Myers-Briggs and Public Broadcasting

Over the past six years, I have worked with public broadcasting stations to tailor the theory of Psychological Type for membership drives and capital campaigns. Knowing and applying Psychological Type can give a big boost to creating a cohesive campaign that truly reaches each and every member of your listening audience, turning them from passive listeners to engaged, and pledging, members.

Using Psychological Type, learn how your station and staff can

- identify your personal style, strengths, and “stretches” as individual staff members and create personal development goals.

- identify your organization's overall Type makeup, and how that bias is both helping and hurting your fundraising efforts.
- identify your individual on-air pitching style during pledge breaks, and how you can use the natural differences amongst your on-air staff to create complimentary Type pitch-teams.
- tailor and refine your station's overall mission statement and goals so that it both reflects your organization’s Type and appeals to all kinds of different Types.
- analyze your past pledge breaks in terms of vocabulary, themes and effectiveness, and see which Types you’re hitting, and which you’re not.
- avoid creating "scripts" to be read during pledge breaks and create "platforms" from which you can launch "structured improv."
- create a comprehensive package of materials that highlight every segment of your audience to get the most out of your capital campaign efforts.
- use new media (social networking, blogging, twitter, facebook, etc) most effectively so that they don't become resource traps.
- identify market segment gaps in your programming, and how your program scheduling can be structured so that it is perceived as "eclectic" instead of "random" or "focused" rather than "monotonous."
- identify your station's likely market segment without needing to spend funds for expensive marketing surveys that are usually designed with for-profit broadcasting companies in mind.

Psychological Type for Public Broadcasting can be tailored as a full-day retreat, a series of mini-retreats, or as an ongoing program. It is a valuable way to analyze past efforts, or as a way to create a brand-new methodology and continuously refine your fundraising.

Recessionary times hit non-profit organizations and public broadcasting stations especially hard; and a modest, but targeted, investment in your staff development can be both personally and *materially* rewarding. Program costs are developed with public broadcasting stations in mind. All sizes of stations, from small and scrappy, to large and institutionally-supported, can benefit from this kind of training and education.

Psychological Type is based on the theories of Carl Jung, and applied in the popularly-known Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Over 50 years old, the MBTI is the most widely used psychological type instrument used in the workplace today, with over 1 million people taking it every year. Today it is used in professional coaching, team-building, marketing, communications, organizational development and personal development. Psychological Type training can be a valuable addition to any ongoing program.

Barack Obama, Introspective ENTP?

Your type doesn't change according to your mood. Expression of your type may appear to do so, but it doesn't actually change.



Obama is probably an INFP, and probably our first INFP president. (Clinton was the first xNFx, as an ENFP). Lawyers are all over the place on the MBTI table because Law is all over the place in terms of "personality type" of law. It's the *type* of law that may reveal what Type he prefers. He focused on constitutional law, which has a basis in theory over practice, hence N. And fundamental civil rights, which is an FP combo.



Others have mentioned his "alone time" routines and discipline for evidence of his "I" nature. He also pauses before responding, showing that high level of brain activity that occurs before a response that is the reflective hallmark of the Introverted preferences.



Lastly, the INFP is the "archetypal figurehead" type and frequently found in artists (particularly musicians and actors) and non-INFPs find themselves projecting their hopes and aspirations on such types because they're so easily absorbed by the cool, reserved, and observant cultural sponges that INFPs are.



Hillary could only lose in the primary to one person - her husband. And that's exactly who she did lose to - at least in terms of Type. Obama's INFP type appeared as ENFP during the primary.
About Barack Obama
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Blogs and Type - Typealyzer

I would be remiss if I did not call attention to a fun little web app that has hit the blogosphere lately. Rather than analyze a person in terms of Type, Typealyzer analyzes one's blog's Type. I don't know what algorithms it's using to generate the results, or how many blog posts it scans. I've seen mention that it only scans the most recent blog post, which may vastly skew the results. What's neat about this is that it doesn't attempt to analyze the author's Type, but their blog's Type, which can be very different. It's a good illustration of when one's Operating Type is different from one's Best Fit Type - we all visit various Type "zip codes" throughout our day and our life, but always return home.

I wouldn't be surprised if the basis is "frequently used words" by certain types, weighted according to preferences. There's a Type table in MBTI literature that lists words preferred by certain types (with appropriate overlap where Type overlaps).

What's important about this is the application of such analysis - if you're doing a PR blog, you're going to want to use more Extraverted Feeling vocabulary, as societal expectations are the basis for most Public Relations. If you're doing a blog that's more like a personal journal, and there's some differences, it reveals where one is visiting during the writing process (which overall is an Introverted activity, as opposed to the Extraverted preference for talking). Knowing that the writing process is going to be read by anyone changes it as well, therefore making blogging not a truly Introverted process (particularly since the editing and self-critical steps of writing are skipped).

Overall, it's a fun app. This blog comes out as ISTJ by the way. Not surprising given the number of lists, rules, and tables present. I also have to step WAY out of Type knowing that the results will be published and reviewed (I am an ENFP for the most part, and my writing style is nothing like my dynamic and interactive speaking style).

So go have fun with it.

FAQ and Myths About Personality Type

There are a lot of myths on the internet perpetuated about the Personality Type, and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in particular. As I come across them, I'll attempt to bust them here.

1. Personality (tests/profiles) are like horoscopes. You can read anything you want into them.
It's more like horoscopes are attempting to be like personality profiles. In the case of the MBTI, there are 16 basic divisions, all of which are ultimately different from the other. There are similarities between many of the Types, but that's because they share common attributes (they may share ExFx in their code for example). Horoscope profiles are not generated by a question and answer instrument structured by an underlying theoretical structure. The MBTI is.

2. The MBTI doesn't predict success at a recommended career/job.
It's not supposed to. The MBTI reports job satisfaction vis-a-vis Type. When you see a "preferred careers" table, what you're seeing is the results of people reporting high job satisfaction compared to their Type. The MBTI shows what you prefer, not what you're good at doing. There are plenty of any given Type that aren't very good at being their Type. You may prefer to play baseball right-handedly, but that doesn't mean you're any good at hitting a ball.

3. The MBTI is frequently used to screen job applicants.
This is an unethical application of the MBTI according to APT International. Refer to myth #2 above. The exception to this rule is an organization that has conducted validated research to support such application, and I can nearly garuntee you that most HR departments don't. Personally, I'd be skeptical of working for any organization that uses any psychological instrument in their hiring process, but that's just me (being an ENFP).

4. I'm an Extravert, but I don't like to socialize with people.
Extraversion and socialablity are not the same thing. Extraversion and/or Introversion refers to where one focuses one's attention, or consciousness, and how one prefers to reenergize. Extraversion refers to the outside world, and Introversion refers to the inside world. The outside world isn't all people - it's things, ideas, animals, the sky, you name it. Socialability (or being a "people person") is more accurately indicated by the Thinking/Feeling dichotomy than the E/I dichotomy. When combined (as ExFx, IxFx, ExTx, IxFx) you get an even more accurate indicator. Additonally, remember that just because you prefer it, doesn't mean you're any good at it. You can prefer Extraversion and Feeling and be a pretty rotten person to be around at a party.

5. I'm an Introvert, but when I am with my friends and/or family, I'm very Extraverted.
Yep, and that's pretty indicative of Introverts. Those who prefer Introversion frequently feel "safe" enough around intimates to "let their guard down" and show a non-preferred side of themselves that isn't normally presented to the Extraverted world. Extraverts do the same thing in reverse - being uncommonly quiet and introspective with those they are intimately familiar.

6. I took the MBTI (in college, at work, in therapy) and then took the one online and it came out differently!
Well, yeah. And there's a few different possible reasons why.

a) It's a different indicator. If you took this one, then be advised that it's not the official MBTI. In fact, unless you're taking it through a qualified MBTI trainer, you're probably not taking the official MBTI. While I think the referred online indicator is pretty accurate, it's not the real thing.

b) You answered differently. That's hardly the indicator's fault. Now indicators are supposed to compensate for some degree of variation on the part of the taker when it comes to answers, but it's not psychic. Maybe you need to be a little more consistent ;-)

c) Officially, test-retest reliability scores for the MBTI are pretty high. Test-retest reliability is usually done with a 9-month time scale, so if it's been years since you took it, there's more of a chance of it changing. Now if you only changed on one letter, that's hardly the end of the world; see the next point.

d) The first time you took it (or maybe this time) you scored pretty close to the middle of the pack on at least one of the dichotomies, so the chances that you "flipped" letters is pretty good.

e) Possibly what happened (especially if you took it at work) you answered it in such a way as to satisfy an image you wanted to project, or expectations you expected to meet.

e) That usually indicates something is pulling you in one direction away from your preferred function. When we're younger, we're more under the influence of authority figures and family dynamics.

If you flipped on more than one letter, a little life-examination may be in order. ;-)

7. I read the profile and that isn't me!
First, the profiles aren't the point of the indicator. They just provide a nice snapshot of the larger dynamic of what's really going on (which most people don't get to learn, especially if they just took an online version without a trainer).

Secondly, well, then why did you answer the questionnaire the way you did? The resultant code only comes from one source - you. Garbage in, garbage out. A little self-awareness may be in order ;-)

[And guess what? That's partly what the MBTI is designed to help you start doing]

The mind inside the man

The mind inside the man

This is one of the best articles on a case study (an INTP baseball team manager). The method the coach uses is similar to what the Oakland A's did, by hiring Wall Street Analysts, to build a good team.

Please Start Here

I suppose the first post will lay out some ground rules, mostly for myself, but also for those who wish to comment on postings:

1. This is not the space to argue the validity of the basic Jungian theory of personality Type - for the purposes of this space, we're presuming the basic idea is valid
2. Debate about the extrapolation of Jung's ideas is completely valid - including criticism of the MBTI itself. Again, despite this rule, we're presuming that the MBTI, for the most part, is a valid indicator of Jungian Types. Some are better, others are worse, but since the whole theory is predicated on the idea that a standardized *objective* test is only one half of the whole process of self-discovery, arguing the validity of the MBTI is sorta moot In the end, only the 'subject' can validate the 'subject's' type
3. There are no Introverts or Extraverts - only Introvered and Extraverted functions in the dominant position. (Paraphrase of Peter Myers quote)
4. Rules are subject to change without notice ;-)
5. Keep an open mind
6. Recognize your own Type biases in your arguments
7. Have fun; I am

and now on with the show...