Myers-Briggs®

I’ve got a few random questions…

Said the candidate I was interviewing for a senior position in a client company.

Brilliant. I love random questions. I was hoping he’d ask things like “What’s the capital of Lithuania?” or “How many wasabi peas can you fit in a smarties tube?” but no.

This man was an ESTJ and ESTJs don’t really do random.

Corporate Governance. Culture. Headcount. Productivity. Profitability. His questions were carefully structured. Ordered. Specific. Relevant. Succinct.

ESTJ is one of the 16 personality types in the Myers-Briggs® Personality Profiling model. Those with a preference for ESTJ (Extraversion – Sensing – Thinking and Judgement) tend to deal in concrete facts.

They often make strong leaders; natural architects of efficient systems and processes. The ESTJ pays  great attention to detail. more…

Myers-Briggs®

Okay, so you’ve had a simply fabulous idea. It will revolutionise the way the company works, will cost next to nothing and will need hardly any resource to implement.

You’re an ‘extrovert’ in Myers-Briggs® terms so you’ve just got to tell someone. You excitedly share your idea with the people around you, get them to trial it and now they’re hooked too. You are a genius, if you say so yourself.

You bound off to see your ‘introvert’ boss. You’ve got to get this idea off the ground and you’ve gotta do it NOW!

Your boss is busy. You know he’s snowed under with work and you can see he looks stressed. You ignore this because, well, you have an idea that will revolutionise the way the company works and will cost next to nothing to implement and …yada yada. more…

Executive Coaching

Thought for the week: Everything that is achieved on earth is first conceived in the mind.

In March, my business partner Gavin sat down to watch TV, opened a beer and waited to be entertained by one of his all-time comedy heroes; Eddie Izzard. The programme, which was the first of 3 episodes which ran on BBC3, turned out to be a documentary, charting Eddie’s progress as he ran 43 marathons over 51 days. 5 weeks training and off he went. The programme reduced Gavin to tears. Bewildered, confused and utterly inspired. How could anyone achieve such an amazing feat? Especially a guy that is more at home in stilettos than running shoes?

So, it wasn’t exactly a surprise when Gavin announced a few weeks ago that he was going to train for his first ever triathlon, involving a 750m river swim, 20k bike ride and a 5k run to finish.

more…

Myers-Briggs® Personality Types

When holidaying abroad it is a really good idea not to fall asleep in the sun, get sunstroke and spend the next few days consigned to the villa bathroom.

That said, should you sustain said sunstroke, it’s wise to ensure that your fellow villa dwellers are marvellously compassionate beings who think nothing of cancelling evenings out to keep you company; hold your hair back while you throw up…(again) and lend you their sunglasses / head scarves / fake tan to a.) prevent a recurrence and b.) make you look like you’ve been lying on a beach for days rather than bent double over the loo.

You may have gathered that I am less than well, as I write from my holiday villa.

From my vantage point on the sofa, however, I have been able to watch my two friends, whose Myers-Briggs® personality types are ENFP and ESFP at close hand.

On the face of it, their profiles are quite similar.

Both prefer Extraversion (E) – i.e. they like to talk, get energy from being with other people and from experiencing new things. Conversation has not been in short supply as we’ve sat on the patio late into the night sharing a bottle of wine.

more…

Hello. My name is Wendie and I am…a closet ISTJ.

There, I’ve said it. And now I’ve said it, I guess I’m technically not a closet ISTJ at all. I am out of the closet and, frankly, quite chuffed with my new status.

Of course, I’ll always be an ENTP at heart. Having just spent 2 days holed up in an office on my own, no-one to talk to, poring over statistics; writing detailed reports; researching articles and completing a VAT reconciliation…I can’t deny that I’m now tempted to throw a party, learn to sky dive, invent something amazing and dismantle the radiator to see if I can put it back together again (all at the same time) …but hey; 48 hours as an ISTJ. Not bad.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, I am referring to 2 of the 16 Myers-Briggs® Personality Types. more…

Did anyone hear Mariella Frostrup’s programme on BBC4 radio last night (30th March 2010), entitled “How Myers-Briggs® conquered the office”?

If not you can listen to it here for the next 7 days: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00rmst0

If you missed it, and your company hasn’t caught the Myers-Briggs® bug yet, here’s an overview of what it’s all about. more…

Many organisational conflicts arise from personality clashes. In fact, one of the most common reasons that people give for leaving the company they are working for is that they don’t like their boss or their colleagues.

If you feel more like a referee than a manager most days, the chances are that your team has not yet found a way to pool their resources and use their differences to best effect.
Myers-Briggs® Personality Type is a popular psychological profiling tool that can be used to help people understand how they impact on each other. It explores how different people are energised, how they take in information, make decisions and organise their lives. For example: more…

Myers-Briggs®

Last week, I  was on urban safari. In the manner of David Attenborough, I have been observing the behaviours of a fledgling ENFP in its natural habitat as it prepares to migrate to sunnier climes for the summer.

Ok… so I’ve just been to stay with my little brother in London for a few days, before he goes off travelling, but it got me thinking…

ENFP is one of sixteen personality types used in the renowned Myers-Briggs® personality type model. All 16 personality types have their own unique preferences and blind-spots. This explains, to some extent, why we get on so well with some people, while others infuriate or baffle us. more…

Myers-Briggs®

• No. of different personality types I have encountered this week:           16

• No. of different personality types I have got along well with this week:  16

This week, I have mostly been discussing Myers-Briggs®.

First, in a training session with 2 senior managers – to help them better understand the impact they have on their teams and how they can adjust their approaches for individual staff members, to get better results.

Next, in a discussion with an IT manager about how to improve his communication with the company’s executive team by making a few simple changes to the language he used. more…