Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and Mrs. Fields' cookies...

This week saw our class having to take the well-known MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type indicator) test. For those unaware, this is a well known psychometric test used to approximate different personality traits. Seemingly innocuous, it is used by companies around the world. It attempts to answer things such as whether a given individual is an extrovert or an inrovert? Do you rely only on hard data to make decisions or are you an intuition person who believes in overall impressions and that certain X-factor? Do you find high levels of planning and organization an asset or a liability?

I had taken the test once before rather casually and honestly, remember nothing of the result. This time, though, I tried to be as honest as possible and the restult that ensued did not partiularly surprise me: ENFP ==> Extrovert, iNtuition, Feeling, Perceiving.

Now, rather than just explain these results to us, the prof. undertook, what I feel, was a very effective way of driving home the truth behind some of these readings. I mean, c'mon, most of us gave very little credence to such tests. But the prof put together some groups of people with similar results and other groups with very different results and asked them to talk things out. Of course, we did not know each others results beforehand.

Groups with extroverts seemed to have plenty to talk about and ended up discovering similar interests (such as getting outdoors, etc). Groups of introverts ended up spending several minutes looking at the roof wondering what they were gonna eat for dinner ! The discussions with the most depth, however, transpired between a mix of extroverts and introverts. Simple...yet remarkably effective. To me, this was just another example of the effectiveness of simplicity. Keep things simple and moving, they always say.

The other intersting experience was a case study regarding different leadership styles. Putting it simply, some leaders (and organization cultures) are process-oriented while others are people-oriented (Of course, the very best today employ right doses of both). Now, we all know how important it is to "feel" for your employees, but they can be no arguing that a pure people-centric approach is not scalable. Processes are a necessity as companies expand even though its such a bitch sometimes. Anyway, the discussion was about 2 cookie selling companies in the US in the 1980s: Mrs. Field's cookies v/s David's cookies.

I'm not gonna go into the details of the actual case, except to mention that Mrs. Fields people-centric approach, considered revolutionary (...or stupidly naive) in the 80s opened up a new management mantra, one that is regularly used by companies today. The prof ended the discussion by welcoming two sales-ladies from the actual Mrs. Field's franchise in Singapore of today ! And they proceeded to serve a cookie each to every student in the class...free ! WOW ! The whole class was blown away...talk about the Midas touch and I suspect Mr. Minarelli earned himself a few admirers today...