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Preference

REPOSTUsing MBTI to Great Advantage

REPOST: Four Functions, Three Rules

by Ron Potter
A Note From the Editor:
As we recently mentioned, we are reposting popular blog posts while Ron is recovering from some health issues. This series was interacted with well, so we hope you enjoy revisiting this introductory post.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) structure is made up of four pairs of functions. Together they combine for a possible 16 different preference types. Notice that I use the word “preference.” These functions have nothing to do with skill or ability, they are simply different preferences for dealing with the world around us.

Experience Preference

Let’s experience a preference in real time. Take a writing instrument and a piece of paper and sign your name to it. I know, I know, I never actually do this either when a book or blog site asks me to do it but I guarantee you will understand it better if you experience it instead of just imagining it. So pick up that pen and sign your name. Thanks.

Photo Credit: Lucas, Creative Commons

Photo Credit: Lucas, Creative Commons

Now, put you pen in the opposite hand and sign your name again. When I do this in a team of people the room immediately fills with nervous laughter and chuckles. It can be embarrassing.
When I ask people to describe the experience of that first signature I’ll hear words like:

  • Easy
  • Comfortable
  • Natural
  • Without thinking

When I then ask them to describe the second experience (often after waiting quite a while for them to complete the task) they will use words like:

  • Difficult
  • Awkward
  • It took longer
  • I had to think through almost every letter

This is an example of your personal preference at work. Whether right handed or left, when you’re working from your preference it’s easy, comfortable, and natural and you do it without thinking. Let me suggest right here that if you’re trying to make a decision, maybe you shouldn’t do it “without thinking!” When we force ourselves (individually and collectively) to use our non-preference methods, we’re actually forcing ourselves to think more.

MBTI series headerThe best teams and leaders

Over my consulting career I have observed many teams and leaders improve their effectiveness by learning to balance their MBTI preferences. The most effective teams are the ones that, either naturally or through process balance their preference diversities and use that balance for better decision making and corporate impact. Also, the best leaders I have ever worked with seem to have no strong preferences when it comes to working with their people in spite of the fact that they and I know that they possess very strong personal preferences. Great teams and leaders have learned to balance their natural preferences.

Over the next several blogs we’ll first do an overview of each of the functions and then in subsequent blogs I’ll dig into each one in more depth with some practical applications for creating better dynamics and better decisions making.

So the Four Functions are:
1. Energizing
2. Perceiving
3. Deciding
4. Work Life

And the Three Rules are:
1. Balance
2. Balance
3. Balance

With the proper use of these four functions and three rules you’ll build better teams and become a better leader.

Many of you have shared this learning with me in numerous MBTI sessions. Share with us some of your “ah ha” moments or deeper understanding that have helped you become better leaders and team members.

This post was originally posted here on December 8, 2014.
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BlogMyers Briggs Type IndicatorMyers-Briggs

Myers Briggs Type Indicator: Orientation

by Ron Potter

The last of the four functions is known as your Orientation or “Living” function.  The two ends of this scale are judging (J) and perceiving (P).  It’s really about how we want our lives to be lived.

Judging vs Perceiving

The judging (J) preference likes things to be organized and planned.  Perceiving (P) preference likes things to be spontaneous and flexible.  I often see couples land at the opposite ends of this scale.  I have a preference for “J”, planning.  My degree from the University of Michigan is actually in project management, which means it was my job to organize, plan, and keep projects on schedule.  My wife falls on the perceiving end of this scale.  Although she is very organized, it’s something she has to work at and her normal mode is to bounce around from project to project.  For us “J’s”, we like to finish one project then move on to the next.

Vacation Story

You might want to look at the last story about vacations in the April 8th blog titled Where Decisions are Made.  Vacation structure is a good place to look at the difference between natural preferences.  If we talk about your job, you have likely trained yourself to function more like a “J”, even if you have a natural preference for “P”.  Away from work, in environments like vacations, our natural preferences tend to be a little clearer.

You Think Too Much

Recently another family member who happens to be a natural “P” made some life decisions that I found curious.  When we finally spent some time together after these life decisions were made, I asked her if I could ask a few questions about her decision.  She agreed.  I asked my first question and she gave a thoughtful answer.  I was halfway through asking my second question when she stopped me and said “You think too much!”

She was right.  I think through decisions much more completely that she would be comfortable with.  But I had to admit, she was right, I do think too much.  But I also came to realize that I was most happy when I could plan things out.  Yet she was equally happy in her spontaneous approach.  I would say that both of us are equally happy with our lives.

Happiness comes when we’re able to function in our preferred world.  It has nothing to do with one preference being happier than the other.

J vs P Statistics

When we look at the statistics on this function, we see that the US population is roughly evenly split with 54% on the “J” side and 46% on the “P” side.  However, corporate leadership teams are closer to two-thirds and one-third with 63% on the “J” side and 37% on the “P” side.

That difference becomes a little more pronounced with Operation Teams falling 67% on the “J” side and 33% on the “P” side.

Be careful if you have a preference for the Perceiving (P) side of this scale.  Work often demands that teams think and act on the “J” side of this preference.  As with most people, the “J” side can be trained even if it’s not natural.  There are a few things to remember:

  1. Teams need balance.  Bring out your “P” preference when it can add to the conversation or decision-making.
  2. You need balance.  It’s OK to function as “J” in the business world but not let that carry over to all aspects of your life.  You won’t be happy if you can’t live part of your life in your natural “P” preference.
  3. None of the MBTI or other personality assessments have anything to do with skill or ability.  They are simply preferences (When the opportunity exists, I would prefer to live and work in … my world.)

Walking the Balance Beam

Almost all of our education system up to and through graduate school pushes toward the “J” side.  Apprentice programs of almost any type of work also push us toward the “J” side. (Measure twice, cut once).  So you’ll probably be pretty good at working with a “J” bent.  However, if you never allow yourself to have part of your life in the “P” world, you won’t experience the happiness that you would enjoy.

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BlogTrust Me

Golf and Preference

by Ron Potter

Let’s talk about golf!

Golf is an enigma. (Now there’s a classic understatement!)

They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them. It’s more complicated than that.”
—Gardner Dickinson

The sport abounds with perplexity and paradox: fairway and rough, dry land and water, green and sand trap. And then there are all the complexities involving mind and body.

Golf and Hand-Preference

Most of us are born with an arm/hand preference. Some of us are right-handed; others are left-handed. Golf says, “Don’t use what comes naturally! Let your other hand (your out-of-preference side) pull the swing through the ball.”

For example, for many players their right hand is dominant in all other aspects of their lives. But in golf, if they allow the right hand to control their golf swing, the ball hooks—hello rough.

However, if they learn to use their left hand effectively—a new swing style—they will hit the ball straighter and have lower scores (which, of course, in golf is better).

So how is this relevant?

Isn’t that just like leadership? If we allow our dominant preferences to always be in control, we will often not have complete success. However, we can learn to adjust our style away from a dominant (and in some cases damaging) preference and become better leaders if we are willing to make some changes.

To be successful in golf, players need to learn how to overcome or “position” their natural tendencies (or preferences) in order to hit just the right shot.

This is also true with leadership. We look for and focus on our strengths, but we are better leaders when we also allow other qualities to develop and come to the forefront. For example, it is not natural for many of us to be humble team builders. It is much easier to strive for the attention of others and build a personal résumé, ignoring the team’s input and value.

The temptation will always be to head in the other direction—toward the dominant preferences inside us and on every side in our environment. But by intentional effort we can learn to be humble and at the same time increase our success as a leader.

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Gauging Understanding
BlogCulture

Qualities That Demonstrate Caring: Understanding

by Ron Potter

We need to be acutely aware of other people’s needs, focus, dreams, and abilities before we can help them achieve.

For years the late cartoonist Charles Schulz delighted us as his Peanuts characters Charlie Brown, Linus, and even Snoopy provided a window into the complex (and funny) realm of human relations.

Lucy, the extroverted big sister of Linus, was no exception. Her love affair with the Beethoven-loving Schroeder is legendary. Often we see Lucy stretched out by Schroeder’s piano, watching him with longing eyes. Or she is asking a question or demanding his attention in some other way. Schroeder is oblivious to Lucy, so she tries harder and harder to win his heart. In the end, nothing works. Lucy usually loses her temper and pouts, once again the frustrated lover.

What Lucy never gets is how a change in her approach might improve her chances at winning Schroeder’s attention. Lucy’s entire focus is on her needs, not Schroeder’s. Every attempt to secure the heart of the piano genius is from her perspective, not his. Her compassion is entirely self-focused and has little or nothing to do with him and his needs. No matter how bold or romantic she is, Lucy never gets close to Schroeder because she never learns to first understand him.

Increased understanding of others usually leads to better relationships. Our frame of reference becomes their needs, not our own. It becomes a habit to seek to understand our bosses, our direct-reports, and our peers. This understanding is not developed for manipulative purposes. It is an attempt to help people grow and develop by first seeking to understand them—their motives, needs, and styles. Once we understand others and their individual preferences, we can better communicate with them, train them, and lead them.

Abraham Lincoln was a master at this. In 1864 the New York Herald explained how Lincoln was able to overcome the difficulties of guiding the nation during the Civil War—“Plain common sense, a kindly disposition, a straight forward purpose, and a shrewd perception of the ins and outs of poor, weak human nature.”

Lincoln was a master at getting out to meet and know the people—from generals to office workers: “Lincoln gained commitment and respect from his people because he was willing to take time out from his busy schedule to hear what his people had to say.” From this information, Lincoln came to understand his people. From this understanding, he motivated them, challenged them, and moved them to achieve.

It is always interesting, upon entering an airplane, to look into the cockpit and see all those dials and gauges. Each one has a purpose. Many help properly guide the aircraft to its final destination. If the pilots don’t monitor the right instruments, they won’t have a clear picture of the flight, where they are going, how fast they are traveling, how high they are flying, or even if the craft is right side up.

Similarly, if we do not read all the “gauges” of other people, we will be forced to guess what their behavior and words really mean. Learning to read gauges gives you the ability to understand and respond to others based on their needs and frames of reference.

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BlogCulture

What color was that book?

by Ron Potter

My wife has an interest in home decorating ideas and shares many of them with me.

One of the interesting trends I’ve seen lately is bookshelves. How do you arrange your books? Of the three methods I’ve seen, two of them seem crazy to me and one of them I just don’t understand. The two that seem crazy are:

  1. Wrap all your books in plain brown paper and put them on the shelf to give them a uniformed look. Finding a book is obviously not the point. It’s simply using books as a decorative tool. I don’t think of books that way.
  2. Turn your books around and put the binder to the back and leave the ends of the pages facing out. Once again, it gives an interesting aesthetic and visual effect of different paper textures, thickness, and colors, but why are you storing books if you don’t use the books, trigger a memory from the books, or go back to a book? Again, that just seems crazy to me.

The third one, I just didn’t understand, but I’ve experienced some interesting learning.

  1. Arrange your book by the color of its cover.
    All the blue books are in one area of your bookshelf, all of the green books are in another area of your bookshelf, all the yellow books are in another area of your bookshelf. Again, it adds some architectural texture and color to the room, but at least you can see the spine of the book and read what the book is about. But for me, I would look at that and say, “I can’t find anything. How would I find a book on the shelf?” I tend to arrange mine by title or subject matter so that I can go back to them later.

Recently we visited one of our daughter’s homes. She has an artistic mind and taste. Her bookshelves were arranged by color. I had to admit that it looked very nice, but when she and I had a chance to sit down and talk one evening, I admitted to her that I couldn’t find anything on that bookshelf. “Why do you choose to arrange it by color?” Her answer to me was that “When I think about a book, the first thing I remember is its color, it helps me find the book quicker.” I had never thought about that.

I spent a day with a colleague the other day who is just tremendously successful and respected. One of the conversations we had was about certain books we had read, and I almost had to chuckle, when every time I would bring up a book he would say, “Did that book have a green cover with yellow writing?” Or, “Was that a blue book?” Or, “Was that the black book with the gold print on it?” For one of them, I had to say, “I believe there were two editions. One of them was green and one of them was black with gold.” But that helped him recall a particular book.

The point here is, that we all recall things in different ways and for very different reasons. In general, the business world assumes, and I want to emphasize the assumes, that we recall things through rational logic. But it doesn’t happen that way. To build great teams we must understand and honor what triggers people’s thought and recall. We must allow people to throw out things like, “I think of this in that way,” Or, “I recall this because of that color or that experience or that situation.” Some will think logically and rationally, but not everyone does and great teams honor that. They begin to understand that even the best of people recall and think about things in very different ways.

Accepting the differences opens the door for great dialogue on very tough issues. When we begin to see the whole kaleidoscope of how we see

  • Situations
  • People
  • the future or
  • what’s going to work and what isn’t

we give ourselves a chance to work toward unity and commitment. Unity and commitment to decisions are two of the hallmarks of great teams.

I’ll probably share with you a blog post soon about the value of nutmeg. That doesn’t mean anything to any of us, but it’s a very powerful lesson in life.

So, as you’re building a great team, make sure you completely honor the fact that different, very highly-skilled, very intelligent people all recall and think about things in different ways. This is what makes for robust teams and robust dialogue.

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Short Book Reviews

Principles

by Ron Potter

Ron’s Short Review: Ray builds on Life Principles such as: embrace reality, understand that people are different, and effective decision making. He moves into Work Principles with get the culture right, trust in radical truth, and others. Very thought-provoking.

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BlogTrust Me

Leadership and Golf

by Ron Potter

photo-1465195079111-667efe5ba139

Let’s talk about golf!

Golf is an enigma. (Now there’s a classic understatement!) Former PGA tour member Gardner Dickinson once said, “They say golf is like life, but don’t believe them. It’s more complicated than that.”

The sport abounds with perplexity and paradox: fairway and rough, dry land and water, green and sand trap. And then there are all the complexities involving mind and body.

Most of us are born with an arm/hand preference. Some of us are right-handed; others are left-handed. Golf says, “Don’t use what comes naturally! Let your other hand (your out-of-preference side) pull the swing through the ball.” For example, for many players their right hand is dominant in all other aspects of their lives. But in golf, if they allow the right hand to control their golf swing, the ball hooks—hello rough. However, if they learn to use their left hand effectively—a new swing style—they will hit the ball straighter and have lower scores (which, of course, in golf is better).

Isn’t that just like leadership? If we allow our dominant preferences to always be in control, we will often not have complete success. However, we can learn to adjust our style away from a dominant (and in some cases damaging) preference and become better leaders if we are willing to make some changes.

When I work with preferences in teams, we do a little demonstration about natural preferences.  I ask each team member to sign their name to a paper in front of them.  Then I ask them to change hands and sign that paper again.  The nervous laughter abounds.  I then ask them to describe that first (dominant) signature.  Words like quick, natural, easy, without thought are what I hear most often.  When asked to describe the second experience I hear words like difficult, took more time, awkward, had to think through each letter.  We then talk about how working from our dominant preference often means that we do it “without much thought” whereas using our non-dominant preference causes a great deal of thought. Wouldn’t it be better if we faced difficult decisions from a balanced approach (dominant and non-dominant) rather than reaching conclusions “without much thought”?

To be successful in golf, players need to learn how to overcome or “position” their natural tendencies (or preferences) in order to hit just the right shot.

This is also true with leadership. We look for and focus on our strengths, but we are better leaders when we also allow other qualities to develop and come to the forefront. For example, it is not natural for many of us to be humble team builders. It is much easier to strive for the attention of others and build a personal résumé, ignoring the team’s input and value. But by intentional effort we can learn to be humble and at the same time increase our success as a leader.

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Short Book Reviews

Idiot Brain

by Ron Potter

idiot-brainRon’s Short Review: Dean is probably the most humorist neuroscientist that you’ll meet or read. He has a great ability to make complex issues understandable and fun. His book really helps us understand why at times we do such crazy things driving by a supposedly rational brain. Good learning.

Amazon-Buy-Buttonkindle-buy button

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BlogCulture

I Need a New Attitude

by Ron Potter
Image Source: Steve Snodgrass, Creative Commons

Image Source: Steve Snodgrass, Creative Commons

Control Attitude

I don’t know if this is blogworthy or not but last summer I found myself in desperate need of a new attitude. I’d been in the hospital for over a week and was facing probably another week. My patience had worn thin, I didn’t tolerate the foibles of people like I had earlier this week and I could hardly tolerate the thought of the upcoming recovery time from the next surgery. In short, I was finding it hard to find much hope in my future.
One cause for this despair was my total loss of control. There was hardly a thing in my environment that I had any control over at the moment. Not much motivation exists when there is no control.
We’ve talked about the issues for years with my leadership team. I’m usually working with the executives and leaders of the organization.

Muddle in the Middle

These leaders often have more control of their working lives than the rest of the organization. It almost always shows up in culture surveys with what has been labeled “The muddle in the middle.” Culture survey results almost always look better at the top and bottom of the organization with the worst results in the middle (management) level of the company. We usually attribute that to control. The top is more in control of their daily lives and environments and the bottom don’t expect much control. (However, as you’ll see later they’ll perform substantially better when granted even a small bit of control) It’s the middle that feels less in control and therefore provides lower scores about the culture.
In my book Trust Me I write about an experiment conducted decades ago that speaks very directly to this issue.

Individuals were given a very difficult assignment to accomplish. It was going to take a lot of concentration, mental gymnastics, and problem solving skills over several hours of effort.
Each person was placed in a sound proof both with all the tools they needed and asked to solve the problem the best they could. But as soon as they settled into the booth, the controllers began to pump in as much disrupting sound and calamity as they could. The participant’s goal was to do the best they could.
However, while the second control group was given identical conditions, they were also given a button on their desks that would shut off all the distracting sounds for several minutes and they could push the button a certain number of times during the exam.
Once all of the exams were scored, it was obvious that the group with the shut off button had substantially outscored the group without the button. But… no one had pushed the button. Just having a sense of control over their environment allowed them to perform at a much higher level than the group with no control.

Control = Productivity

Try giving your people as much control over their environment as you can afford (and that’s likely a lot more than you’re willing). The more people can control how, where, and when they work the more productive they’ll be.

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BlogMyers-BriggsUsing MBTI to Great Advantage

Using MBTI to Great Advantage – Work Life

by Ron Potter

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 PerceivingMBTI series header

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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