Your boss is quiet, hates big meetings, wants your ideas in writing, relies heavily on logic when making decisions, and values advanced planning.
You, on the other hand, have the gift of gab, enjoy team work and play, worry a lot about people’s feelings when you make judgment calls, and prefer spontaneity to structure.
Can this professional marriage be saved?
Yes, it can. But you really have to work at it. I know, because I help journalists get a handle on personality preferences and differences. In the past four years I’ve Myers-Briggs-ed hundreds of news folks. For the uninitiated, that means I’ve interpreted their results on the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. According to its publisher, Consulting Pyschologists Press, it is the most widely used personality assessment tool in the world.
The Myers-Briggs doesn’t cover every aspect of the special person that is you. But it provides great insights into why you do those things you do. You are asked a series of 93 questions such as:
- In a large group, do you more often introduce others or get introduced?
- If you were a teacher, would you rather teach fact courses or theory courses?
- Which is a higher compliment, to be called competent or compassionate?
- Does following a schedule appeal to you or cramp you?
By forcing you to choose between two options, over and over again, the instrument is able to sort your answers and determine the clarity of the preferences related to your personality type. You end up with a four letter code (see the sidebar explanation of the various letters) that, as I always emphasize to our seminar groups, explains your behaviors but doesn’t excuse them. We may have innate preferences, but once aware of them and their impact, we have the ability to adapt our behaviors.
My MBTI® experience has taught me that while journalists may think we are a breed apart (curious, adventurous, resourceful) — I have found no one dominant personality type among us.
- Some news hounds are better talkers, others better listeners.
- Some are conceptual thinkers, others detail mavens.
- Some value logic, others feelings.
- Some live by lists, others live to avoid them.
Here’s where we run into trouble: because we are human, we can’t help but see the world through our own lens. We have a hard time figuring out why other people can’t just do things our way. Worst of all, we end up misjudging those who don’t.
Here’s an example of one Myers-Briggs category: A recent seminar participant was clearly an extravert.* In Myers-Briggs terms, that means she gets energized by connecting with people. She thinks most comfortably by talking her ideas out loud and bouncing them off others. She’s very comfortable in groups and is usually among the first to speak. This editor told us she has a hard time getting some people on her staff to contribute in brainstorming meetings. She told us they seem to just sit there and say very little, so she pretty much gave up on the sessions.
Now, in that same seminar we had several managers with strong preferences for introversion. That is, they get energized by the inner world of thoughts. They like to take things in and fully “bake” an idea in their brain before taking it out and presenting it to others.
With everyone’s permission, I gathered the three introverts together with the extravert editor. I asked her to lead a quick brainstorming session with them to come up with some ideas for a class reunion of their group. She turned to the three and invited them to chime in with their thoughts. There was silence. More silence.
The editor looked very uncomfortable. This was just like her story meetings!
“What’s going on right now?” I asked one of the introverts. He didn’t miss a beat. “I’m just thinking,” he replied. And all three allowed as how the silence that was making the editor edgy was perfectly comfortable for them. They preferred to speak when they felt they had something valuable to say…and then they spoke freely.
For the editor, it was a revelation. She realized that she may have been misjudging the introverts on her staff, assuming they were uninterested, uncooperative, or bereft of ideas because they didn’t jump right in during her meetings.
The introverts then told our seminar group how exhausting it can be for them to sit in meetings where extraverts never seem to shut up. How introverts think first, then speak, but sometimes feel the constant chatterers in the room don’t even hear them. But guess which managers tend to get higher marks from colleagues for being good listeners? You guessed it. Those introverts. Extraverts are frequently chided for interrupting others, and finishing their sentences for them, often making others feel steamrolled.
Once our self-awareness is heightened through exercises such as the Myers-Briggs, we are less apt to assume the worst when others differ from us. We are also able to modify our own behaviors and develop better leadership strategies. To solve the extravert-introvert disconnect, distribute an agenda in advance of a meeting. It lets the introverts pre-ponder the scheduled topics, and it also serves to keep the extroverts from veering into free-form, off-topic riffs.
You can look into taking the MBTI® or similar instruments through your human resources department. (Application of psychological tools like MBTI® is restricted to those who have gone through training.) Or you can look at some of the personality literature we’ve listed in our sidebar. But even if you never take a formal program, you can still make a commitment to learning more about yourself and those who work for you.
- Promise yourself you won’t assume you know their motives.
- Ask questions.
- Learn their personality preferences.
- Share yours.
- Remain steadfast on bedrock issues of values and ethics, but be flexible when it comes to normal differences of personality.
We talk a lot about the value of diversity in our newsrooms today, and it is important to understand that diverse personalities also make for a stronger, more creative organization. People shouldn’t be expected to always do things your way — because there are other equally good ways to lead, follow, and work together to produce good journalism.
* Note: Although the common spelling is “extrovert,” MBTI® and other psychological literature spell the word “extravert.”
