[IxDA Discuss] What's your Personality Type? (Related to: Now Hiring Leonardo DaVinci?)

[Jay Morgan]

Dana,

My last job was in a group who used personality typing on a semi-annual
basis as a group exercise.  All 40-50 people in the area - including admins
- would get together for a half-day session.  The VP was big on, uh, knowing
who people were so he'd know how to win with them - or against them, as he
needed to.  I got a real kick out of the exercise when he and I ended up
sitting next to each other because our scores were closest.

That team tended to post their colors up in their cube, really identifying
with it for a few weeks until the novelty wore off.  Of course, the leaders
who cared about the types, really learned how to engineer project teams.
The mistake is that you set out to engineer or program a process that needs
degrees of spontaneity, discovery, and inspection to achieve value and
sustain a business.  After a while, the habit to rely on a specific set of
people develops.  Also, those individuals become predictable and easily
influenced.

It was good as an exploratory exercise.  It was really sick when applied as
a team selection method.  For every statement about "it's good to use x-type
to balance with y-type", there's a chance that something unpredictable,
educational, and valuable will happen when you let work happen.

Can you tell I care about corporate culture?
- Jay

On 10/2/06, Dana Smith <Dana at danasmithdesigns.com> wrote:
>
> Hi Jay,
>
> > I start to see how I could use the results without stereotyping, and I
> > just wait to see who does use it to stereotype - themselves and
> > others.
>
> I think this is a very important point. In my opinion, these types of
> tests do start to become dangerous when too much emphasis or rigidity
> is put on the result. The test-taking process can be just as important
> an exercise as the outcome. I've found my four-letter type to be most
> useful as simply a short-hand way of generating understanding, but I
> would never want it to stand alone as some generalized description of
> me.
>
> Regarding using types to understand others, I believe if we can think
> of it in terms of, "she's behaving more like this and less like that,
> because of ____ motivation," the framework can remain useful without
> forcing unnecessary divisions or stereotyping.
>
> I envision personality / interaction preferences as an additional lens
> we can look through during many phases of the qualitative research
> and/or design process. But that is a topic for another day soon when I
> have more time.
>
> And many thanks to everyone who has replied so far! This is very, very
> interesting. Hopefully we'll get to see even more responses as the
> workweek kicks off.
>
> Dana
>
>
>


-- 
Jay A. Morgan
jayamorgan at gmail