Love your work, Charles.

Thanks very much

Duncan

Good stuff! Some thoughts:

Interacting with freshness, to me, means experiencing another person without any history, no "story", no past. Try doing this with your spouse or partner on  a daily basis when you get up in the morning, or during the day or evening. A huge challenge for most folks. We need to have a story or a history most often to make us feel or be "right" or give ourselves power and control or maintain the upper hand. Otherwise freshness is equated with "free fall" and if I'm not in control, then I won't know who I am. Just be me, authentic, present, in the moment? Scary.

We live in a culture where we "objectify" others, i.e., see others as some type of object, function, that supplies us with some type of service...you give me sex, I earn money; you do laundry; I mow the lawn; you take care of the children, I take care of the finances, etc. In the "space" between two people who are in an "objectified" relationship, there is little to no subjectivity...no empathy, no sensing what  another might be really experiencing; no sensing my self in the relationship, no heart, little true feeling and emotion, little authenticity...as you suggest. Just mental stuff...automaticity of living in an objective experience.

Finally, it seems to me that when it comes to life and living in our culture today, most folks want and need a "technology". As you say, the boxes, the matrices, the lists and forumlas. This makes folks feel safe as they now have a mental understanding of something...and most folks live from the neck up, not from or in their hearts. So, make it clean, clear and neat.

Authenticty, heart-centered living is very challenging. So we build a mental and emotional wall constructed of labels, categories, matrices, technologies, etc. which we use to make ourselves feel safe, to compare and judge others from an emeotional distance, and not allow others to get to close to us, or us to them. 

The deal with MBTI and other such assessments is that's it's like using a ruler to measure the depth of an ocean. Sadly, we only allow ourselves to see the "top 12 inches of another's ocean" and then we think we "know" them, and  with that we make all kinds of judgments, comparisons, and create stories based on this 12-inch measure. More's the pity.

Glad I found this most interesting blog.  Restaurant Jobs offers a most cogent point about what an understatement it is to say that "Categorization is useful".

Every MB assesment and analysis guide should have a big captial letter section saying: ANY TYPE MAY BE  FOUND DOING ANY JOB WITH EXCELLENCE AND VICE VERSA.  TYPES INTERACT WITH EACH OTHER AND ENVIRONMENTS   IN UNKNOWN WAYS.   USE WITH CAUTION AND DO NOT MAKE IMPORTANT DECISIONS BASED ON MB TYPE.  

Great discussion.

As Martin notes, Restaurant Jobs understates the importance of generalizations to human existence.  We must, and do, rely on them all the time just to live daily life.  It's hard-wired into us for, as he points out, good reason.

But that's another posting.  This one's about when we misuse generalizations, when we use them  in the same manner as racism. 

I love Peter's "using a rule to measure the depth of the ocean."  It does happen, it happens all the time in business, when we mistake measuring a category for really getting to know someone.  It objectifies them.

I would tweak Martin's suggestion.  It's not that MB can't be used for important decisions—I believe it can and should.  But only for important decisions about group issues, e.g. workforce or team make-up.  The important decisions that have to do with individuals should have exactly his prescribed cautionary note.

Charlie interesting idea Re: using MB in relation to group dynamics rather than individual ones.  

I had an interesting discussion with Steve Duesbury of PeopleAnswers (an assessement firm) relating to that subject- namely the need to understand the dynamics of a workgroup as part of the assessment process for employment fit.  

From experience in business, I think that assessing individuals without regard to group fit (and beyond that, group evolution in the new configuration) can never be really predicitive because I believe that the strongest motivation in people's lives arise from the expectations of those near them. 

We have hired people whose interviews would have been a bad joke had we not known of their abilities from outside sources,   while others who seem to test out wonderfully end up like fighting fish once they are in the bowl we call home.    

MB and other assessments need to evolve (and its a major quantum jump) to give insight into the far greater complexity of a group "mind" as it itself evolves under various leadership and stress/success situations.    

The vendors who can master that art are the ones who will add the greatest value in the future. 

We all find the idea of categorizing  - and acting on that characterization of - someone based on "one little piece of data" insidious. But I also find MB, enneagram, and all the other personality-typing constructs useful in both self-exploration and in helping figure out why someone else might act/communicate/receive information the way that they do.

I'm a marketing person who happens to be an MB Introvert.  Knowing  this has helped me understand why I tend to build easy rapport with techies, who have a tendency to Introversion, while having a harder time with sales folks, who tend to be more extraverted. (It's humorous to note that when I tell salespeople that I'm an I  - although admittedly a borderline case -  they usually try to sell me on the fact that I really must be an E.)

At the same time, I often tell people that I'm a walking ethnic sterotype: my German grandfather was a butcher, my Irish grandfather owned a saloon.

In truth, we're all the sum of a lot of parts, and the whole is a lot greater than a simple sum of the parts. We just need to keep in mind that this goes for everyone, not just ourselves.

Charlie,

I like your insistence on removing the type-casting  from your work in the Leadership Program.  First, it makes you different, and second, it forces your clients to get out of their heads and into their...what?...heads?  hearts?  An inner state they're not familiar with?

As a guy who trained as an actor, I was shocked when I encountered MB when I arrived in the business world.   It seemed to make getting along with people a mental calculation instead of an authentic response to the individual.

Actors play characters in a fictional world, and these characters are just like us:  their lives consist of overcoming one problem after another.  One of the most common problems we face is other people!   A big part of actor training is listening to what the other character gives you (how he reads the line, his inflection, subtext, and body language) and then responding to him with your line in an authentic way—a way that springs from your heart, not your head.

No self-respecting actor would ever disengage from the experience of listening to think, "Gee, is this guy an ENTJ or a JERK?"  A good actor allows himself to experience the other person and then is open enough to respond authentically.    It's a creative process, and it demands a kind of inner freedom and flexibility that requires courage and training.

That's it.  I'm all for experiential learning.  We all act out of character for purposes that are important to us.   See Brian Little's work on personality.  As he says, one way to define courage is "acting out of character."

Sims

You've discussed very powerful concepts about stereotyping in this thoughtful blog.   I love finding out what makes other folks tick and if we all took a little time to "listen" to other people, we'd all be winners.  Ask others about themselves and you'll be amazed what they say.  It certainly defies putting folks in boxes. 

Wow, that NPR story says it all.

And now that Shaula and Sims mention acting, it reminds me of Sandy Meisner's classic On Acting; makes much the same point.

Thanks Maureen for the reminder that MB and other typologies are very interesting and useful for self-knowledge.  And I LOVE the enneagram.

It would be advised that if you are going to write something so negative about the MBTI, that you educate yourself on it. First off, there is 16 possible typeologies, not 4.

Second, the last time the publisher updated the assessment, over 92,000 subjects were used. it's amazing that so many people could have such similar preferences, I agree. But you need to learn the construct of Jungian psychology before knocking it as stereotyping. So here you go buddy..if you have enough intelectual capabilities, let me know what you learned.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Jung/types.htm

"The man," thanks for correcting me on terminology--you're of course right, there are four type preferences, but 16 possible types.

That said, you seem to be under the impression that I'm negative about the MBTI. Let me clarify.

I think it's very valuable. Quoting from my own post, "Myers Briggs is useful," and "categorization is fine." The issues come from how people use it--something that the previous commenters all seem to understand, and have done a lovely job of expanding on.

To me, the key lesson of the MBTI is simple and powerful: Not Everyone Is Like Me. This is central to empathy, and therefore to trust. It is also the same lesson taught on the very first class of the very first day of my MBA program--a case that showed us the arrogance of assuming that understanding our own preferences constitutes market research.

MBTI has done as much as anything in business to drive that lesson home. The problem comes when people try to force it one step further--not just to realize that others are not like us, but then to force those others into categories. Doing so depersonalizes.

That said, I must react to a few of your points.

1. There is absolutely nothing "amazing" about 92,000 people falling into 16 categories: all you have to do is make the categories exhaustive and exclusive, which MBTI does. It is logically impossible for any other result to occur.

2. Despite Briggs and Myers having studied Jung's work, I see absolutely no need to be an expert in Jungian analysis in order to make, or appreciate, the simple comments I made in the post.

3. If you'll forgive a bit of petulance, if you're going to challenge someone's "intelectual capabilities" (sic), you might check your own spelling and verb tense errors.

I love working with curiosity and am also very disappointed when people ask for more detail andfeel that the training given is a bit basic. I usually find these are the people for whom the basics have been missed and probably always will be.