{"id":272,"date":"2013-05-12T17:30:11","date_gmt":"2013-05-12T17:30:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/?p=272"},"modified":"2013-05-12T17:30:11","modified_gmt":"2013-05-12T17:30:11","slug":"mbti-case-study-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/mbti-case-study-2\/","title":{"rendered":"MBTI case study 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the last post about MBTI<\/a>, I looked at a fairly in-depth element of MBTI step two – where one of the MBTI-subscales was what we call and OOPS – and Out of Preference Score. For this example I\u2019m going to stick to a more straight-forward example of how Extraverts and Introverts interact.<\/p>\n

Please note that for all our training, case studies are real, cleaned and anonymised and used with the necessary permissions. For this article however, I have pulled together several different examples of how things can go wrong when an Extravert comes to seen an Introvert, in their office. In the first instance I\u2019m going to write it from the point of view of the MBIT-Introvert (in which the Extravert is exhibiting challenging behaviour). Then I\u2019ll turn it around and write it from the Extravert\u2019s perspective – where the challenging behaviour will be that of the Introvert!<\/p>\n

Ah, the joys of MBTI!<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s call our Extravert Suzie and our Introvert Steve. At the start of this interaction, Steve is sitting at his desk, concentrating hard on a report he\u2019s typing. It\u2019s about two months after the whole team had an away-day which included working on MBTI profiles for everyone.<\/p>\n

Version one – our poor, put-upon MBTI Introvert\u2019s story!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Suzie arrives and breezes into his office, unannounced. It breaks Steve\u2019s concentration, which makes him a little annoyed, especially because he notices that Suzie didn\u2019t feel the need to knock and wait on his office door! She just barged in unannounced!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, once she\u2019s inside the office, she stands too close to Steve, causing him to lean back in his chair – not only does that make it hard to concentrate psychologically but it\u2019s uncomfortable too!<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Suzie\u2019s talking (ten to the dozen!) before Steve has had a chance to stop thinking about his report and \u2018get his brain in gear\u2019. For the first minute or two of Suzie\u2019s chatter, Steve has absolutely no idea what she\u2019s talking about and is trying hard to figure out what\u2019s so urgent (and about what project!) that Suzie needs urgent help. Once he\u2019s figured out what the project is that\u2019s got Suzie so fired up, he can\u2019t figure out what the crisis is!<\/p>\n

It must be, a crisis, mustn\u2019t it?\u00a0 She wouldn\u2019t walk over to his office, barge in and start talking at him unless it was urgent, would she?<\/p>\n

Shaking his head to clear it, Steve tries to interrupt Suzie to ask what it is, specifically, that she needs from him. Suzie, however, is now talking about the weekend – perhaps it wasn\u2019t a crisis after all.<\/p>\n

Steve frowns and just as he\u2019s about to say something rude about Suzie\u2019s weekend activities, she\u2019s back talking about the Bridges project and asking \u201cSo, anyway, what do you think?\u201d<\/p>\n

Perplexed, with no information, Steve can only venture the most vague of responses: \u201cI wonder if we shouldn\u2019t wait for a while and see if we can link it to one of the other projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust what I was thinking\u201d says Suzie as she\u2019s half way out of the door…. leaving Steve annoyed that he can still here her talking to some new victim, shoes clacking on the corridor outside.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf she\u2019d shut the bloody door\u201d thinks Steve, \u201cI\u201dd not need to put up with hearing her talking at David! Poor sod!\u201d<\/p>\n

Finally, Steve can stand it no more and gets out of his chair to close the door with a bang, noticing as he does so that Suzie is now telling David the same things as she\u2019s told him!<\/p>\n

Annoyed, confused and unable to concentrate, Steve turns back to his report but can\u2019t concentrate for another ten minutes!<\/p>\n

Version two – our poor, put out, MBTI Extravert\u2019s story!<\/strong><\/p>\n

Suzie\u2019s stumped. She can\u2019t seem to make up her mind about what to do with the new information on the Bridges Project. She\u2019s been staring at the email with the data in it for about 20 minutes, until the numbers are swimming, but she\u2019s no nearer a decision. She needs a fresh perspective.<\/p>\n

If only Steve hadn\u2019t turned his phone off she\u2019d be able to ask him for help: he is often wise and helps her clarify exactly what she should do. Smiling, she thinks of what a good friend Steve is and how helpful it is to talk with him: she\u2019ll tell him as soon as she gets to his office…<\/p>\n

Hitting the print button, Suzie grabs the data output and heads over to see Steve. When she arrives she\u2019s excited by the possibility of hearing what Steve has to say and gets into her stride as soon as she can – after all, she doesn\u2019t want to waste any of Steve\u2019s time!<\/p>\n

Oh yes, time; that reminds her, she must make time this weekend to see her sister!<\/p>\n

Suzie notices that Steve\u2019s a bit distracted; maybe she hasn\u2019t been clear enough in what she was asking, and she knows Steve likes a bit time to think (hey, she listened at the MBTI training course!) so she puts the print-out in his lap. As he grabs the paper, she asks what he thinks.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s shaking his head! Is there a problem? Has she not spotted a mistake in the data? Nervous, Suzie steps a little closer to Steve for some reassurance. If only he wasn\u2019t so flipping stand-off-ish it would be a lot easier to chat: how can you chat to someone who\u2019s continually trying to push you away!<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a long, long silence after she asks for his opinion. He must be worried about what he\u2019s going to say! Surely it\u2019s not that serious! Surely there can\u2019t be such a big problem that she didn\u2019t see it! Anxiously, Suzie fills the painful silence: \u201cSo… So… What do you think? Am I right about the next steps?\u201d.<\/p>\n

Finally, with the irritating habit Steve has of speaking like he is bloody God Almighty himself Steve gives his verdict!\u00a0 Half annoyed at the fact it\u2019s taken so long to say anything<\/strong> and half relieved that it\u2019s not a disaster Suzie reassures Steve that she was thinking exactly the same thing. Exactly the same. She wasn\u2019t sure until now but now that Steve says it, that\u2019s what it ways – she just couldn\u2019t put her finger on it.<\/p>\n

Excited to know she\u2019s on the right track Suzie gets out of Steve\u2019s way as soon as she can! Oh, look, here\u2019s Dave…<\/p>\n

…. \u201cI wonder\u201d thinks Suzie \u201cWhat Dave thinks of the problem. I\u2019ll just float my ideas passed him to firm them up!\u201d<\/p>\n

Summary – the MBTI perspective<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s harder for me to write one of those perspectives than the other: does it show? Have I got the kinds of things that go on right?\u00a0 With my own MBTI preference, I\u2019m instinctively more sympathetic with one of the people here and – frankly – more experienced in their point of view.<\/p>\n

But that\u2019s the point of MBTI – there\u2019s not best Type, no worst Type, just different Types. With a little more sensitivity to the MBIT Type of the other person, neither Steve or Suzie would have needed to feel so miffed at the other person, or so anxious.<\/p>\n

The point is, Steve\u2019s productivity was shot to pieces for half an hour and Suzie still needed to talk to Dave. Neither of them got what they wanted.<\/p>\n

Looking at it from an MBTI perspective, what could either or both of them have done differently?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the last post about MBTI, I looked at a fairly in-depth element of MBTI step two – where one of the MBTI-subscales was what we call and OOPS – and Out of Preference Score. For this example I\u2019m going to stick to a more straight-forward example of how Extraverts and Introverts interact. Please note […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.awareplus.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}