Some time ago, I attended a meeting of community leaders who served on American Heart Association boards around the state. There were about 200 of us in a large meeting room. I was a little puzzled when they had us all take a psychological test. I was even more puzzled when they asked us to line up around the walls of the room in the order of our test scores on one psychological variable in the test. The highest scores were at the front of the line and the lowest scores were at the back. Then they divided us into groups of 5 and they told each group to plan a trip west for two weeks. Then they went to the front of the line and asked one of the group members to describe their trip. “We decided how far we would travel each day and where we would stay. Then we planned our activities by the half day.” The next question was: How did you pack? “Well of course we packed our clothes so that the appropriate attire would match the planned activities for the half day.” Then they went to the other end of the line and asked that group to answer the same question. “Hey, we just took our clothes out of the dryer, threw them in a duffle bag and headed west! That day changed the way that I understand people and leadership forever. The point of the exercise was that you need planners and execution people on your board, but you also need spontaneous visionary people. The visionary people can’t execute and the planners usually don’t see what could be.
The test was the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator based on the work of the famous psychiatrist Carl Jung. It is critical to realize that your personality type is innate. You were born with it. It is not a choice. There are 4 different pairs of characteristics and so there are 16 different personalities. You are familiar with some of the pairs. One pair is introversion vs extroversion. It is a great example of the reason every American should have a working knowledge of this topic. I would teach it in high school. It would help teenagers with every aspect of their lives. It would help them understand jobs that they would find most satisfying. It would help young parents understand what their children need. Remember we are born with our personality type. For a mother who is a friendly gregarious extrovert who was a popular cheerleader, it may be completely baffling that her pretty little daughter is very introverted. That child will almost certainly be uncomfortable being a cheerleader. She will be naturally quiet and reserved but she will have other traits where she can excel. If mom pushes her to be a cheerleader, it is likely they will both be miserable.
Four letters determine your type. Mine are INF and I fall in the middle on P or J. Your characteristics may be strong, medium or weak. My JP preference is weak. My other letters are strong. I was very introverted as a child. Understanding this concept helps you know who you are. Because I am introverted, I have always communicated better in writing than in person. I have been that way from birth but knowing that helped me understand why public speaking was uncomfortable and it has helped me deal with that weakness.
The two middle letters in your type determine how you take in information and make decisions. The are four possibilities for those two middle letters. The second letter is a choice between Sensing (S) and Intuition (I). You use all four letters to some degree, but your personality type says what comes most natural to you and dominates your thought process. If your second letter is S you make decisions that are guided most by details and current realities. If your second letter is N you pay more attention to meanings, patterns, and future possibilities.
The third letter in your profile is Thinking (T) or Feeling (F). These factors determine how you organize material and make decisions. Those with the third letter T make decisions based on principles and logical consequences. (Just the facts, ma’am). Fs make decisions based on values and consequences for people.
“We can use our preferred process (feels most natural and comfortable) represented by the letters in our type code, or we can choose to use a nonpreferred process (may feel unnatural and uncomfortable) not represented in our type code. The first is considered a personality strength, whereas the latter may be a personality stretch and may take more focus and effort to use.” Understanding our type helps us understand our strengths and also when we need to stretch into an uncomfortable way of dealing with a situation.
My two letters are NF. That makes connecting dots, advocating for patients, and seeing the potential for a better health system very natural. Seeing how epigenetics and molecular biology tie together is easy too. Other hard sciences and systems are a stretch for me but that is not a problem for me. I know what I know, and I know what I don’t know. I know my personality type. I know why some things are easy and some things are a stretch. That’s fine. My colleagues and collaborators include people who are extroverted and love reaching out. There are STs who are all about facts and pulling the project through. I value them. I respect them. I know that our leadership team is most successful when we understand our own strengths and the strengths of others. If everyone on the leadership team is the same, the team will almost certainly be much less effective.
I went to college a long time ago. I was taught that our minds at birth are all the same— a blank slate or a tabula rasa and we developed our mental processes based on the environment and our experiences. That is what I thought until I went to that heart association meeting. I learned that our approach to the world is present when we are born, and it is not a choice. Think of your kids. Mine were very different from the time they took their first breath. Some ways of making decisions will always be easier for us. Most of all no one has all the strengths and we need each other.
These personality traits are important in every aspect of our lives. Just think about the current state of our politics. Conservatives are much more likely to be grouped under one set of Myers-Briggs types. They are persistent, tenacious, reliable, trustworthy, faithful, and loyal. Those are all essential traits. They are more likely to be satisfied with things as they are or even as they were. Liberals are creative, imaginative, curious, unpredictable, impulsive and they desire novelty and change. That is just the way these people are. They were born that way. It is not a choice. Both types are absolutely essential for high functioning countries, communities and leadership teams. We need each other. We should value each other, but we may make each other crazy. Too often today we are demonizing each other and won’t even talk with each other. That is madness and I think it is making Americans very uncomfortable in ways that they don’t even recognize. When you hear anyone demonizing another American, just know that “leader” will never give us the great country we could have. Every personality type has a special gift. They have something special they bring to the team. When we respect and value each other and can compromise on solutions, we will have a much stronger health system and a much better country.
If you want to know more about this topic, I loved the books Type Talk and Type Talk at work. Here is a free personality test. This link provides a very brief description of each type.
One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. Today, our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change.”
— Martin Luther King Jr.
Leaders understanding this post will be on a fast track to having a MTV (Most Trusted Advisor) either internally or externally, through whom they can see clearly the Care Development Platform Architecture the current system is shields and prevents - largely through personality types that are paid handsomely to keep the Insurance and PHARMA Profitability Platform in place. But don’t blame your broker, who’s paid more by Insurance carriers the more you pay and whose livelihood depends on to singing the line. Go to your non-conflicted “trusted advisors”, have them learn ConcentricDNA, today shared through top benefits firms through the teachings and track record of Donovan Pyle, the country’s first Fee-only advisor, starting in 2018. His process is taught through the Aspirational Agility Health curriculum, by Marlin Woods with support from Darrell Moon. The platform includes Optimal Medical Therapy (OMT).
The opportunity for “trusted advisors” in the legal, health advisory, life science, and strategic advisory fields to become THE MOST TRUSTED ADVISOR to clients is UNPRECEDENTED. They are the gateway to their clients making sure all the personalities are making their company great - by knowing and insisting on benefits advisors serving the business objectives of companies through Care Development Architecture the fits their needs. And that can only begin to happen when companies have a MTA. To learn more about MTA’s, better understand the WHY, the WHO, the WHAT and the WHEN here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/11Hli9qDHtHDkWoteRc3dXWnaYJT21yw7/view?usp=drivesdk