisinger and J. P. Pawliw-Fry.

You may not have noticed the difference but the first paragraph talks about stress, the second one speaks to pressure. As explained in the book, therein lies one of the keys, distinguishing between pressure and stress.

Here are the quick definitions:

Pressure: You perceive that something at stake is dependent on the outcome of your performance and there are good and bad consequences.
Stress: Stress refers to the situation of too many demands and not enough resources to meet them.

Pressure vs Stress

I learned the difference between these early in my career. My first real job out of engineering school included walking steel 200 feet in the air. This was prior to modern day safety devices. No safety straps, no nets, just 20 stories up with the wind in your face and utter fear and panic in your head.

If you can imagine standing with your back tightly against a vertical steel column, perched on a steel “I” beam with a top flange that was either 6 or 8 inches wide. That is your sidewalk. As you gaze out horizontally your mind can create the illusion of a floor using the grid of horizontal beams spaced 20 to 40 feet apart. But it’s a true illusion. If you lower your eyes even a few degrees below horizontal, you see nothing but vast openings all the way down to the concrete slab 20 floors below.

But I couldn’t just stand there and contemplate my fate, I had to move about the building to do my job. The only way I could move around the building was to put that illusion of a floor to work for me. So I would stand with my back securely pressed against the vertical column, start to slow my heart rate, breathing and thoughts while I visually searched for a distinguishing mark on the destination column 40 feet away. Once I locked on that mark, the illusion of a floor remained while I kept my gaze totally horizontal. Then with one last deep breath, I took the first step and didn’t stop until I reached the other side. All well and good except for my “friends” the ironworkers who thought of me as amusement.

The veteran Ironworkers who seemed to scramble around the structural steel like it was a gym set on a playground were always watching me with amusement.

I’m on my way. First step. The wind is a bit stronger than I anticipated. Stay focused, keep walking. About a third of the across my beam my focus is completely interrupted by an Ironworker, sliding down the column I was concentrating on and walking toward me. I stop and concentrate completely on maintaining my balance.

As we are taught, the Ironworker walks up to me and stands toe-to-toe. He grasps my wrists as I grasp his, encourages me to lean back until our arms are completely extended and our weight becomes balanced, suspending each other at about 30 degrees from vertical. Once we are balanced we begin a tiptoe dance on the beam, keeping all four sets of toes as much on the beam as possible as we swivel 180 degrees together. We regain our vertical positions and the Ironworker walks off casually chuckling.

I, on the other hand am left using every fiber of my being trying to maintain balance, calm my heart rate and slow my breathing while I search for a new focal point on the column in front of me while facing the WRONG DIRECTION!

Stress? That’s easy. Too much demand with too few resources. Stress is easy and meaningless when put into perspective with real pressure.

Will Stress Kill You?

A 10-year study including tens of thousands of subjects was completed a couple of years ago.

At the beginning of the study subjects were asked if they had been exposed to any of the major stressors (death, divorce, job loss, etc) in the year prior to the study. At the conclusion of the study, those who had experienced the major stressors had a much higher fatality rate. But, all subjects had been asked another question, “Do you believe stress is harmful to your health?” Those who said “No” to that question had no greater fatality rate than the norm even though they had experienced one or more of the major stressors. But for those with major stress experiences who also believed stress was harmful to their health, their fatality rate was the highest.

Stress won’t harm you. Believing stress will harm you can be fatal. Relax, it’s only stress.

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Patience – A Balancing Act

by Ron Potter November 12, 2015

Source: WorldIslandInfo.com, Creative Commons

I think building great teams is tough. If you’re in a sports related environment, it’s more obvious that you need to build teams of your five, nine, or eleven players (or some other number). And even in these environments where the value of building a team is so crucial, it’s still difficult. In a corporate environment where it’s not quite as obvious that building a great team is necessary, it’s even more difficult to put in the effort to create a great team.

But for anyone who has been part of a great corporate team, the value of making the effort is undeniable. Patience is a key element to team building. However patience is hard to define or understand and difficult to balance.

Patience: “The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset.”

One of the images that I really enjoy is the two magnificent lions protecting the entrance to the New York Public Library. Their names are Patience and Fortitude.

Patience and fortitude. The capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset and at the same time fortitude: courage, bravery, endurance, resilience.

Patience with self vs. Patience with others.

I’ve seen one Vice President get very upset with a 2nd Vice President when he did not think his colleague was dealing with what he considered to be an incompetent employee. What was interesting to me is that I was working with both VPs and I knew that each of them was dealing with a direct report that needed to be moved to a new position where they had a greater chance of success. Both VPs did successfully deal with the situation and both worked hard at accomplishing it in the most successful way possible. But while VP#1 seemed to exhibit great patience in dealing with his direct report (because he respected him and believed he deserved patience) he didn’t exhibit the same patience for the other employee or the VP who was proceeding down a similar path. How much control you have over the situation affects your level of patience.

Gumption and Patience

“Successful investing requires this crazy combination of gumption and patience, and then being ready to pounce when the opportunity presents itself, because in this world, opportunities just don’t last very long,” says Charlie Munger of Berkshire Hathaway. “It’s waiting that helps you as an investor and a lot of people just can’t stand to wait. If you didn’t get the deferred gratification gene, you’ve got to work very hard to overcome that.”

Investors in People

Charlie Munger is an investor in companies. But, as you watch and read more and more about how he and his partner, Warren Buffet, decide on what companies to invest in, they’re really looking at the leaders of those companies who have built great teams.

Leaders are Investors in People.

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Balance, Balance, Balance

by Ron Potter July 9, 2015

Image source: Bob Miller, Creative Commons

I’ve never had much interest in Anthony Mahavorik, aka Tony Robbins. I don’t really have anything against the guy, it’s just that he never seemed real or genuine to me, but I do believe that he has been a keen observer of human nature to promote himself and his products so successfully. And one of his observations in particular intrigues me. His frame work of what he calls the six human needs. What’s interesting to me is that they are observed as pairs and when they get out of balance, they cause difficulties in people’s lives.

The six (in my words) are:

Certainly—uncertainty
Belonging—standing out
Learning—teaching

Tony’s headings are slightly different and may have more meaning to you if you were to look them up. But let’s take a look at the balancing act.

Certainty—Uncertainty

I’ve watched people who have a great need for certainty in their lives. They’ve protected that need by always making the safe choice, never venturing out, even trying to control every aspect of their lives. The final results aren’t pretty. But those who tip the scales too far the other way to the uncertainty side seem to make more foolish decisions that threaten theirs and their family’s security. They always seem to be looking for the next big thing and are certain it’s right around the corner and nobody else can see it.

Belong—Stand Out

The need to belong and stand out is an interesting one to me because it’s a key balancing act in team building. One of the books on my shelf is titled, The I In Team. The point of the book is that we need to help each person on the team contribute in their own way. To stand out for a moment and really be appreciated by the other team members and yet, in the long-run it needs to be all about the team. The individual’s outstanding contribution must be seen as helping the team achieve its overall goal and be appreciated as such.

Learning—Teaching

Learning and teaching seems to be a deep and important one to me but maybe there’s a particular set for each of us that carries more weight than the others. But when people stop learning it seems to manifest itself in several ways. One seems to be the case of arrested development.

No more changing.
No more growing.
No willingness to try new things, develop new talents, or tackle new challenges.

The ultimate result of this arrested development is death: physical, spiritual, or mental.

Teaching is sometimes a little more subtle and you do meet those people who declare they are not good teachers and you often have to agree. But they’re usually thinking about the classroom type teaching we experienced in high school or college which is just about the worst form of teaching there is (see A Thomas Jefferson Education). Observe those same people as they sit with a grandchild or someone that’s eager to know about their life experience. They turn into wonderful teachers and the sense of accomplishment and contribution is overwhelming. We all need to teach to experience fulfillment.

Balance, balance, balance. If things seem to be out of whack in your life, try examining it through Anthony Mahavorick’s framework and see if you can restore the balance.

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Myers-Briggs In-Depth: Decision Making

by Ron Potter May 25, 2015

Don’t be an Arm Chair Psychologist

One of the things I always caution my clients with is “You don’t need to remember what your Myers-Briggs Type is and you certainly should not try to remember what type everyone else is.” For one, you’ll be wrong and secondly and more importantly, that’s not what you should be remembering. What you should be remembering is what type of team or decision making process should I be conducting so that every type is fully engaged? Full engagement from everyone involved will help the team become the best at decision making.

Decision Making Function

The two “middle” functions of Perceiving (Sensing vs iNtuition) and Deciding (Thinking vs Feeling) are considered the decision making functions. Each of us cycles through these two functions on a continual basis from the time we get up to the time we go to bed. When I first looked out the window this morning (in April) I perceived that it was snowing! Therefore, when I went out the door for my morning walk I did not decide to wear my spring jacket. This cycling process continues on all day through minor decisions and major decisions. What do we perceive about the decision we face, how do we then decide?

Balance, Balance, Balance

I hope that phrase, Balance, Balance, Balance, has been seared into your brain through this series on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This is the key to good decision making both personal and team decisions.

On the personal basis continue to grow in your ability to think outside your personal preference areas. Often having a partner who has a natural preference set different from yours can be a great way of accomplishing this goal.

On the team side it can often be accomplished by simple discipline of staying focused on one preference at a time. For instance, if you and your team are faced with a difficult or important decision to make, break down the issue into the four decision making functions:

Sensing: Ask the team to stay totally focused on the Sensing issues for the moment and ask questions like:

Do we know all the facts and what are they?
Do we have a clear understanding of the situation? Are we looking too narrowly?
What has been done already or what has been done in the past?
What is each part of the team doing at the moment? Are the efforts coordinated?
What if someone from a different industry came in, what would they see?

Intuition: Once you’ve exhausted the Sensing questions, move on to a more iNtuitive view:

Are there possibilities that we haven’t explored?
What are some other ways of solving these types of problems?
We know all the facts but what is the story or the implications?
Is this similar to a problem that other industries face?

Thinking: Once we’ve exposed all the facts and our intuitive reactions to them, begin to look at logical questions:

What pros and cons do we face with this issue: Shareholders, Customers, Employees?
What would be the logical consequences of each possibility?
Do we know the cost and/or revenue expected from each possibility?
What are the consequences of not acting at all (that is indeed a decision)?

Feeling: Finally but not least (this is often the more powerful of the four functions) begin to ask the feeling questions:

How does each of us feel about what we’ll gain or lose with each option?
What values do we need to pay attention to with each option?
How will people concerned (Shareholders, Customers, Employees, ourselves) react to each outcome?
Who is committed and capable of carrying out the solution?

And don’t forget to stop and reflect (Introversion) at each step along the way with our open discussions (Extraverted) about each issue.

And, use your Perception to make sure there’s an openness to all aspects of the problem while at the same time setting reasonable time tables (Judging) for advancing through the process.

Myers-Briggs In-Depth is a blog series in which I dive into each MBTI function with more detail, providing some practical applications for creating better dynamics and better decision making. Click here to read the entire series.
Interested in an overview of each of the four Myers-Briggs functions? Click here to read the Using MBTI to Great Advantage series.

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Myers-Briggs In-Depth: Judging vs Perceiving

by Ron Potter May 11, 2015

Work or Play

I have set up the following two signs in a team meeting:

I have to get my work done before I can play.
I can play anytime

I then ask the team to position themselves along the spectrum between those two signs. Once positioned it almost always correlates between their Judging vs Perceiving preference on this scale. The J’s have a much clearer definition (and more differentiating) of what’s work and what’s play. The P’s have a less clear and differentiating definition of what’s work and what’s play and certainly don’t believe that play has to wait until the work is done.

Business World Imbalance

Although not to the degree that we saw in the Thinking vs Feeling imbalance, my data base includes about two thirds with a preference for the Judging side and about one third on the Perceiving side. Often this is a trained function. The Judging function includes words like:

Plan the work and work the plan
Get things decided, settled, and finished
Dislike surprises
Decide quickly and expect others to follow through

While our Perceiving preference includes words like:

Enjoys flexibility
Take time to search for options
Like adapting to last minutes changes
Expect others to adapt to changes in direction

Much of the business world prides itself with the Judging approach to the world and even those who may fall more naturally on the Perceiving side have been trained and disciplined in the Judging functions.

How do you like your Vacation Structured?

One of the best ways for me to get at the true personal preference on this scale is to ask people what their ideal vacation looks like. The more natural Judging types (like myself) want the schedule and events settled and planned in advance. I want my airline tickets in place, hotel reservations confirmed, specific days and times for sightseeing, playing golf, relaxing, having “spontaneous” fun. Did you notice that? Scheduled spontaneous fun!?! Yup, that’s us J’s.

Our Perceiving friends and family members on the other hand would tell us, don’t bother me with any of that detail, let’s just get up see what happens. Maybe we’ll do nothing, maybe we’ll decide to do something, we’ll figure out what sounds like fun in the moment. In the personal world you can easily see the different types. Not so easily in the business world.

Hidden Preference

However, one thing that doesn’t change in the business world is the deeply ingrained beliefs about the purpose of meetings. Our Judging types like to do their “judging” or deciding in public, in their extraverted world of meetings. In other words, why do Judging types come to meetings? To DECIDE! However, our Perceiving types like to do their “perceiving” or learning and exploring in public. Why do Perceiving types come to meetings? To LEARN and EXPLORE!

Lesson Learned

So the lesson to be learned her is that if you don’t put the purpose of the meeting clearly at the top of the agenda, the Judging types will enter the meeting assuming the purpose is to decide something. The Perceiving types will assume we’re here to explore and learn which will lead to a decision at some later date.

Always Identify Purpose

Now, if you actually explain the purpose of the meeting up front, the Judging types don’t mind coming to a meeting where a decision is not expected but every effort is going to be put into learning and exploring. And the Perceiving types are thrilled to come to a meeting where a decision is expected. Just don’t leave either group guessing as to the purpose of the meeting. One side or the other will be incredibly frustrated with the outcome when they don’t have a stated purpose.

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Myers-Briggs In-Depth: Deciding: Thinking vs Feeling – Part II

by Ron Potter April 27, 2015

Deep Misconceptions

I mentioned in my last blog on this preference of Thinking and Feeling (our Deciding function) that most (business) people react negatively to this “Feeling” function and will associate with the Thinking side rather than the “touchy feely” side. This causes an imbalance in Corporate Leadership teams of roughly 85% identify themselves with a Thinking Preference and about 15% with a Feeling Preference.

T and F Buddies

Years ago we had a pair of hunting and fishing buddies on the team, Ted (with a Thinking Preference) and Fred (with a Feeling Preference). As we introduced this preference and Fred came out on the Feeling end of the spectrum Ted had an incredibly animated reaction. “What do you mean Fred is on the Feeling side of this scale? No way! We’ve been hunting and fishing buddies for years. We think the same about almost any topic. We almost finish each other’s sentences. No way is Fred on the Feeling side of this scale!” Interestingly, Fred seemed to just remain quiet through the episode with a slight smile on his face.

How do you Buy a Car?

At one point, as Ted continued to grumble at the inaccuracy of the instrument, the question was asked, how do you go about purchasing a car? Ted launched into a detailed explanation of how he does all of his internet research; knowing every detail about the car he wants, how consumers rate the car, what’s the residual value after a few years of ownership, what price people have been paying in his region and a whole host of other logical data sets for purchasing the car. He only then approaches the dealer to make the best possible purchase. When the same question was asked of Fred he said something like “I have a dealer that I have worked with for 15 years and trust him to call me when he thinks I should replace my car and tell me which car would be best for me, offers me a deal and I take it.” The sound of Ted’s jaw hitting the floor made everyone jump.

Which Deciding Function is Better?

Even as you’re reading this I’m probably getting different answers. In the personal case of Ted and Fred, the answer is both. For Ted, his research and logical decision helps him make the “best” decision for him. For Fred, he was totally comfortable that a valuable relationship had been developed and could be trusted resulting in the best decision for him.

Favorite Equation

In a team situation, as always, the best answer is Balance, Balance, Balance. One of my favorite equations is:

Effective Decisions = Quality of Decision X Acceptance of Decision (E.D. = QXA)

We can have the highest quality and accurate decision made but if people don’t accept the decision, no positive outcomes are achieved. We can have the most highly accepted decision that everyone is cheering over and if it’s not accurate or the best decision for the circumstances, it also becomes a failure. Good or effective decisions require both quality and acceptance. Thinking types focus on quality while Feeling types focus on acceptance. We need both. Balance, Balance, Balance!

Have you learned to balance your own preference type? Do you have someone around you that helps you with this balancing act? How about your teams? Have you learned to balance, balance, balance? Share some stories with us.

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Myers-Briggs In-Depth: Deciding: Thinking vs Feeling – Part I

by Ron Potter April 13, 2015

Deep Misconceptions

We learned in the Energizing Function that preconceived ideas of what constitutes an Extravert and an Introvert often lead to misunderstandings. It gets even worse in this function because of the title “Feeling.”

Most (business) people react negatively to this “Feeling” function and will associate with the Thinking side rather than the “touchy feely” side. While this is a complete misconception, it drives a very strong bias to the Thinking side. In my data base of corporate leaders that I’ve gathered over the last 25 years, roughly 85% identify themselves with a Thinking Preference and about 15% with a Feeling Preference. This is far outside the parameters of the other functions.

Why the bias?

The main reason is that the people leading corporations pride themselves with making purely logical decisions. Or more accurately, leaders fool themselves into believing they make purely logical decisions. We know through observation and are increasingly aware through brain science that we actually make more of our decisions on the feeling side and then justify them by logic. I think that’s the point here.

It Felt Like the Right Thing to Do at the Time

Justified. Besides being the title of one of my favorite TV programs over the last several years, we are often faced with this issue in the corporate world. As we review results we are often asked how and why a certain decision was made. If we can recall the “logical” steps that we went through to make the long ago decision, we have a chance of justifying the decision. If our only response is “It felt like the right decision at the time” it becomes difficult to defend our choices. More corporate leaders identify themselves with a Thinking Preference (85%) because of the assumed superiority of Thinking, logical based decisions.

How Do You Feel about that?

I’ve used one technique through the years that dispels this imbalance very quickly. While grappling with a topic during a team discussion I’ll ask “What do you think about this solution?” This question will generate many logical based answers. A little while later I’ll ask “How do you feel about this solution?” For the truly Thinking preferenced people, it seldom generates any new response beyond their initial logic based response. But for those members who actually reside closer to the middle or even on the Feeling side of this preference, it generates a much more robust, deeply felt answer. And what’s amazing to me is that these responses almost always initiate a deeper discussion that many times leads to a different answer than was first proposed. Also, the Thinking crowd actually begins to engage in their Feeling side which begins to create balance. Remember, Balance, Balance, Balance is the key to great decision making with Myers-Briggs.

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Myers-Briggs In-Depth: Attending and Perceiving: Sensing vs iNtuition – Part II

by Ron Potter March 30, 2015

Hidden Danger in the Perceiving Function

I mentioned in the previous post on Myers-Briggs that most successful business people have figured out that they need to balance this function. This balancing act most often takes the form of a trusted partner, colleague or consultant.

Great appreciation on a peer basis

I find that my Sensing leaders love to get together with their more natural iNtuitive colleagues. The say things to me like:

“I just love the way Margaret breaks me out of my “down in the weeds” focus. She gets me thinking about big-picture, long-term implications of my decisions and how we need to think about making these decisions.”

Similarly, my more natural iNutiive clients will often praise their more Sensing colleagues.

“Steve really gets me out of the clouds and grounds me in what’s going on right now and pointing out the issues that if we don’t fix soon will prevent us from achieving our long-term vision.”

Danger in employee evaluations

However, that appreciation seems to be limited to the peer-to-peer relationships. Often that same appreciation is not offered to subordinates.

I will always ask the iNtuitive types on a team which preference (sensing or iNtuition) they would prefer to have working for them. Their answer is always an overwhelming “Sensing!” Why? Because they know that while they would prefer to stay at the 40,000 foot level, watching what is going on around them and looking to the future, they need people working for them that are clearly paying attention to the day-to-day ups and downs of the business.

But what’s interesting is that when I ask the Sensing types which preference would they prefer to have working for them, their answer is also an overwhelming “Sensing!” Why? Because if they’re preference is to pay attention to the details and you’re working for them, you had be at least as good if not better at paying attention to the detail.

Here’s the problem

Even though the iNtuitive types appreciate the skills and attention to detail that the Sensing types provide, they may also be thinking “That person is great but I’m not sure they could take over my job because they don’t think broad enough.”

And while a Sensing type may have a creative, innovative iNtuitive type working for them, iNtuitives are often known for making “error of fact”. That “failure” really bothers the Sensing type and therefore are more likely to give poor performance reports.

We tend to fall back on our natural preference more when we’re evaluating people who work for us than the honor and appreciation of other types when we’re dealing them on a peer basis.

Honor and appreciate all types in all cases and people will begin viewing you as a very honorable and appreciative leader.

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Myers-Briggs In-Depth: Attending and Perceiving: Sensing vs iNtuition – Part I

by Ron Potter March 16, 2015

How are Things Going Here?

Several years ago when I was working with an automotive supplier I experienced one of the clearest examples of this function in action when I was sent to work with the Plant Managers of two different manufacturing plants.

What do you Pay Attention to?

This function was for years identified as your Attending function. “What do you pay attention to?” In recent years Myers-Briggs have gone back to Carl Jung’s (who’s work the MBTI is based on) original title of Perceiving. “How do you perceive the world around you?”

A Simple Question

When I first met each plant manager I asked each of them a simple question “How are things going here at this plant?”

These two plants were almost identical in several ways:

They served the same customer base
They generally produced the same products
They had about the same number of employees
They were just in different geographic locations

The first plant manager gave me a very precise answer:

“Things are going great. By 10:30 this morning we had 1,370 units out the door. Currently we are about 5% ahead of schedule for the day which means we’ll have the time in the morning to sit down and discuss the waste problem that we’re experiencing that’s just killing us financially.”

After spending a couple of days at the first plant I arrived at the second plant and upon meeting the Plant Manager for the first time asked exactly the same question: “How are things going here at this plant?” And I once again received a very clear answer:

“Things are going great. I think the truck industry is headed in this new direction. I’ve ordered some equipment from Germany. We should be able to get it fabricated, shipped and installed in about nine months. With some reasonable time for training I believe we’ll be ready to go and will be totally aligned with this new direction.”

What did you notice about these two responses from successful plant managers at two almost identical successful plants?

After noting that they both started their response that “Things are going great”, notice the differences.

Plant Manager One:

10:30
1,372
5%
Today – tomorrow

Plant Manager Two

New direction
9 to 12 months
Aligned with industry direction

What do you think happened when I asked PM 2 how many units were produced today? He said “Fred, how many units did we get out today?”

Now, here’s the real question for you: Which approach is better?

Both! I believe that if you’ve chosen to be in the business world in particular, you must balance this function or you’ll lose the business!

In this real case example, a year from now PM1 would be producing the highest quality, lowest cost product that nobody wanted to buy. And in a year from now, PM2 would likely be in dire straits because the same scrap and waste impact that was at the top of PM1’s radar was not very high on PM2’s radar.

Make it Deliberate

My experience has been that most successful business people have figured this one out even if they didn’t know about the natural preferences. What enhances this function is not leaving it to rely on natural preferences (you may not have a naturally balanced team) but to turn it into a very formal process. During your team meetings, be deliberate by asking the Sensing questions (what are the facts, what actually has happened, where are we today?) but then be very deliberate about asking the iNtuitive questions (what’s the implication in the data, where are we headed, what changes on the horizon may impact us?)

Caution

While this one seems to naturally balance, there is a hidden danger that I’ve seen time after time. Check out the next blog on the MBTI Perceiving function.

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Blog Myers-Briggs Using MBTI to Great Advantage

Using MBTI to Great Advantage – Work Life

by Ron Potter February 2, 2015

Using MBTI to Great Advantage is a blog series in which I’ll do an overview of each of the four Myers-Briggs (MBTI) functions and then in subsequent blogs will dig into each one in more depth with some practical applications for creating better dynamics and better decisions making. Click here to read the Series Introduction.

Work Life Overview: Judging vs Perceiving

Myers-Briggs (MBTI) calls this your “living” function but I never quite knew how to relate to that word so I’ve modified this slightly to “Work Life”. How do you like your work life structured around you? Our Judging types like their life organized and structured. Plan their work and work their plan. Our Perceiving types like things a little more open ended. Be ready for changes and surprises. React to the moment. Figure it out as you go.

Our business schools and businesses have taught us the need for organization and structure so I tend to see an overabundance of Judging types in the business world, until I ask people how they like their vacations structured. The most organized business person in the world might say to me “Totally unstructured! All I want to do is get away from the rat race for a while and be completely in the moment and do whatever I decide to do at the time. Or maybe simply decide to do nothing!” I find that many people are well trained and disciplined at work but as soon as they can get away from it will revert to their more natural Perceiving type on their own time. We’ll talk about the need for Balance, Balance, Balance in future blogs as well as some deeper and often hidden implications of this function playing out in the work place.

Four Functions and Three Rules. So there you have a quick overview of the four functions of Energizing, Perceiving, Deciding and Work Life and I hope you’ve already gotten the message that the best way to manage these functions is through Balance, Balance, Balance. Teams that accomplish this balance in a trusting, respectful manner are always the best teams. They make better decisions more quickly that are more universally accepted than teams that never figure out how to use their diversity. This is one of the best technique and mental model that you can ever implement for overall better teamwork!

Sixteen Types. It’s also important to understand that it’s not just the individual function dichotomies that make a difference, it’s the combination as well. An Introverted preference may function very differently when it’s part of an ISTJ preference set than when it’s part of an INFP preference set. All of this to say, don’t become the arm chair psychologists and assume you can figure out someone’s type and therefor figure them out. You can’t. Your best bet at success is to master the process that brings out the best of all of the fourteen type preferences.

The Four Functions:
1. Energizing
2. Perceiving
3. Deciding
4. Work Life

The Three Rules:
1. Balance
2. Balance
3. Balance

Over the next several blogs we’ll take a more in-depth look at each of the functions and learn some great techniques to create balance, balance, balance.

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