161. MBTI and Organizational Cultures part 3

So I stumbled across something in my Evernote files that I saved a while back called "Competing Values Framework" which was developed by Cameron and Quin This is what it looks like:

 The basic gist of the CVF is that the different kinds of leaders in an organization will bring competing values to the table. Their personalities lead them to value different ways of relating to people and going about accomplishing the core tasks of the organization. This creates a certain kind of organizational culture. It could look something like this:

 If you haven't noticed, this looks very similar to four of the categories in the MBTI.

External Focus = Extroversion
Internal Focus = Introversion
Stability and Control = Judging
Flexibility = Perceiving

If we were to overlap the MBTI personality preferences to the CVF, and narrow it down to the Rationals Temperament (NT) it would look something like this:

The Judging folks obviously know how to get things done in a systematic, focused way. The Perceiving folks are all over the place, but can still meet deadlines and move things along. It just typically drives the J's crazy. NTP's major in the process of imagination and innovation, it is the E and the I that determine how and where this process typically takes place and where those innovative and imaginative resources are channeled. The next post will postulate what it would look like to have the NF's in the middle of the matrix. So, how would you label the four quadrants differently?

160. MBTI and Organizational Cultures Part 2

I am continuing my binge on MBTI. I ran across this FREE ONLINE TEST to discover what kind of MBTI "personality type" your organization has. This has got to be the coolest thing when it comes to MBTI. Check out the test here.

159. Seth Godin on Organization, Movement and Philosophy

This came as a part of Seth Godin's weekly email updates. I thought it was quite instructive.

Organization vs. movement vs. philosophy

An organization uses structure and resources and power to make things happen. Organizations hire people, issue policies, buy things, erect buildings, earn market share and get things done. Your company is probably an organization.
A movement has an emotional heart. A movement might use an organization, but it can replace systems and people if they disappear. Movements are more likely to cause widespread change, and they require leaders, not managers. The internet, it turns out, is a movement, and every time someone tries to own it, they fail.
A philosophy can survive things that might wipe out a movement and that would decimate an organization. A philosophy can skip a generation or two. It is often interpreted, and is more likely to break into autonomous groups, to morph and split and then reunite. Industrialism was a philosophy.
The trouble kicks in when you think you have one and you actually have the other.

158. MBTI and Organizational Cultures

It seems I have caught the plague on researching MBTI. I really can't stop thinking about it, especially in relation to leadership and organizational culture. I am ENTP, and the P is what often throws a kink in my desire to see things really gain traction for the long haul. I am easily distracted to pursue new opportunities. So much so, that I can tend to drop things I have intentionally started and forsake them for the next new thing. Add to this my preference for the intuitive, abstract, conceptual world of information, and I can often find myself running around with so many rabbit trails, I come right back where I started, all to realize that I dropped some things, sometimes really important things, along the way.

In researching this topic of MBTI, leadership and organizational culture, I came a cross a really cool slide show that drew content from a book called Leadership in High Performance Organizational Cultures by Stanley Truskie. Truskie uses an odd combination of iNtuitive and Sensing along with Thinking and Feeling to create a matrix describing the different kinds of cultures created by leaders with these different combination's.(usually Judging and Perceiving are in the mix)

If you look at slide numbers 13-25 of the slide show, you will see a variation of this diagram.

As an NT, I function best when I am motivating people to press into the kingdom of God and his mission for us. I can honestly say that the most miserable I have ever been has been when I tried to lead as a SF with a consensus style of leadership.

The point of this diagram is not to say that one style of leadership is better than the other, per se. But to recognize that each combination of MBTI sets creates a certain kind of organizational culture when it is allowed to set the tone and style of leadership in that organization. All of these styles have a place in the organization, but it is typically the NT's or the NF's who will shake things up and get things moving in a group of people. They operate out of a vision for the future and a unsettling posture towards the status quo.

The tricky part for me has been negotiating the P side of my personality type. I read today in the book "Gifts Differing" (which my buddy Daniel Thigpen loaned me) that a P with no J is like a boat with all sail and no rudder. It can become directionless and blown around by whatever catches it's interests.

The thing about MBTI, of course, is that it is not determinative, You can learn to explore and cultivate what they call the auxiliary elements of your personality: those parts of you that you don't test positive on, but still manage to surface and come out when the circumstances are right. So I can function as a J, but I prefer a P approach to things. I enjoy the processing of things, rather than coming to closure. This means I enjoy the journey, not necessarily getting to the destination. In fact, if I never reach the destination, I can be fine with it, as long as I hop onto another journey. 

So a word of caution to all the P's out there, especially ENTP's. Don't let your personality type get the best of you. Every now and then you need to "open up a can of J" on what you are pioneering to make sure you reach the destination and your entrepreneurial ventures reach a level of sustainability.This is part of maturing and growing towards the fullness of Christ. (Ephesians 4:7-16).