YOU: Being More Effective in Your MBTI® Type - the book review

© 2005 by Roger R. Pearman and Lominger International: A Korn/Ferry Company
Written by Roger R. Pearman, Michael M. Lombardo, and Robert W. Eichinger

Who should buy this book:
1.        Consultants, HR professionals, and others that use Lominger's Leadership Architect® and who want additional tips because this book is an extension of the FYI series
2.        Consultants, HR professionals, and people that use the MBTI to help others understand themselves because this book is the most robust resource available as far as tips and developmental ideas go
3.        Individuals who are extremely interested in self-development because this massive tome contains tons of thought-provoking ideas and tips that will help you overcome some of your weaknesses and actively manage some of your strengths (you do know that you can overuse your strengths, don't you?)

As soon as you open the cover of this 734-page paperback book it clearly states, "YOU is a book of tips to help you be more effective in your personality type."  You are told that the book "contains the only research that relates MBTI types to effectiveness data at work".  The authors "link how and why people differ to how those differences play out in behavior at work".  They claim that "being type wise can lead to better performance at work and better relationships".  This book is clearly for "HR professionals" and "experienced MBTI users".  And the four main reasons to read this book (according to the authors) are:
1.        You will become more type wise
2.        You will better understand yourself, others, and what happens when two different types interact
3.        You will get tips on how to be more effective, given your MBTI type
4.        You will learn how to solve typical interaction problems

Given this strong introduction, I expected to find a Lominger FYI book for users of the MBTI.  That is exactly what I found.  However, unlike FYI For Your Improvement™ from Lominger, this book is sorely lacking in a couple of key areas.  You cannot quickly find all tips associated with a common term because there is no index.  It uses very passive language (e.g. instead of saying you have a weakness, limitation, or barrier, YOU calls it "not-so-strongs").  The book is almost a marketing piece for the authors and select vendors (i.e. I was reminded of product placement in movies).  It also has several opportunities for improvement that are also challenges facing the other FYI books from Lominger.  Even though I am well-read enough to recognize the sources, there is no evidence of the underlying research (no researchers are credited via bibliography or footnotes).  Instead, YOU relies on self-reports and opinions that come across as pure trivia.  For visual learners the book is very light on educational graphics (e.g. CPP's MBTI materials offer matrixes to quickly see how types mesh and clash, but this book does not).  

The strengths of this book are the same as those of the other FYI books.  Page 721 should have been the introduction to the entire book because it lays down the fundamental challenge: you have personal preferences that are difficult to overcome, but if you have the desire and the skill you can alter your behaviors in situations that warrant a different approach.  YOU is a compendium of developmental tips and ideas for anyone who wants to be more effective at work.  There are sixteen chapters that correspond to the sixteen MBTI types.  536 pages of this book directly address the 16 types, which equates to approximately 33.5 pages per type.  (Unfortunately, 2.5 pages of each chapter are wasted on nonsensical case studies that put you in the role of a consultant or HR professional, but the other 31 pages are very helpful.)  Many of the Leadership Architect competencies are highlighted, but in YOU they are associated with MBTI types under the heading "Being a More Effective…"  The associated tips are often unique (i.e. not direct quotes from FYI For Your Improvement), which makes this book a valuable resource for professionals that leverage the Leadership Architect competencies in coaching or as a personal professional development tool (although it would be much easier with an index).  Michael Lombardo's fabulous Center for Creative Leadership study on overused strengths is greatly expanded and lends itself to the MBTI types very effectively.  Half of each chapter on the types focuses on "Overusing… Tendencies".  

The first two pages of each type chapter provides a useful overview.  You get a brief synopsis of how each type plays out at the office, their typical communication style, associated learning preferences (this section does not follow the same flow, but it is interesting), motivators, blind spots (I suspect this is for MBTI 360 assessments), stress behaviors (is MBTI trying to copy The Birkman Method®?), and barriers that this type may face.  Unfortunately, the blind spots, stress behaviors, and barriers don't tie directly to the "Being a More Effective…" and "Overusing… Tendencies" sections that make up the bulk of each chapter.  People are far too complex to have a clean 1:1 cause and effect relationship, but what makes a resource like this extremely valuable is when you can say X is broken so let's try Y to fix it.  

The first nine pages of the book provide a brief introduction to the MBTI and the second section is 162 pages on the MBTI facet pairs.  Clearly, the authors assume that you have some fundamental understanding of the MBTI because the first nine pages are not nearly as robust as what you can find with a simple Google search.  However, the section that covers the facet pairs is very thorough.  It fails to follow the same format as the chapters on the sixteen types, but the second section does use the two most robust sections from the previous chapters: how to express more of this preference and how to compensate when overusing this preference.  Each of the facets (e.g. thinking vs. feeling) is broken down into five pairs based on how much the facet reflects your preferences versus your experiences. This is probably a new concept for beginner and intermediate users of the Myers Briggs Type Indicator and could be worth the price of the book just to learn more about each facet pair and how to address deficiencies or excesses for each.  Also, the Leadership Architect competencies don't cleanly tie to the facet pairs so the tips will be largely unique to veteran Lominger users.

In the end, I asked myself, "Does this book accomplish what the authors set out to do?"  Going back to the four reasons they gave me for reading the book:
1.        Am I more type wise?  Even though I am an MBTI-contrarian for many reasons (which have all been previously documented), I am open to learning and the section on facet pairs was very interesting.  I know more about the MBTI facet pairs so I am more type wise.
2.        Do I understand myself, others, and what happens when I interact with different types better than before I read this book?  Well, my MBTI type has varied slightly throughout my career so it is hard to say whether I learned anything new about myself by reading the chapters on the types I have been.  INFP rang truest to where I see myself right now.  Readers of this review can definitely appreciate this sentence from the book: "Extraverted Thinking acts as an evaluator, making INFPs appear critical and unnecessarily skeptical at times."  Perhaps because I already knew so much about the types I did not really gain any additional insights into myself or others.  Also, any MBTI resource faces the same problem: I don't always know what someone else's MBTI type is.  Finally, there is nothing in this book that clearly helps me understand what happens when different types interact.  The organization formerly known as California Psychological Press has several books that do that very well.  (On a side note, CPP publishes four of Pearman's books, but they were not mentioned in this book until page 555 – even though they are the primary source of the MBTI tests that trainers and consultants use in organizations.  No contact information is given for CPP so I assume they did not pay a royalty or the authors consider them a direct competitor.)
3.        Did I get any tips on how to be more effective, given my type?  Absolutely!  This is clearly the best reason to buy this book.  However, I am more likely to use this book as a supplemental tool for coaching others who have gone through Lominger's Leadership Architect card sort or Voices 360 assessment rather than for people who have taken an MBTI quiz.  It will be challenging given the lack of an index, but I am pretty handy with colored highlighters and my copy is already well marked-up.
4.        Did I learn how to solve typical interaction problems?  I think this is redundant with question number two for the most part.  If I were a proponent of the MBTI and I was not very familiar with my type (perhaps I only got a brief summary description of my type from a workshop where I took the quiz), I would have learned a lot about my type.  Can I solve interaction problems based solely on self-awareness?  I may be able to proactively prevent a few problems, but it takes two to tango.  If I could determine someone's type within the first few minutes of a conversation, and if I had memorized this book, I would be somewhat more effective in solving typical interaction problems.  Unfortunately, neither is true of me or anyone I have ever met.  This was too much of a stretch goal…

If I was on the editorial staff I would make the following changes prior to the third printing so that this book could be significantly more effective:

With criticisms of the Myers Briggs including factors such as the scoring mechanisms fail to use validity scales to remove socially desirable or exaggerated responses and the absence of valid double-blind tests (positive research findings are almost exclusively found by MBTI advocates – not independent researchers), this book had the opportunity to provide references directly to the research that underlies each recommendation.  Because the real value of the MBTI is in understanding the interactions between yourself and others, such validity would have made this a valuable tool for all MBTI proponents.  Instead, YOU includes "facts" such as "a general lack of follow-through in a timely manner is considered an issue by observers of this type".  More glaring is the research used in the Introduction, the first section that readers often peruse, and the section that the authors use to assert the validity of the MBTI:
·        "Millions of people around the world have taken the MBTI, and many have taken the instrument multiple times.  Many people, in casual conversation at work and in social life, will know their "type" and most share that information casually."
·        "We have seen license plates with the owner's MBTI type displayed!"
·        "To pretest this book, we sent it to many people familiar with their type.  The feedback we received was that people found about a 75-80% hit between their preferred type and typical developmental needs we described.  Some said the fit was 100%."

As stated before:
·        The authors should identify all key developmental competencies and include an index so that readers can quickly find tips, regardless of what type or facet pair the tip is associated with.
·        Graphics for visual learners would help casual readers and consultants alike.  The absence of a matrix that highlights challenges that different types face when they work with each other is glaring.
·        Either eliminate the "Application" sections or complete them.  A great case study tells the entire story and has lessons to be learned all the way through to how the final solution was received and implemented.  Lominger has an army of users that could contribute stories that are applicable so why not use them?  This would also provide an opportunity to help the reader understand how to apply the lessons in the book.  Some of the tips, especially in the facet pairs section, are so brief that even a consultant may be left wondering what the next steps should be.
·        Use a consistent layout.  Learning preferences should read like the rest of the sections at the beginning of each type.  Ensure parallel sentence structure for each of the 3 to 4 facet pair descriptors.  (That was just plain distracting.)  Provide contact information for all companies that are mentioned or none of the companies that are mentioned.  Create parallel language between the first two pages on each type and the developmental tips so that they are clearly connected or just delete the first two pages.
·        Eliminate redundancy and the use of the copy-paste function.  Page 555 was first written on page ix.  Large chunks of section three were copied directly from the Introduction and Appendix C in FYI For Your Improvement.

Coachable vs. Scorable

Some very excitable HR newbies would like to drill down during the creation of performance management systems and make everything scorable on an employee's annual review. Then two things go wrong. First, managers don't want to spend a lot of time on each review so they push back on the shear volume of items to score. Second, employees cry "foul" when any items are subjective, which makes them ripe for abuse and favoritism. What is equally problematic, but rarely considered is the ad on TV by lawyers that specialize in helping employees exact revenge on bad bosses and bad HR processes. (Not that those lawyers are in any way evil. On the contrary - they truly protect wronged employees.)

Effective performance management systems are simple, valid, and reliable. Those traits ensure that they will be effectively used, will measure the attributes that matter, and will be objective.

So, what can you do with all of the subjective issues that impact performance? If you had taken the time to analyze the job (objectives, activities, and competencies), then you would know how to turn most of the "soft metrics" into measurable or observable ones. However, not everything turns out to be completely objective so you have to deal with those performance characteristics in another way. You must coach employees on those factors.

For example, how can you consistently and reliably measure tone and pitch on phone calls with customers? You could try to calibrate all company leaders who are responsible for measuring those attributes, but calibration never really gets everyone on the same page. Instead, you can either turn it into an objective metric by calling customers and asking them for their opinions (that is the only opinion that really matters anyway), or you can capture calls with questionable voice attributes and have coaching sessions with the employee. If you document the agreements and next steps/changes that were commited to after each coaching session then you start to create evidence of a pattern (either of improvement or a continued problem). As a coach you must help the employee identify how the problematic tone and/or pitch of his/her voice can hurt his/her ability to be successful. Once you get their buy-in you can almost always get them to hear on thier own calls how their voice may be preventing them from reaching their goals with each call.

So, if a metric is one of the seven most critical - in that it truly differentiates peak performance - and it is both valid and reliable, then it should be on the annual appraisal. Everything else should be part of regular employee coaching and development. If the negative behaviors are ongoing and a pattern can be documented, then it can be addressed as a performance issue.

Biology of the Brain: are all competencies biological?

Outside of the skeletal-muscular abilities that enable performance on the job, every other competency that support our ability to perform our job may well be based on a biological function. Pheremones have been shown to elicit hormonal responses (colloquially known as arousal). We are most agreeable with people who remind us of our parents, suggesting that we might be trying unconsciously to sustain favorable genetic traits (though this also results in perpetuating cycles of abuse). Oxytocin is released in the brain when we are with the one we love, resulting in a calming effect (an emotion described as love). We also now know that memories are created by the formation of proteins, and memory is key to learning.

Anyone who really wants to excel in the application of competency-based human capital management must take the time to learn more about the function of the brain and how it affects human emotions, learning, personalities, and behaviors.

The Competency Categories

Has the term "competency", as it refers to personal factors that enable individual performance, become too broad? Let's begin by asking the question, "What factors are NOT competencies?"

First, we can eliminate the external factors. Those are "facilitators" of performance. (The opposite would be "barriers" to performance just as the opposite of competencies would be "weaknesses".) External factors (e.g. resources, processes, information, rewards, etc.) can have a clear impact on the ability and/or willingness of an individual to perform, but the term "competency" includes only the factors that are elements of an individual person's make-up. External facilitators of performance are not competencies.

So what is a person made of? And which of those elements affects the capacity to perform? Through my research and experience I have identified the following categories:

Abilities
Physical (body or brain) traits that enable performance are called abilities. If a task requires one to lift a certain weight without aid of an external resource then the "performer" must have the capacity to lift weight. This ability is comprised of the muscle strength required, as well as the appendages required, to lift. The brain must also be able to interpret the instructions. Therefore, intelligence sufficient to grasp and act on the instructions is also an ability. However, intelligence, as a physical function of the brain, is not the only mental trait that is critical. For example, judgment is a competency that is based on knowledge rather than intelligence. Data storage is different from intellectual horsepower, but they are interdependent on one another when we need to leverage them.

Knowledge
The brain stores facts and generalizations about the world around us. For example, some of the information that we store allows us to understand and speak a language. Information comes from our personal interpretation of each event that unfolds in our life. Experience itself is not a competency so much as the knowledge we have gained from each experience is. This is most clear when we find that someone has learned a lesson from an experience that is contrary to what we expected. Do you know anyone that has graduated from college or passed a specific certification test, but who is not as good at a job as someone who learned from the "school of hard knocks" (general life experience on the streets)? Performance requires us to collect data and convert it into usable information so knowledge is a competency.

Skills
Skills are techniques that an individual has learned and intentionally applies to a given situation. The three most common academic skills are reading, writing, and arithmetic (computation). However, there are also gross motor skills such as riding a bicycle. An example of a combination of both skills would be using a specific software application (reading and typing). Many interpersonal traits are also learned skills (e.g. listening is a skill, hearing is an ability). Once a person becomes fluent at a skill they no longer consciously practice it. They just do it. When someone does not know how to do something that they never even knew was possible, they are unconsciously incompetent. After they learn of the skill's existence they are consciously incompetent. As they learn the skill they pass from being a novice to being proficient to being an expert. At some point they may just begin to use the skill without even thinking about it. That level of unconscious competence may be called a habit, but habits are also things that we unconsciously do in response to some stimulus as part of a regular routine. For example, Pavlov's dogs salivated when he rang the bell because they associated the bell ringing with being fed. Skills rely on knowledge and ability because you must have memory of prior experiences, if any, with the skill and the ability to execute the skill in order to use or improve the skill.

Instincts
Instincts are things that we never learned, but that we innately know how to do. Pavlov's dogs were not born salivating when a bell rang. However, they did know how to mate once they reached a certain point of maturity (without anyone teaching them). Unlike skills, you cannot increase your levels of expertise in a given instinct. Reflexes are not instincts, they are reactions of the nervous system, which makes a reflex an ability. Instincts are independent of memory, experience, and all other competency categories. Physically, learning is required to strengthen connections between synapses when abilities are developed, but instinctual behavior does not improve neurological wiring. Examples of human instincts include the facial expression associated with the person's emotional state (e.g. smiling when happy), staring at the threat when becoming aggressive, eyebrows flinching when recognizing someone or something, and how someone's posture changes when they are mentally preparing to leave. Instincts are responses to stimuli that we cannot control or unlearn so they are not useful when we are analyzing performance, but they are related to many performance situations (e.g. body language when delivering sales pitches).

Drives
Urges that are present at birth or develop over time, but that can be overridden by logic are called drives. Drives are genetically influenced behaviors (e.g. fight or flight). People are influenced by drives much more than by instincts because we have eliminated many of the instincts that lower animals possess. Genes can be influenced by external stimuli over multiple generations and we have simply bred out the lack of control. We now choose to succumb (as opposed to not having a choice) to urges that are instinctual in most animals (e.g. maternal - we give up children for adoption, territorial - we sell our houses, imprinting - we get divorced). Drives can be critical to performance because half of any performance equation is the "willingness" to perform.

Values
Willingness to perform is also based on our values (e.g. there are certain products that some people simply refuse to sell). Values are deeply held beliefs that are manifested as preferences or susceptibilities. Values generally fall into the following categories: moral, ideological, social, and aesthetic. Values influence the development of other competencies, but are separate from the other categories. While many values are collectively shared by common groups (e.g. religious ideologies), they are also modified based on personal experience (e.g. materialism is most prevalent in people who did not actively participate in groups in their youth). Values are often manifested as norms that are reinforced by one's cultural upbringing (e.g. the value of respect during mourning is expressed by the norm of wearing black).

Attitudes
Attitude is another category that impacts a performer's willingness. Attitude is the liking, dislikeing, or conflicted combination of liking and disliking something. Attitudes are reactions to our beliefs, which have predominantly developed over time based on our experiences. Attitudes are more susceptible to change than personality and other people can persuade us to change an attitude through communication. Attitude is an important competency category because not only is it physical (just like long-term memory, attitude resides in the affective and cognitive nodes in the brain), it is a critical element of decision-making - commonly referred to as intuition or "gut reaction". The more important the performance is to you, the greater the impact of attitude has on your performance.

Personality
Everyone has a past. Even within the same family we have unique experiences that shape our perception of the world and the preferences that are manifested as our personality. Like several of the other categories, personality can and does change over time. Personality is not fully understood, and thus, there are a variety of theories about the causal factors behind someone's personality, what elements constitute the description of a personality, and how one can measure a personality. The Big Five is the closest that psychologists seem to have come thus far in creating a model that identifies how personality affects our ability to perform (and even then, only one of the five factors - conscientiousness - seems to be strongly correlated to performance). Though it is extremely complex and not well understood, it is generally accepted that performance requires certain preferences or personality traits.

Emotions
Skills and intelligence are often enhanced by the performer's mental state. This has given rise to the popularity of such concepts as emotional intelligence. Mental health includes competencies that are both personality traits and emotional states. However, these are clearly unique constructs. Hunger and sadness are not points along a continuum. Hunger is an ability because it is physical in nature. Sadness is an emotional state (which certainly may have been induced by a physical state) that probably resides within the limbic system and/or prefrontal cortex. Emotions can trigger physical traits, such as sadness leading to tears, but they are separate attributes because tears can be released when the dominant emotion is joy. There has been recent research into specific chemicals in the brain that are described as the root of romantic love. Though that research may help clarify some of the root causes of emotions, it does not mean that emotions are simply abilities because they are far too complex to be described as such.

ASTD releases research on Talent Management

The American Society for Training and Development released the results of a survey on talent management. Given that a majority of the membership represents only one aspect of the spectrum that they defined as talent management (development), it is interesting an interesting read.

ASTD recognized in the late 1990's that the International Society for Performance Improvement was onto something when they starting converting ASTD members to Gilbert's Behavioral Engineering Model. Many trainers intuitively realized that they were being called in to fix problems that were not caused by gaps in skill or knowledge. ISPI's take on Gilbert's model helped trainers start to identify causal factors through performance analysis that freed the training team from very frustrating and often fruitless work. (ASTD eventually adopted ISPI's CPT certification and now offer it to their own members.) Now it seems that ASTD is embarking on an even broader view of its members' potential roles in organizations. ASTD is researching a scope of work that traditionally belonged to organizational development teams.

The ASTD study defined talent management as,
"A holistic approach to optimizing human capital, which enables an organization to drive short- and long-term results by building culture, engagement, capability, and capacity through integrated talent acquisition, development, and deployment processes that are aligned to business goals."

If you are interested, read the entire article here. Why do you think ASTD is looking into the entire spectrum of talent managment?

Headhunters

As the job market has slid over the past 15 months, I have had a lot of newly unemployed friends contact me for referrals to great recruiters. At first, my response was, "A recruiter will only want to hear from you if s/he is actively working on an assignment for which you may be a perfect fit." Then the market worsened and my recruiter friends started asking me for referrals to companies that had open positions. So my advice to both groups became, "Great hunters always know how to think like their prey, which allows them to accurately predict where they will be and what will draw them in." This may be an odd metaphor, but it has been working so I decided to share it with everyone via my blog.

First, what drives a recruiter's behaviors? External recruiters live and die by their individual placements. They must find a great candidate, sell both the candidate and the employer on the match and then convince them to stay together for at least six to twelve months (recruiters rarely get paid if the person does not stay for a pre-determined length of time). Internal recruiters live and die by the quality and speed of placements because they must deal with the "customer" every day (i.e. they both work for the same company). Depending on how clever they are, they may rely on global job boards (not very clever) or they may reach out to a network of well-connected contacts in that industry (very clever). Greed-driven external recruiters will often spam a company with a ton of applicants hoping something will stick (aka spray and pray). Thoughtful ones will do a thorough job sourcing candidates via channels not usually used by internal recruiters and will do a nice pre-screen on the front end to make sure they are only sending a small number of highly-qualified and strong-fit candidates. Internal recruiters may spend a great deal of time only filling entry-level positions, which means they will be found at college job fairs. More valuable internal recruiters will spend that time at industry events, talking up the benefits of working for the company (to employees of competitor companies) and identifying fresh thinkers who may be delivering cutting-edge presentations.

Recruiters can also be found online. This is a great way to play "fly on the wall" and start to learn about the current recruiting market and techniques that recruiters use. (It is better to be easily found by a recruiter than to look desperate by sending your resume to hundreds of them directly - remember, unsolicited resumes from people who cannot be immediately beneficial will be tossed in the garbage.) Some of the places where recruiters are lurking include:

• RecruitingBlogs.com - as advertised, this is a warehouse of blogs and comments by both internal and external recruiters (you can quickly learn about fee splits, search basics, and other hot topics by poking around this site)
• ERE.net - this site is run by a media company and I believe that they cull the membership in order to promote the Journal of Corporate Recruiting Leadership (for leaders of internal recruiting teams) and various conferences that they sponsor, but the members post great information and they have local groups that you can join
  
• NetworkedRecruiter.com - look for a group like this in your neighborhood because this is where the recruiters literally meet!

For the most part, you will find that good recruiters prefer someone who is a top performer and so they are looking for people who are still employed and who are a challenge to steal away from their company. They find those types of people by using creative Boolean searches on Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social networking sites. They look for evidence that the candidate is an expert and is valued by others (e.g. popular speaker or writer or referred by more than one person). They want to see some longevity on the candidate's resume (no job hoppers), which shows dedication to the employer and stability. Then, once the recruiter has found you, you had better be on top of your game and honest in all that you claim to have accomplished because the interviews have just begun...

IDP: Future State

The second step in documenting an effective individual development plan is to define the end of your journey. What will you look like when you have made all of the changes that you hope to make as a result of this plan (or the final plan if this is just a preliminary step)? This is the goal that you are trying to achieve. Questions that will help you document and define that future state:

1. "The new habits that I will have include..."
2. "Around the water cooler people will say I am..."
3. "When my boss gets called for a character reference she will say..."
4. If you are basing your IDP on an assessment you might ask, "What are the opposites of the negatives that are documented on my assessment results?"
5. "The things that I do well today that I want to continue to do well include..."

The end state should read as a confirmation that the things you do well will not go away, just as it should read as the opposite of the problematic behaviors that you listed when documenting your current state. As much as is possible, define your end state in terms of measurable and/or observable behaviors. This will give you a much clearer objective to shoot for.