Individual Development, EQ, Jung, Pearman Personality Integrator

Bobby is spectacular at identifying talented team members and using their strengths with the tasks at hand.  He loses talent at three times the rate of all other managers at his level in the organization.  Bobby's boss was given a report from hr which outlined the alarming rate of talent loss and the cost to the company.  The main theme from exit interviews was than"Bobby is brilliant and he is impossible to work for."  One exiting employee said, "I would not work for him again if he had the only job available." Because Bobby had been heavily recruited and his sign-on bonus was significant, senior leaders didn't want to give up on Bobby's potential in the company. I had previously worked with the COO when she was in another company's and she called to discuss coaching possibilities for Bobby.  After considerable discussion about what a coaching engagement would be workable, Bobby was brought in to the discussions and he and I had a fit discussion.

Bobby is spectacular at identifying talented team members and using their strengths with the tasks at hand.  He loses talent at three times the rate of all other managers at his level in the organization.  Bobby's boss was given a report from hr which outlined the alarming rate of talent loss and the cost to the company.  The main theme from exit interviews was than"Bobby is brilliant and he is impossible to work for."  One exiting employee said, "I would not work for him again if he had the only job available." Because Bobby had been heavily recruited and his sign-on bonus was significant, senior leaders didn't want to give up on Bobby's potential in the company. I had previously worked with the COO when she was in another company's and she called to discuss coaching possibilities for Bobby.  After considerable discussion about what a coaching engagement would be workable, Bobby was brought in to the discussions and he and I had a fit discussion.

The Misaligned team Rebecca was leaving a team meeting with a great deal of frustration.  Team members seem to be in perpetual conflict with each other, team meeting agenda were rarely followed, and the team ability to make decisions was essentially paralyzed.  As she thought about the team, it was apparent that unless there was an intervention not much was going to happen. She called me (Roger) to discuss her challenges which we put into three buckets: teaming skills training, team norms, and individual team member learning.  To help with all of these buckets, the team took the Pearman Personality Integrator.  We identified key team skills--team communication, team conflict management, team decision making, and team roles. Each topic was treated separately and each training involved skill checklists and learning challenges for each team member.  We had a meeting to facilitate the creation of team norms and associated behavioral benchmarks that everyone discussed and agreed to.  L

Over the last forty years the two primary threads in research on personality seem to be at odds, while proponents of each perspective claim “truth.”  Trait oriented users and researchers are represented by the Big Five proponents and the process oriented perspective is reflected in Jung’s psychological type model.   Interestingly, many proponents of trait models “believe” their work is grounded in science, though they are often unwilling to tolerate much criticism about its limits and pragmatic utility.  Proponents of psychological type are devoted to the proposition of type dynamics for which there is almost no empirical evidence and for the absence of evidence, they seem to care very little. At a number of levels for all camps, this situation is quite comical.  Its potential practical outcomes, however, are less funny and potentially quite harmful. Big Five proponents don’t seem to care about the genesis of the model which is no more scientific than the claim that psychologi

Personality assessments ask individuals to identify the behaviors that are typical of them.  Often, individuals are asked to rate the degree a behavior or descriptor is “true” of his or her behavior.  Sometimes, individuals are asked to select between two behaviors or descriptors in an “either / or”  or “true, not true” response fashion.  All of these assessments are assuming the individual experiences his or her behavior as consistent regardless of context. In the last decade, with the mounting evidence that context matters in behavior and that it dramatically impacts a sense of identity, these assessments are ignoring both the science and the everyday experience of the individuals taking the inventories.  The practical way this emerges when interpreting personality tools is when a participant looks at his or her report and says, “but this isn’t how I am at home.”  Or, “I completed this assessment with work in mind.”   The consequence of this feeling that the results are only

Ockam’s razor is intended to be a problem-solving principle based on the idea that among competing hypotheses, the one with the fewest assumptions is likely best.  Franciscan friar William of Ockham lived at a time when it could hardly be said that there was wide acceptance that scientific methods and principles would enlighten the pursuit of knowledge; he lived 1287-1347.  In his world, if you didn't understand something, just attribute it to the wonder and awe of God.  Pretty simple explanation when you didn't understand something or it was "too complex." In the last six months I have seen a number of articles in our profession posted to claim that if a writer or thinker couldn’t explain something simply, the individual clearly didn’t understand his or her topic.  Thousands have clicked “like” to declarations that apply Ockam’s razor to issues or challenges would be ideal.  It seems that proponents of “simple means clarity,” and the lack of simple and clarity i

Limitations and Opportunities “All of man’s troubles have arisen from the fact that we do not know what we are and do not agree on what we want to be.”                                 Jean Bruller, You Shall Know Them Self-awareness and personal insights create an opportunity for looking at your behavior patterns and for exploring new behaviors that can enhance effectiveness.  At a minimum, discovery about your typical behavior patterns and the impact of those patterns on the world around you invite a look at how to approach your relationships in the future.  It can be easily asserted that the millions of individuals who have taken the MBTI ® assessment have been given a picture of themselves that provides a degree of self-awareness.  An additional gain with the use of the MBTI ® tool has been the invitation to acknowledge and work constructively with differences.  These are worthy outcomes with the use of the assessment and theory on which it is built. There ha