Strategic Serendipity

I will never forget presenting a team-building program using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) when the self-proclaimed "senior" member of the group said "maybe I'm just old but most of this I've learned through my fifty-plus years of working with others."  I had to smile.  Because here's the deal, if you spend fifty-plus years paying attention to how you react and how others react to you in various situations and analyze what works and what doesn't, you don't need these types of assessments.  However, if you want to shortcut that learning process and learn from others (yes, please!) there are tons of ways to do it.  I like to call this Relationship Shorthand. There are three main instruments I like to use and each one is based on research.  Is this an exhaustive list?  Not by any means.  These three instruments are the ones I find give my clients solid information they can act on to improve their understanding of what they bring to the ta...

In the past week my routine has been shaken and more is coming over the next two weeks.  Instead of stressing me out, it has actually energized me!  From the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) perspective, I have a preference for Perceiving.  In other words, always searching for more information rather than pushing for closure, spontaneity, and starting projects.  Like seemingly everyone in the Washington, DC area, I am usually tightly scheduled around a constant routine.  Teaching three new classes in less than a week and preparing for two new volunteer commitments has challenged me to stretch into new areas and use old skills with a new group of people.  Both things are extremely rewarding to me, in large part because of my Perceiving preference. So how does a person with a Perceiving preference function in a predictable routine?  For me, there are things that have to happen at certain times.  There is barely enough time to get my work in du...

Typical Scene: Supervisor asks employee to take on X project with a deadline approximately six weeks from now. This is such a typical scene that it really doesn't seem that there is much variation in how the story can go from there, right?  Wrong.  Remember those children's books where you make a choice and then the story progresses from there?  Well let's examine just a couple of ways this typical scenario could go. Scenario 1 :  Sometime in the next 72 hours the supervisor stops by the office and asks the employee for a status update on the project.  Either... (a)...the employee has neatly drafted an project plan and happily shares this with the supervisor, or (b)...the employee says something vague to the effect of "it is on target" and wonders why the supervisor is micromanaging the project.   What is going on in these two very different reactions to the same exact question about the same project?   From a Myers-Briggs Type I...

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is based on the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl G. Jung. Jung observed that people have inborn preferences for gathering information and making decisions and that these preferences guide an individual’s behavior. The mother/daughter team of Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers expanded on Jung’s theories and created an assessment to make the combined work accessible to all individuals. Today, the assessment is used by most Fortune 100 companies and over two million people worldwide, annually. The assessment identifies an individual’s inborn preferences on four dichotomous scales: where you focus your energy, how you prefer to take in information, how you make decisions, and how you deal with the outer world. Type is best used to understand other people, improve communication, and develop individual skills. The first dichotomy is Extraversion (gets energy from other people) and Introversion (gets energy from reflection).  The second...

My earliest memories of my son (now 15 months old) are taking him to the grocery store whenever he got fussy. He would stop crying and focus on the people in the store. When he turned 11 months old he went to daycare for the first time. That was when I realized with a certainty that he has a preference for extra version. On the weekends I make sure that we have a play date or go somewhere he can be around people (even if it is just walking around a store). If we haven't been out because it is too cold...he gets fussy. If I suck it up and bundle us up and go somewhere...he is happy.  As adults, even though we don't cry when we are operating outside of our preference it does cause us added stress.  I always advise people to know what their preference is, when they are operating outside of it, and what they can do inside their preference to renew their energy.  From a Leadership perspective, when you give your employees "stretch" assignments outside of their pr...

In so many of the development programs I work with, people come in with an attitude of what will you teach me?  Or worse yet, what is the minimum I have to do to get credit?  If there isn't a change after the program, the assumption is that the program failed the person. If you're trying to learn how to work a computer program, like Microsoft Excel, then yes, if you can't work Excel after the program, the program failed you. If you're trying to develop yourself as a leader, however, you have to commit to the homework and reflection.  If there isn't a change after the program, I suggest you failed the program. Keeping that in mind, here are my recommendations for anyone considering entering a professional development program (works for a coaching relationship, too). 1.  Be willing to commit to honest self-reflection. 2.  Know how you will define success after the end of the program or relationship. 3.  Do the homework!  (If you don't, the on...

Shame on the Washington Post for its one-sided article about MBTI yesterday and its thinly veiled criticism of using it for professional development in federal agencies (and no I will not give the courtesy of a link).  The author uses a quote from a professor of industrial psychology at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School that equates the usefulness of the MBTI to that of the horoscope.  After acknowledging that "A common line from supporters is that the test starts an important dialogue around who we are and how we interact with others," the author uses a quote from a Cambridge psychology professor who says “Insight from the Myers-Briggs can start that conversation, but unfortunately it often ends the conversation. You’ve got your type stamped on your forehead.” For those who use MBTI to coach and develop others nothing could be further from the truth.  We use the MBTI to help individuals understand their preferences on each of four dichotomies while remind...