There are people you just naturally click with. There are other people you just don’t get. What determines the “click factor”?
We’ve been taught the Golden Rule our whole life: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” While in essence this is true (you want to respect them, love them, treat them kindly, etc.), treating them exactly how you want to be treated isn’t always effective.
Over the past year, I’ve had a lot of exposure to an out-of-this-world self-assessment known as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) thanks to my friend Brandon Croke. This past Monday, The Sales Centre at Ohio University put on an event focusing on the MBTI and how to deal work better with (or tolerate) those around you.
This personality type indicator asks roughly 100 questions, and based on your responses, places you in between two extremes on four different scales.
For example, the first scale measures where you get your energy from—from people or from things. Those who are energized from people are Extroverts, and those who are energized by things are Introverts.
There are three more scales, measuring how you gather information, how you make decisions, and how you organize your life.
After aggregating your responses you are placed on one side of a scale making you one of two types for each category: 1. Extrovert/Introvert 2. Sensing/INtuition 3. Thinking/Feeling 4. Judging/Perceiving. By simply responding with your preferences to either/or questions, you are sorted into one of 16 different personality types consisting of four different letters. Based on your type, you can find a profile describing how you act in certain situations, whom you work well with, potential careers, strengths and weaknesses, and much more.
I encourage you to take the test online here for free. Click on the link that says After receiving your results, google “portrait of an ENTP” (which is what I am, for anyone who is curious) or whatever four letters the test aggregates.
Don’t use this as test as an excuse. Just because you aren’t a fan of deadlines doesn’t mean you won’t have to adhere to them. Don’t look down on people who are introverts just because you enjoy talking people’s ears off—there’d be no one to listen to you if it wasn’t for them!
Use this test to understand more about how you work, and why you click with some people but not with others. This is merely a tool to understand those around you better in an effort to create more harmony. This isn’t the end all be all of who you are.
Understanding why someone waits until the last minute to finish a project or why someone else would rather read a book than go to a party is actually ingrained and hardwired into her personality type—so don’t expect her to change. Work to understand those who are different than you and you’ll be amazed at how much more you can achieve.
So, what’s your type?