I'm going to talk to you today about something every one of us does.

We categorize everything that crosses our path, including people,

and sometimes we do this in not a very flattering way.

My favorite quote about categorizing people

comes from the comedian George Carlin.

He said there are three kinds of people:

those who can count and those who cannot.

(Laughter)

I'm glad you got that.

(Laughter)

Well, I want to talk about a positive way of categorizing people.

It's called personality type,

and it's based on something called the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator,

or MBTI Assessment.

I'm just going to be able to give you a little bit of that framework.

There's a lot more to it than I'm going to get to today.

So, what this is about is it's about how you prefer to gain energy,

gather information, make decisions and live your life.

Now, this word "preference" is a really important thing in this system.

So I just want to do a quick demonstration of what preference happens to be.

So, let's say you're really skeptical about personality type

and you cross your arms and maybe you even tap your foot.

Just try that with me, if you would, okay?

Now, you probably didn't even think, "Which arm do I put on top?"

You have a natural preference for how you cross your arms.

So, try crossing them in the other way.

You can do it, easily. It doesn't feel quite as natural.

And we're going to be talking about personality preferences

within ourselves,

and they're really natural habits, natural mental habits that you have,

for the ways you might like to think, or do, or act.

Now, I think it's helpful to know about personality type for two reasons.

One is, it can help you understand

that that other person is not really trying to drive you crazy on purpose.

They just see the world in a different way than you do.

And the second reason is it can help you understand more about yourself,

about things that come more easily for you,

things that might take a little bit more time,

that might be a little bit more difficult,

so that you can forgive yourself when you're not perfect.

But that doesn't excuse yourself from trying.

So, let's start in on this framework.

When I was growing up,

I thought family togetherness was everyone in the same room reading a book.

I'm an extrovert, I grew up in a family of introverts.

My mother thought that my siblings needed to go to nursery school

and I didn't.

It probably should have been reverse.

They needed their quiet time and I would have had fun with those other kids.

I can assure you we're all just fine today.

(Chuckling)

So, this is the first what we call preference pair,

and it has to do with where we direct and receive our energy.

There's an extroverted way and an introverted way.

Now, these are not social skills.

You can have people who prefer extroversion

and people who prefer introversion who are shy.

This is about energy.

So, extroverts want their energy to go out

and, when it goes out, they're with people, they're doing things,

it comes bouncing back to them.

And introverts want their energy to go in.

By looking at ideas, impressions, facts inside their head,

they create more energy.

Now, I need to do a quick aside on this idea of preference pairs.

We believe that you have both within you.

It's just that you prefer one over the other.

It really does not guarantee just because you prefer something

that you're good at it.

You might need to develop skills with it and, while you're at it,

develop skills with the other preference.

That's going to be helpful

because there are times when you need to flex and act in a different way.

If you just do everything according to your preferences,

it's not going to always work.

So, when we look at extroversion and introversion

and how it appears in meetings, it's kind of interesting.

So, extroverts in a meeting are more likely to be talking their ideas out.

If I bring it out, it becomes real,

and I may start over here and end up over here,

because I've made it real as I'm talking it out.

Now, the introvert listening to that extrovert may be thinking,

"If they just shut up, we would get somewhere."

Well, they don't understand extroversion is about bringing it out.

So, our introverts are taking things in during that meeting,

they're mulling it through,

and our extrovert looking at them is probably going,

"Are they awake? Are they listening to me?"

And we assume that they are because they're working it out inside.

Silences for extroverts are space to be filled.

Silences for introverts are space to be cherished.

When we think about interruptions,

there's also a different way that people may look at that.

Interruptions for extroverts actually may be compliments:

"Gee, someone's listened to what I've said!

They want to jump right in, you know, build on my idea."

It's a compliment.

But, for an introvert, that same interruption may be rude:

"I've thought about it inside,

I'm bringing up my ideas, you're interrupting me.

I need to stop and think, 'Is that new information or is it a pure dribble?,'

and then I'm going to continue with my talk."

Introverts, by the way, once they know people and topics well,

will act like extroverts because they've done their inside work.

We say that, if you want to know what an extrovert is thinking,

you haven't been listening.

If you want to know what an introvert is thinking,

you haven't asked.

So, now I want to go on to the next one,

which is how we gather data

and the kind of information we like and trust.

The preference pairs here are sensing and intuition.

Now, I happen to prefer sensing.

I like things to be practical, actual, real.

I just really want to get down to the here and now of what's going on.

Now, by contrast,

intuitive types like possibilities, meanings, the big picture,

and I want to show you a picture that gets at some of these differences.

So, if we look at this particular picture with a sensing lens,

we may see pillars, trees, yellow flowers,

there's an umbrella in there, and so forth.

If we look at this picture from an intuitive point of view,

we might see an ancient lost civilization,

where the wild things are, or a ballet of dancing trees.

Now, we both looked at the same picture.

So, I use this in a community leadership program

and we get people into sensing groups and intuitive groups

and have them look at this picture and talk about it.

We had a civil engineer once who pointed over to -

he was in the sensing group -

he pointed to the intuitive group and he said,

"Hum, I always thought they were liars.

I would go to a community meeting and present my facts.

I would see them a couple of days later

and they said I said things I know I didn't say.

Our memories are just fine.

So, now I know I need to sit down with them

and find out how they got from my facts to what they're interpreting."

So, it's very important, you can miss one another.

You're seeing the same picture, but you're seeing different things.

If we look at well-known figures,

we can also start to think about what lens do they see the world with.

So, let's take Thomas Edison.

He's the guy who invented the light bulb, remember,

by putting all those little filaments in

and keeping checking hundreds of them, probably.

He's been known to have said, "[Genius] is 99% perspiration."

He probably saw the world through a sensing lens.

Now, if we look at Albert Einstein, with his theory of relativity,

he said, "Not all that counts can be counted."

He probably sees the world through an intuitive lens.

Now, once you have information in, you need to figure out what to do with it,

and that leads us to the third preference pair:

thinking and feeling.

Now, I know that I'm a thinking type.

I look at the world in a logical way.

People come to me with a problem,

I want to get to the bottom line and help them solve it now.

But I realized there are some people, when they come to me

they just want me to stop and listen and support them.

Well, I learned that I need to sort of step back and ask people,

at least I remember that some of the time,

"Do you want me just to listen,

or do you want me to help solve the problem?,"

because then I don't get so annoyed if they don't take my advice.

So, in this decision-making system,

thinking types step back from the decision.

They look at the data that they have, the information that they have,

in an objective way.

They look at the pros, they look at the cons,

they make their decision.

But feeling types step into the decision.

They become aware of, "How is this going to impact people?

How does this fit with my value system?,"

and they're looking for harmony with their value system.

Now you probably already figured out here

that feeling does not mean making decisions based on emotions.

There is a structured way of using the values and the harmony.

So, if we think about the definition of being fair,

we may see some different things.

For thinking types,

being fair means treating everyone according to the same standards,

or treating people equally.

For feeling types,

being fair means treating everyone according to what they need;

individuals are different, they need different things.

Now, I want to do another little experiment with you

that I sometimes do with my training groups

and let's say you're working on a project.

This hand represents completing the project.

This hand represents I'm starting, I'm part-way through and I'm done.

So, I typically ask thinking types,

"Tell me when you want someone

to give you some appreciation or recognition

for your work on that project."

And my hand will move along

and finally, when I get to the end, they've finished the project,

they will say, "Now."

And I'll ask them, "So, what happens

if someone gives you some recognition earlier in that work?"

And they say, "Well, I'm a little worried. I think I'm working for an idiot.

They have no sense of standards and what is good work."

Now, I ask feeling types the same thing,

"When do you want recognition on that project?,"

and they call out, "Now, now, now, now, now."

(Laughter)

All the way through.

"So, what does that look like?"

I'm a thinking type, I'm waiting till I'm done.

They say like, "Well, it can be things like, 'Good start!,'

or, 'Gee, you had some great ideas here.'"

And then, I ask the feeling types, "So, what happens

if someone gives you some recognition - if they wait until the end?"

And they say, "Well, I think that they don't care,

and if they don't care about me, they don't care about my work,

and it affects my morale."

Now, both thinking types and feeling types can come to the exact same conclusions.

They just do it in different ways.

And it's really helpful for thinking types to remember to always ask,

"How would this logically impact people?,"

and for feeling types to always ask, "What's the most important thing here?"

But we need to move on.

Our last one has to do with how we like to go about living our lives.

And our words are "judging" and "perceiving" in this preference pair,

and "judging" here doesn't mean "judgmental."

But what judging types like to do is organize things,