MBTI - As it Applies to Me

Last week I spent a day, one of those end of the year, no one has an emergency, no one is willing to release a product at year end and create an emergency, so no one is at work, kind of days, taking a course in the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), one of those self-administered, with the aid of a coordinator, tests that is supposed to give you an idea of your personality type. My overall opinion on such tests is that they exhibit a remarkable similarity to reading your horoscope (there's a phrase for this - the Forer effect) but that spending some time confronting your personality might churn up a thing or two you hadn't considered before.

We filled out a questionnaire a week before the class, to have an electronic tabulation done, and then worked through the MBTI scales (there are four personality scales, each with two ends) to get some idea of what we felt our categories were before we were given the test results.

My personal assessment had me labeled as an ENTP: extroverted, intuition, thinking, perceiving - a little light on the extrovert and a little questionable on the perceiving, although it's a decided preference. My test labeled me ENTJ, replacing perceiving with judging and placing me in a category known as fieldmarshals or rationals. The difference between the two is whether, in extreme cases, I am relaxed with no plans, or I like to make lists, label things, reach closure at the expense of starting something new, et al. It's an interesting difference because I believe my personal preference is for perceiving: to gather information, explore alternatives, leave things open ended, delegate to others, and focus on new starts. I'm just willing and able to be judicial, force closure and structure solutions. Case in point, I usually have several books I'm in the process of reading - that's perceiving. Or, I put things off, hoping they go away. Or I focus on the wider application of ideas that don't necessarily have an ending (go look at that post I had about unfinished projects when I left my last position). On the other hand, I exhibit a judging tendency which other J's in the class reported anecdotally, which is that I over analyze purchases. I can't go to a store, look at a bank of televisions, and buy one. I have to research, go look at alternatives, leave the store, research some more, return to the store, repeat. I just it did this whole process while looking for new wireless headphones and, on a positive note, it generally prevents me from buying a gaming system. Also, once we were in small groups in the class which were supposed to be doing market presentations for the opposing personality types, in the last minute, when it was obvious we had five different pieces of a presentation and no whole, I stepped in and picked what looked like the appropriate piece from each individual to create a single presentation. I would rather someone had picked up the reins and coordinated, but it wasn't going to happen.

Being listed as an extrovert is also amusing. I think most people who know me would peg me as somewhat insular. But the extrovert signs are there. It's just that I put weird, limiting boundaries on being an extrovert. I like biking with a group and belong to a bicycling club, but when bicycling with them, I focus on biking by myself or with one or two others, or I schedule a ride with just a few friends. When I went on RAGBRAI, with thousands and thousands of riders, I didn't go with my club or a group, I went with my father. When I read a book or write, I almost always go to the coffee shop where I'm surrounded by some sort of stimulus. Solitary activities, surrounded by others.

The conflict part of the course was illuminating. I tend to see conflict as only involving big issues, and smaller things are just bumps to be removed so life can go on. When the bump is gone, the conflict identified, I figure we can all get on to item B. Acknowledging another person's feelings isn't part of my formula and, unfortunately, having to deal with feelings as part of a disagreement can bore me (and I know I can come off looking bored). I want to known why we're still talking about what should, logically, be a non-issue. My favorite example is probably how I interact with Pooteewheet when she's been in an accident. I used to ask, "What were you doing?" I figure that's important. It tells me whether it was a serious injury and simultaneously informs me how to avoid the situation myself in the future. It infuriates my wife. I've had to train myself to get down this particular order of questioning: 1.) "Are you o.k.?", 2.) "I'm sorry you got hurt.", 3.) "What happened?" The fact that I have to work on that order bugs her a little, I can tell. But at least I'm trainable. As I was telling Erik, if you're ever in an accident in my space and hear a slight pause before "Are you o.k.", you'll know that I just shoved my instinctual question to the end of the line.

I pointed out to Pooteewheet that according to Myers Briggs, my take on life is no better or worse than the opposite. Therefore people shouldn't be upset with me when I don't consider their feelings. I should be upset that they didn't consider my mindset isn't automatically attuned to feelings. I'm a victim of everyone who's feeling-focused. She's not convinced.

I also enjoyed seeing my intuition compared to my wife's sensing (opposite ends of a scale). One argument she and I both remember is when I told her something she was driving to was "across" the bike trail in St. Louis Park. She was angry with me because there was no "across" the trail. It ended near our house and you never had to cross it to get to where she was going. I pointed out that you had to imagine it extending infinitely in both directions, basically east coast to west coast, then you could cross it. My fact/map-focused wife was not amused with this abstract picture of the world that worked for me.