Sunday, May 23, 2010

The MBTI

Came across the following book in today's Washington Post's weekly best-seller list:

TYPE TALK: THE 16 PERSONALITY TYPES THAT DETERMINE HOW WE LIVE, LOVE, AND WORK
(Dell, $17). By Otto Kroeger and Janet M. Thuesen

It reminded me of a fairly detailed conversation that I had gotten into with a friend (This friend, Eric, has the coolest title short of the President of the US - he is a Futurist. He does for a living, what we all do over coffee breaks. Anyway, I digress...) a couple of weeks ago about the whole MBTI personality types. I have never been very sure about how much faith to put into this. Do people change over time? Are they different personalities in different circumstances, etc.

The conversation with Eric was quite enlightening. He is clearly quite bought into this and talking to him got me convinced of the value of the framework. My questions were not necessarily answered, but I did feel that for the here and now, they were irrelevant. It was, more than anything else, a way to think about how people were behaving and what their preferences were. It gave me a framework to evaluate what was bothering me about my current environment, and come up with suggestions that might help address them.

So, apparently I am an ENTJ, doing a job that is probably best suited for an ESTJ, working for an ENTJ boss. My action point - hire an ESTJ to do the sensing for me...