Type Talk: The 16 Personality Types That Determine How We Live, Love, and Work
304
Type Talk: The 16 Personality Types That Determine How We Live, Love, and Work
304Paperback(10th Anniversary Edition)
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Overview
What’s your type?
Would you rather . . .
. . . celebrate with the whole crowd or just a few friends?
. . . focus on the facts or get an overall impression?
. . . go with what “seems logical” or what “feels fair”?
. . . keep to a schedule or keep your options open?
How you answer these questions is the very beginning of understanding who you are and how you relate to those around you, by using a new and exciting method called Typewatching. Otto Kroeger and Janet M. Thuesen have developed Typewatching from the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which was derived from the work of C. G. Jung. Now they have put together the first and only popular guide to the MBTI in Type Talk. Here is a one-of-a-kind guide that describes this scientifically validated approach to “name-calling,” a method that has been used for more than forty years by individuals, families, corporations, and governments who want to communicate better.
Typewatching as explained in Type Talk is easy to learn and natural to use. With even moderate practice it can help teachers teach and students learn, workers work and bosses boss. It can help lovers love, parents parent, and everyone accept themselves and others more easily. Best of all, Typewatching is fun.
Type Talk examines the four pairs of preferences that are fundamental to every personality type: Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/iNtuition, Thinking/Feeling, and Judging/Perceiving. Kroeger and Thuesen provide a self-evaluation that can be used to determine which of each of these preferences best describes you. They delineate every combination of preferences—there are 16 different personality types, so you are sure to find yourself—and they go on to demonstrate how to analyze and evaluate other people as well. Once armed with this knowledge, you will learn how to thrive in a world of so many different types. Here is a celebration of the similarities and differences in people, an odyssey of discovery in which the final destination is success, satisfaction, and serenity.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780440507048 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 09/01/1989 |
| Edition description: | 10th Anniversary Edition |
| Pages: | 304 |
| Sales rank: | 217,885 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.00(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Janet M. Thuesen, INFP, president of Otto Kroeger Associates, has had an extensive career in education, business, and counseling. She has taught at grade levels from preschool through college and has worked with emotionally disturbed adolescents and chemically dependent women. She also served as assistant director of Organizational Development at the White House and at the Department of Education in executive and management development. She has trained hundreds of professionals in administering and interpreting typewatching skills and has spoken extensively on the subject.
Read an Excerpt
1
Name-calling
“There are three fingers pointing back at you.”
This is a book about name-calling. In one way or another we do it all the time. You know the lines: “He’s such a space cadet.” Hey, smarty pants, what’s the answer?” “She’s such a brain!” “My boss is so uptight.” “She’s such a big mouth.” “He’s a real mover and shaker!” That’s just for starters.
The point is, it’s almost second nature for us to pigeonhole and catalog people around us, though not always accurately or positively. But name-calling isn’t necessarily bad. Without labels and pigeonholes, a lot less communication would likely take place. Name-calling creates communication shortcuts that often facilitate our dealings with one another at work and at home, with friends, relatives, and veritable strangers. If someone tells you about a friend who is a “bundle of energy” or who is “happy-go-lucky,” you know pretty much what that means. Unfortunately, such labels can also lead to negative stereotypes and misunderstandings, sometimes hindering communications and creating self-fulfilling prophesies.
Why do we name-call? It starts when we become aware that someone displays a distinctive, identifying characteristic, whether it’s something we like or dislike. Name-calling is a method of cataloging people—much as we catalog animals, buildings, and types of art—a handy device to help us remember those identifying characteristics and store that information for future reference. You know that co-worker who likes things explained thoroughly and in detail before she can try something new? You’ve likely dubbed her a “slow learner” and made a mental note to take five minutes to explain to her something you could grasp in three. That friend who insists on reading every sign out loud during a car trip is the “chatterbox.” You learn to think twice before asking him to take a lazy Sunday drive to the mountains. And then there’s the “administrator,” the friend who can walk into a room and organize something—the furniture, a business, an event—in a matter of minutes. That’s someone you like to have around when chaos abounds, but not necessarily when you want to have a lazy day.
Convenient and natural as this business of name-calling is, we tend to have mixed feelings about it, especially when it is done in the name of science. When a psychologist or other behavioral scientist creates a personality “coding” scheme—even one based on sound research and psychological theory—many of us become resistant and negative to the idea of typing while continuing our own personal classifying and name-calling. The response itself often involves name-calling: “Those shrinks—what do they know with their touchy-feely stuff?” In one sentence, someone resistant to being categorized unfairly categorizes an entire profession and belittles the good work many in that profession do.
The Scientific Approach
Typewatching is a constructive response to the inevitability of name-calling. It is based on the notion that as long as we’re going to do it, we might as well do it as skillfully, objectively, and constructively as possible. That’s what Type Talk is all about.
Type Talk is about Typewatching, an organized, scientifically validated approach to name-calling that has been used for more than forty years by individuals, families, corporations, and governments who want to communicate better. Typewatching is easy to learn and natural to use. With even moderate practice, it can help teachers teach and students learn, workers work and bosses boss. It can help lovers love, parents parent, and everyone to accept themselves and others more easily. Best of all, Typewatching can be fun.
One curiosity about name-calling is that it often says as much about the caller as the callee. It’s like that old adage: When you point a finger at someone there are three fingers pointing back at you. Try it. And so it is with name-calling. Often, when you put another person in a box or use a label, especially a negative one, it reflects as much on you as on the one you’re describing. Typewatching, then, is also about self-awareness.
Who We Are
The ideas in Type Talk stem from the work of a small cast of characters—more about them in a moment—but they also come from a cumulative total of fifteen years of personal and professional Typewatching on the part of your authors—not to mention many more years of people-watching. Otto came into Typewatching by a rather circuitous path. He was a clergyman in the late 1950s and a psychologist and behavioral scientist in the 1960s. The 1970s were spent as a consultant in “organizational development,” a discipline that assesses the impact of human behavior on productivity in the workplace, during which time he was introduced to the psychological instruments on which Type watching is based. In the late seventies, as an organizational development consultant, he helped to establish the Center for the Application of Psychological Type (CAPT), which is now the largest research center on psychological type in the world. In 1978, he focused his business entirely on Typewatching.
Janet, too, has a varied background, which includes teaching—everything from preschool to elementary school to high school, and everyone from emotionally disturbed adolescents to chemically dependent inner-city women. In the late 1970s, she received a degree in counseling and organizational development, which she then put to use while working at The White House as assistant director of organizational development—the first time “OD” was formally used at that level of government. She spent a year at the Department of Education before becoming associated with Otto in 1981.
That association became more complete in 1985 when we were married. Together, through our seminars, lectures, and individual counseling, the two of us have introduced more than ten thousand people to Typewatching, from Pentagon generals to parents and their teenage children. We apply Typewatching to everything, including friends, associates, children, pets, and the plans for our own wedding.
One of the great advantages of Typewatching, as we’ve learned over the years, is that it is a judgment-free psychological system, a way of explaining “normal” rather than abnormal psychology. There are no good or bad “types” in Typewatching, there are only differences. Typewatching celebrates those differences, using them creatively and constructively rather than to create strife. Typewatching removes negative attitudes, highlights obvious differences, and fosters inter- and intrapersonal growth. It enables us to view objectively actions that we might otherwise take personally. With Typewatching, the tendency for a friend to be frequently late, for example, might be viewed as a typological characteristic rather than a personal affront or a character defect, Typewatching elevates name-calling from a negative, “put-down” tactic that mainly produces distance and distrust between people to a positive, healthy exercise with the potential for producing, not just harmony, but synergy at home as well as in the workplace.
A Brief History
Typewatching’s roots date back more than sixty years, when the Swiss-born psychiatrist C. G. Jung suggested that human behavior was not random but was in fact predictable and, therefore, classifiable. At the start, Jung was out of step with many of his colleagues because he suggested that the categories he proposed, for which he coined some new words, were not based on psychological sicknesses, abnormalities, or disproportionate drives. Instead, Jung said, differences in behavior, which seem so obvious to the eye, are a result of preferences related to the basic functions our personalities perform throughout life. These preferences emerge early in life, forming the foundation of our personalities. Subsequent issues of life are translated through each of our basic personality preferences. Such preferences, said Jung, become the core of our attractions to and repulsions from people, tasks, and events all life long. (Jung’s 1923 work Psychological Types brilliantly outlines his classifications. However, unless you are either a very serious student of psychological typology or a masochist, the book is not likely to appeal to the lay reader.)
Fortunately for Jung’s work, two women, neither of whom were psychologists, became very interested in classifying people’s observable behavior. One of them, Katharine Briggs, independently of Jung had begun as early as the turn of the century to classify the people around her based on their differences in living styles. Simply put, she came to the conclusion that different people approach life differently. When Jung’s works appeared in English in 1923, Briggs set aside her own work and became an exhaustive student of Jung’s. With her exceptionally gifted daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, she spent the 1930s observing and developing better ways to measure these differences. Spurred by the onslaught of World War II and the observation that many people in the war effort were working in tasks unsuited to their abilities, the two women set out to design a psychological instrument that would explain, in scientifically rigorous and reliable terms, differences according to Jung’s Theory of Personality Preferences. And so was born the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). The idea behind the MBTI was that it could be used to establish individual preferences and then to promote a more constructive use of the differences between people. Jung’s theory has become increasingly popular in the 1980s, due largely to the landmark accomplishments of this mother-daughter team.
More about the origins of MBTI in Appendix One. For now, it is important only that you understand that much of your attraction toward specific people in your life is the result of your personality preferences. In this book we will attempt to identify and understand these preferences, then to show how such an understanding can make your life easier, happier, and more productive. After you are able to identify your preferences (and those of your friends, colleagues, and family), we will show you how to fit Typewatching into your work, home, school, play, or wherever.
Table of Contents
| Acknowledgments | xiii | |
| Foreword | 1 | |
| Chapter 1 | Name-calling: "There are three fingers pointing back at you." | 4 |
| What Typewatching is | ||
| Who we are | ||
| A brief history | ||
| The birth of a type | ||
| Chapter 2 | What's Your Type?: "Is it three fifty-two, or a little before four?" | 13 |
| A self-analysis | ||
| Chapter 3 | Celebrating Differences: The Eight Preferences: "I know the answer. Let me start talking until it becomes clear." | |
| Sensors vs. iNtuitives | ||
| Thinkers vs. Feelers | ||
| Extraverts vs. Introverts | ||
| Judgers vs. Perceivers | ||
| Everything is relative | ||
| Too much of a good thing can lead to trouble | ||
| Chapter 4 | A Typewatching Shortout: The Four Temperaments: "Ready. Fire. Aim." | 49 |
| iNtuitive-Feelers | ||
| iNtuitive-Thinkers | ||
| Sensing-Judgers | ||
| Sensing-Perceivers | ||
| Chapter 5 | The ABCs of Determining Someone's Type: "Whoa, this isn't the same person I've known in the office." | 62 |
| Expressive Extraverts vs. Reserved Introverts | ||
| Rigid Judgers vs. Flexible Perceivers | ||
| Exact Sensors vs. Theoretical iNtuitives | ||
| Objective Thinkers vs. Subjective Feelers | ||
| Chapter 6 | Typewatching From 9 to 5: "Somehow I'd like a little more margin for error." | 75 |
| How types set goals | ||
| Making goals work | ||
| Type and time management | ||
| How the types view "time" | ||
| Hiring: Who hires whom? | ||
| Avoiding organizational blind spots | ||
| Resolving conflicts with type | ||
| Typewatching and team building | ||
| Why Feelers are underpaid | ||
| Chapter 7 | Friends, Lovers, and Type: "At last, someone who will help me get my life in order." | 123 |
| How types play the dating game | ||
| Do opposites attract? | ||
| What's a "small" wedding? | ||
| Gift giving | ||
| Fair fighting | ||
| Love, sex, and type | ||
| Chapter 8 | Parent-Child Typewatching: "Would you please look with your eyes instead of your mouth?" | 158 |
| How Introverts and Extraverts invade space | ||
| Sensing-iNtuitive communication problems | ||
| Thinking and Feeling role models | ||
| Judgers shape kids up; Perceivers lack guidance | ||
| Some case histories | ||
| Chapter 9 | Typewatching Everywhere: "Have a cookie. You'll feel better." | 180 |
| Type, teaching, and learning | ||
| Who does well on tests? | ||
| Career choices of the sixteen types | ||
| How types behave at parties | ||
| Money management: Who saves, who spends? | ||
| Weight: Who gains, who loses? | ||
| Humor: How types tell jokes | ||
| Sexual antics | ||
| Sports: winners and losers | ||
| Religion: the true believers | ||
| Politics: Who make the best leaders? | ||
| Chapter 10 | The Sixteen Profiles: "How could we lose when we were so sincere?" | 214 |
| ISTJ: Doing What Should Be Done | 215 | |
| ISFJ: A High Sense of Duty | 218 | |
| INFJ: An Inspiration to Others | 222 | |
| INTJ: Everything Has Room for Improvement | 226 | |
| ISTP: Ready to Try Anything Once | 230 | |
| ISFP: Sees Much But Shares Little | 234 | |
| INFP: Performing Noble Service to Aid Society | 238 | |
| INTP: A Love of Problem-solving | 243 | |
| ESTP: The Ultimate Realist | 247 | |
| ESFP: You Only Go Around Once in Life | 251 | |
| ENFP: Giving Life an Extra Squeeze | 256 | |
| ENTP: One Exciting Challenge After Another | 261 | |
| ESTJ: Life's Administrators | 265 | |
| ESFJ: Hosts and Hostesses of the World | 269 | |
| ENFJ: Smooth-talking Persuader | 272 | |
| ENTJ: Life's Natural Leaders | 276 | |
| Appendixes | 281 | |
| 1 | A Brief History of Typewatching | |
| 2 | Dominant, Auxiliary, and the Complexity of the Introvert | |
| About the Authors | 290 | |
| About Otto Kroeger Associates | 290 | |
| Suggested Readings | 291 |
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