Myers Briggs Step III

Last week, I went to Sacramento for an introduction to the Step III assessment that is coming out later this year. The results of this assessment is supposed to evaluate how well you use your type functions! And the vision is to help individuals make their perceptions clearer, their judgments sounder, and their lives closer to the heart’s desire. But if anything, it will help bring about great discussions about personal development. Keep in mind that now someone won’t even have to learn the Myers Briggs lingo to understand the Step III results. This is contrary to Step I and Step II where you do need to have an understanding of Type.

It’s a common misconception that for the Myers Briggs, the numbers that you get as a result mean “how good you are” at that dimension. It actually means how confidence the test is in your scoring. However, this new assessment will provide color into your competency in your functions.

Here are just some gems that I noted from the session:

• You can be aware of things, but it takes time to integrate it into your life. When you read a self-help book, you might have heard of the concepts, but how well do you live by them?
• Good development means you are tolerant of other people but run your own affairs
• Poor development means you tell other people what they should do and neglect your own responsibilities
• Dispositions of the mind, like limbs of the body, acquire strength by exercise … Thomas Jefferson
• Strong E’s and J’s are likely to get promoted for their ability to just make decisions. At times, they might make decisions with very little information! In time however, this will catch up to them when mistakes get costly.
• Child development can go wrong with over-indulging parents. They grow up with the wrong expectations, for example, that they will get what they want from life. That people will be able to figure out what you want from your tantrums or body language.
• If children are raised amid constant crises, they will grow up thinking that they don’t have the resources to match the world. Or, they will get so defensive that they will think that the best defense is the best offense … to become hyper-aggressive people.
• Overall, people need goals and work better with goals … idleness deteriorates humans.
• My experience is what I agree to attend to. Only those items, which I notice, shape my mind.
• Coaches will spend most of their time around appreciating a person’s skills and identifying what’s important … this is because it’s easy for people to take their skills and assets for granted.
• If a client reacts with an emotional “It’s wrong” attitude to an assessment, there’s likely something worth talking about here.
• Test to see if you need some personal development help …
  • Do you feel like you have sufficient resources to meet the demands of the world?
• Build confidence and self-motivation, while reducing strain in your life. These words are assessed in Step III.
• The Step III has been piloted with CEO’s and other high-powered individuals and the good news is that they found tremendous value in this assessment. It told them something new.

 

Being efficacious!

It fascinates me the subtle differences in the words efficacious, effective, and efficient. It was introduced to me in one of my Myers Briggs books.

According to Webster …
effective: producing a decided, decisive, or desired effect <an effective policy>
efficient: being or involving the immediate agent in producing an effect <the efficient action of heat in changing water to steam>
efficacious: having the power or capability to produce a desired effect <an efficacious remedy>

Additional meaning …
effective stresses the actual production of or the power to produce an effect … more focused on the fact that there was a good result rather than who or what was caused the good result.
efficient suggests an acting or a potential for action or use in such a way as to avoid loss or waste of energy in effecting, producing, or functioning … so something that saves time.
efficacious suggests that you possess of a special quality or virtue that gives effective power. This is how individuals ought to think about how they add value and be givers. That they possess something special and unique, something that only could have come from their unique, lifelong journey.

Yes, a cheesy picture from Google Images

People in this world are producing results and saving time constantly … but what are the results and time savings that the world gets from the efficacious you? What’s the contribution (big or small) that you could make efficaciously?

 

The Teacher Within

I was reading a Myers Briggs related book when then paragraph jumped out at me. Here’s what the book called I’m not crazy, I’m just not like you says word for word …

Quote: “Teachers attempt to show us how to pay attention to information, to direct our focus on priorities. They also may reveal our ignorance. Some of our earliest experiences are with school teachers and with our parents, teachers of another kind. But as we grow older and become more judicious about how we spend our time, we make our own decisions about what is worth knowing. We become more aware of the inner voices of experience that guides us. And as we grow in maturity and understanding, we realize that the greatest teacher is the one within”

This hits home for me as I find myself focusing more time with existing friends and pursue opportunities that call to me rather than those that I feel like I should take on. So what’s your “teacher” saying?

 

Google Calendar

I’ve been using Google Calendar for a week now to track progress in areas that I’m working on and it’s been really helpful! The biggest benefit is that it keeps me honest. For now, it’s also my homepage everytime I open my browser and I don’t find it hard to keep up-to-date.

Here’s a snapshot of what it looks like… each color indicates a separate calendar.

Just a preview of what this stuff means for me.
Green – a 1 to 5 qualitative rating on how I did in terms of eating healthy & portion control.
Brown – # of drinks I had that day
Pink – I write a few sentences about the emotions I felt that day.
Blue – Workout schedule
Orange – Events

Another cool feature is that you can share calendars with friends and see them in one view. Pajau and I share our events calendars, so it’s easier to plan stuff.

 

Strong Interest Inventory Assessment

I watched some introductory webinars about the Strong Interest Inventory Assessment and wanted to share some high-level notes. It’s a widely used assessment for career counselors (e.g. at Stanford). They ask you questions like … how interested are you in the following: making a speech, writing a report, or doing research work. It looks helpful as a starting point, since it gives you directional advice and should help you find a job you would enjoy today. The gap of this assessment is that it probably isn’t as useful long-term because it tries to fit you into careers that already exist in the world. I’m an idealist who hopes that your future job is a job you create and it will be a combination of your skills + passions.

• Grounding Principle: What people do is a reflection of their interests. Measuring interests rather than abilities.
  • This assessment helps you determine what you’re most motivated to do right now in a career. Over time, they believe your main motivations don’t change, but the order of them do. For example, if Socializing is most important to you today and being Artistic is secondary … these probably switch over time.
• Foundationally they use the framework of General Occupational Themes, which are below. As an exercise, I put down some opinions about how these might correlate to the Myers Briggs.
  • Realist (“The Doers”) … possible correlation to ES types
  • Investigative (“The Thinkers”) … possible correlation to IT types
  • Artistic (“The Creators”) … possible correlation to NP types
  • Social (“The Helpers”) … possible correlation to NF types
  • Enterprising (“The Persuaders”) … possible correlation to TJ types
  • Conventional (“The Organizers”) … possible correlation to SJ types

Hmm, I’m probably Investigative, Social, and Enterprising as my top 3. Which might mean that it’s top-of-mind for me to learn more about this “people development” space, see how it affects the people around me, and see if “solutions” or theories that develop as a result, grow into something bigger.

 

Outcomes of the Integral Coaching Seminar

WOW. I attended a two day coaching seminar at a school called New Ventures West in the city. The content was rigorous mentally AND emotionally, made deep connections immediately with the caring folks there, and personally became aware of my own deep, personal blind spots. Discovering these spots drained me, but afterwards I felt amazing how I had several body sensations that represented long-time subdued emotions.

Anyways, I think I’ll be forking over $8K to take the year long, coaching certification course next year!

Selfishly, I’ll document my own personal learnings here … and not reviewing the general methodology they practice. Simply, they try to accept the current state the client is coming to you as and try to improve upon it. They take an approach that leaves the client empowered to self-correct and self-improve.

1. You are what you practice.
2. Use the five elements model (immediate concerns, commitments, future possibilities, mood, personal/cultural history) to quickly get-to-know people.
3. During coaching intake or assessment, try to avoid fleshing out a hierarchy of information or understanding of a client. Instead take on words or phrases that you don’t understand their meaning of, and find the links necessary to gain their interpretations.
4. To build rapport for first-time relationships with clients, consider sharing how your body is feeling at the moment and open them up to share as well.
5. Imagine people as seeing the sky through a straw. Coaching helps find a new point in the sky to look at and helping them move & grow the straw.
6. Coaching can be as simple as dropping a drop of red dye in water. Help someone see one thing differently can change their life.
7. Don’t flood clients with information or advice. Try to ask “is this useful?” as a filter.
8. If you dig too deep into trying to understand the “why”, you may find yourself wasting time on discovering a nice-to-have. You might be a shy person that doesn’t want to be one anymore and trying to understand why the heck you are a shy person might be a waste of your time. Instead, you might want to accept that you’re a shy person and take actions towards changing it.
9. Putting yourself in another person’s shoes is good, but don’t forget your own state and power that you can bring to the relationship.
10. What domains of competence are you trying to solve a problem? If you choose the wrong domain, your solution will be ineffective. The domains are self-management (“I”), group (“We”), or things (“It”) domain? Look for gaps or strengths in these realms.
11. If you’re procrastinating, what are you pretending not to know.
12. Words that come out of people’s mouth generally tell less than 10% of the story. Look for body language, energy, gestures, tone, etc.

 

Peer coaching is important

Here are some insights from leaders in the Intuit Leadership Development Organization about the importance of peer coaching relationships. I didn’t write about how to get started … but obviously we all know “peer coaching” happens all the time between close friends informally. I think it’s effective to make it formal … more to come.

What is peer coaching? (my crack at a definition) Peer coaching relationships are deep, personal connections you have with a few individuals (who face similar challenges as you do) with whom you can give and get earnest feedback.

As you read on below, think about … how important is it for me to formalize some peer coaching relationships?

Why is peer coaching important? More so than mentor-to-mentee relationships? Or leader-to-direct report relationships?

 

Note: Their responses are not exactly word-for-word, but I used their key phrases to piece together sentences.

 

Brooks Fisher: ex-Chief Marketing Officer, now Vice President of Learning and Development

Peer coaching is the bedrock for individual development. You can learn a ton from your peers … what’s working, what’s not. If you are regularly trying to meet with a leader, it’s like trying to create appointments with God. It’s important to get continuous feedback from individuals you trust. I’ve observed that the best people actively seek feedback from others.

 

Eric Hummel: Vice President of Leadership Development

Peer coaching is the a powerful way to accelerate an individual’s growth. I used to be a clinical psychology for 18 years, and I’ve seen proven research showing that this is true. I’ll try to find these articles for you sometime.

 

Felicia Gefvert: Senior Program Manager of Leadership Development

Peer coaching is build around the philosophy of learn-teach-learn. In other relationships, like a mentor/mentee relationship, it’s very one-way … one learner, one teacher. With peer coaching, both individuals are actively coaching and learning at the same time, so both sides get value and practice.

 

Care to join?

Just wanted to share a list of things I’m working on … please let me know if you wanna provide insight, learn more, or participate!

• Join the ~30 others who know the Myers Briggs lingo – The Myers Briggs provides you with a high-level framework to understand yourself and others. Helps you grasp direction into managing yourself, relationships, career, and decisions.
• Become more self-aware and start livin’ a more fulfilling life - With Fat Mike and Teo, we’re piloting peer coaching trios and have gone through about 6 weeks of pretty good self-reflection, open sharing of personal stories, and seeing life a bit differently. I’ll be starting 3 more groups with LeadersWiki team members and another with Lijen and Ben …
• Learn life lessons from Intuit leaders - With Tony, Angela, and Chris, we’re preparing a story for people early on in their careers … to be completed Jan 07. For ~6 months, we’ve gathered insights from 40 leaders at Intuit through 1 hour interviews. Originally, we thought we were going to gain insights into how to trek the career ladder faster, but instead, we walked away with more important life insights.

 

Different Interpretations = Different Behaviors

A bunch of things happened recently that made me believe more in the observation of … people observe the SAME things but think, react, and feel DIFFERENTLY. And acting differently manifests in different opinions, emotions, and behaviors. So I think part of the reason why some people think that the glass of milk is half full and others half empty, is because that’s what they want to see. What are things that constantly bugs you in the world or consistently makes you feel crappy? Perhaps it’s the way you are seeing the situation and you might have an opportunity to start practicing another intepretation that makes you feel better. So let me share what I’ve been noticing.

People observe same things but think, react, and feel differently. I was in a meeting the other day and presented the data around average start-up costs for a business. It’s roughly $6K for an individual and $20K for a group of people. Steven, a vice president of strategy, interpreted those numbers as pretty high, considering that most people have a hard time saving money and instead are constantly living paycheck to paycheck. Brad, a senior vice president, interpreted those numbers to be really low, that it only takes some pocket change to start a business? The only way for us to find the right interpretation was to ask the real judge, people starting small businesses. To them, this amount money is a lot.

Expert sources. both Tony Robbins and a guru-coach by the name of James Flaherty believe that this a key input to helping people improve. But they explained it in slightly different ways. Tony explains these principles in terms of meaning. What are your definitions of life, relationships, or your own identity? If you believe that humans are creatures of consistency, then humans will do what it takes to make those definitions come alive for themselves. So if you see life as a challenge, you will probably seek out challenges. If you see life as sustaining deep relationships, you will probably spend lots of time nurturing the closest people in your life. So if you hit a wall in life, Tony recommends changing a definition or meaning that isn’t working for you anymore. James uses the word interpretation instead where coaches need to be aware of the different interpretations that a client has to things. To see which interpretations are like roadblocks, keeping clients from their goals.

An example I’ve noticed. Now that I’m finishing up the 2 year rotational program, we’ve been given a list of potential full-time jobs that we could seek. At first glance, the list was pretty shabby for my interests … loosely jobs with more forward-thinking, tackling brand new problems, and in a environment that is very adaptable and light on its feet. There was only 1 of these jobs. For a week or so, I was a bit troubled that there was only one and that it somewhat lacked the people development stuff that I’ve been eager to spend more time in. This was my interpretation of the list and the options I’ve had.

During week two, I felt much more uneasy. Some recommended that I take some time off to explore the people development avenue, whereas some recommended that this one job could give you some competencies that would be helpful in coaching … especially since it an environment with lots of change (people tend to stress in change), responsibility, and uncertainty. So day by day, my opinion would waiver and I’d tell people very different things from one hour to the next!

Fortunately, I thought about this stuff and realized that my interpretation of what’s been going on was stressing me out. Taking a step back, I realized a few things that put me to ease:

• I’m lucky to have a lot of caring people around me to help me through these decisions
• I have good options … there is a job that is a potentially a good candidate for me and a good backup option, taking leave, that I would look forward to as well.
• So what’s the worst thing that could happen? nothing really…
• I’m fortunate to know what I want to be doing in the future … directionally. This way, with either of these options, my attention in that job or during leave would be around this direction.
• Got some money in the bank so that I could cruise for a bit … but not forever.

So as a result, changing my intepretation, put me to ease. I’ve been able to enjoy my days much better — without this stuff on the back of my mind. I feel less stressed about a decision where I have really good options — no need to stress so much. So yes, you could call this brainwashing yourself or giving yourself more perspective with a hint of optimism.

 

Upgrading z Practice

Now if you sit through my 1.5 hour Myers Briggs course, you walk away with a FREE giveaway! I mean, I can’t even believe I’m giving this away for FREE. What a great bargain — you learn more about yourself & people AND you get a FREE book?? No friggin’ way.

This book isn’t publicly available — just through certified folks. Look how Amazon teases you to keep waiting and waiting for the book to become available. Look, it’s not going to be available because you gotta take the course!

The introductory book that has detailed information on all 16 types and teasers into type-based career interests, problem solving, and dealing with change. (Ronni, I could ship you one!)