Successful Blog

Myers-Briggs: Vacation and Work with your PJs

by

Last in the Series:

Two Groups — Two Vacations

Customer Think Logo

Armed with our individual Myers-Briggs Type Indicator results, the seminar leader divided the 25 of us into two groups, one group on each side of the room. We didn’t know how the groups were decided. We only knew that we were assigned a task.

“Plan a vacation together,” she said. Then she allowed us a block of time to do so.

The two groups jumped on the task with enthusiasm. This was much more fun than a day at the office. At the office, we worked together as a department, so a group vacation was easy to imagine. I remember looking around at my group that day, thinking This is the group I would want to vacation with. How did she know that?

When the time was up, two vacations had been planned. They sounded something like this.

  • Group 1 had decided to go to Europe. They knew exactly which countries they would visit. They named who would be in charge of airline and hotel reservations. They knew the city in which they would meet to officially begin the trip. They planned how many days they would spend in each location in Europe and exactly what sights they would see. They knew how much free time they would have for shopping and by what transportation they would travel from every point A to every point B.
  • Group 2 had decided to go to Taos, New Mexico and from there to the Bahamas for a total of three weeks. However, if anyone got to Taos and wanted to stay, no one was under obligation to go further. The schedule and entertainment in each location was a pile of enticing possibilities.

Both groups were delighted with our plans.

Vacation and Work with your PJs (and other letters)

All of my work life, I’ve run into people who believed that everyone thinks the same way, should do things the same way — the industrial revolution was run on that exact premise.

I use the vacation planning story above to bring home the point that we don’t think alike. Want more proof?

Think about when your vacation starts. Does it start when you leave work on the last day before? . . . or when you leave for the airport or when you get in the car? . . . or does it not start until you’ve arrived and settled in? If your answer is different from that of your vacation companion, there could be conflict without understanding.

If my companions’ vacation starts before mine does, it’s irritating. He’s playing. I’m still trying to get to where my vacation begins.

If we care about how others think when we plan, we can get the best effect with the least stress and conflict. Hey, who doesn’t prefer a smile to getting yelled at? Though everyone is able to work in all eight modes, we have more fuel when we can go with our natural preferences.

Here are some ways to manage a team to their strengths and preferences.

  • E/I — Let the Extroverts network and investigate at the conference. Ask the Introverts to gather what’s happening and report back. Extroverts remember that folks who say nothing don’t necessarily agree. Introverts keep in mind that not sharing thoughts can be confused with withholding information.
  • N/S — The Intuitives are great at innovation. The Sensors can make sure the execution is flawless. Intuitives who know themselves value the grounding that Sensors can offer. Sensors of the same maturity know that intuitive detail often fills in what’s missing from the empirical data.
  • T/F — Have a Thinker evaluate a competitor’s product. Then have a Feeler tell whether customers will buy it. Feelers with experience realize that when a Thinker says “You’re not going to do THAT, are you?” the Thinker is being generous with information. Thinkers with experience understand that Feelers hear with the filter of emotion and nuance. Both groups do well when they connect head and heart as they speak and listen.
  • P/J — Ask Perceivers to brainstorm a list of ideas and steps in a process. Then let the Judgers build the schedule and detail the action plan. Perceivers can use Judgers to know when too many options are pinning them down or stopping progress. Judgers can use Perceivers to gain fluency and flexibility with ideas and processes.

We work counter to our preferences every day, and we do well. But it wears us out. It makes us tired and cranky, and strains relationships. When we do what we’re good at, work is fun; we’re enthusiastic; and we’re exponentially more passionate and productive. Which do you think is better for us, for the customers, and for the work?

On that Myers-Briggs day, the Ps “went to Taos.” The Js “went to Europe.” We all had fun planning in our homogenous groups.

How would you get a team of both Ps and Js to plan a vacation that worked?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
If you think I can help with your business, your brand or your blog, check out the Work with Liz!! page in the sidebar.

Related articles
Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator as a Personal Productivity Tool
Who’s Talking about the Myers Briggs Tonight?

Other resources
Keirsey.com They carried on the research.
Google Directory for Myers-Briggs Type Indicator
Type Logic Resources and software

About People, Black Holes, and Stars

by

The Universal Human, Hmmmm

We need a black hole with a gravitational pull so powerful to counteract our all too human ability to over-value our uniqueness. The minute we think we’re stars, we’re not.

Read the whole feature in today’s Blog Herald by clicking the logo.

The Blog Herald

It’s about blogging and real life.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

Related articles
Liz Strauss at The Blog Herald, The Blogging Times, and Who’s One in a Million?

Jodee Bock Is a B.A.D. Blogger!

by

Blogger A Day Call: Hello is Jodee there?

BAD Blogger Button

It was New Year’s Day when Jodee Bock left her first comment on Successful-Blog. Of course, I knew who she is. She is a friend of Phil Gerbyshak, I’ve seen her book, and I’ve read her blog. Then there it was a comment she left, that told of her burning belief in Extreme Leadership ala Steve Farber. We have a lot in common. I had only one choice then.

I called Jodee Bock up within minutes of her comment.

We spent some time talking about Steve Farber and how each of us knew him. We detailed the parts of Radical Leap and Radical Edge, his two books, that were our favorite parts. We tossed quotes at each other. We’re both teachers and we’re both invested in the study of creativity.

We discussed other folks that we had in common. It’s amazing how small the world is, yet how long it took for Jodee and I to meet.

Jodee told me of her business, Bock’s Office. We talked about the variety of projects and people that she brings together. She is a person who makes things happen.

Jodee explained how she works with clients using research from her own book, her Accerated innovation training, and ideas from Steve Farber’s books. She said that one of her favorite challenge points is the “questioning machine.” That’s a telephone recording device that when a call comes in it asks two questions — the most important questions of a lifetime. Who are you? and What do you want? Jodee said she uses the questioning machine idea often when she works with groups on creativity innovation, and leadership.

It’s not a surprise that she and I met in the comment box under a post quoting Steve Farber. Jodee Bock is an Extreme Leader. She’s also a creative, insightful person to talk with, not to mention lots of fun.

Jodee Bock knows who she is and what she wants. She has no fear of that questioning machine.

B.A.D. Blogger Quote

I’ve connected with people. I’ve met with people. The people are so generous and so real, they given so much . . . — Jodee Bock

Stop by Jodee’s Blog, You Already Know This Stuff, and say hi!

Thanks, Jodee, you B.A.D. Blogger!

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Want to be a B.A.D. Blogger see the. . . a B.A.D. Blogger? page in the sidebar.

Some Conclusions About Stats . . .

by

Stats and Analytics . . .

This week on Tuesday Open Comments Night we talked about crazy stats, spikes, keyphrases, trends, ratios, traffic, backlinks, pageranks, SERPs, splog sites, algorithyms, RSS subscribers, patterns, plugins, goals, and search terms.

There was also mention of weather, grammar, punctuation, spelling, Mark Twain, Ferraris, a story in six words, full moons, reading tea leaves, gypsies, movies, The View, 24 Hours, Z-list meme, Alice in Wonderland, MyBlogLog meme, weird statistical stuff, workloads of small-business owners, and The Long Tail.

We shared hellos, grins, jokes, laughs, congratulations, poetry, advice, questions, recommendations, addictions (to stats), and goodnights. There was even something about measuring traffic and feet? (I didn’t see any food though.)

Anyway, a thought is that blogging for stats is not the answer. Writing about your passion is.

Sounds like many people use more than one tool to measure stats. Here are some of the tools and sites we mentioned that you may want to check out:

103bees
Alexa
Amibook
Askimet
Awstats
blo.gs
Blogbeat
Crazy Egg
Digg
EasyTask Manager
Feedburner
Google Analytics
Google Pagerank
Google Sitemap
gVisit
Habari
HitTail
Inc.com
Mapstats
Mint
Moveable Type
MyBlogLog
MySpace
Performancing
pingomatic.com
ReviewMe
Shortstat
SiteMeter
Squidoo
StatCounter
StumbleUpon
SuperStats
Technorati
Text-link-ads
The Blogging Times
Tracksy
Typepad
weblogs.com
WordPress

Here’s some of the links that were shared:

Thanks for the cool links and for being part of the conversation. I wish I could quote you all, but I know you have an idea of how much time it takes to make that long link summary happen each week. I hate to let it go, but I thought you’d understand.

So, for 2007, we’ll just tell the story and share the links that you bring. You can always read the comments – they’re all there.

After all, how DO YOU explain Open Comment Night, if you’ve never experienced it?

See you next Tuesday? I sure hope so.
–ME “Liz” Strauss and Sandy Renshaw

Related article
What is Tuesday Open Comment Night?

What’s Up With The Weather?

by

What’s going on?

Things are crazy right now. Winter is not behaving normally. California is freezing their oranges off. Seattle has gotten pounded. Again. New Mexico has seen cattle killing blizzards.
Current US Temperatures
I heard about a town somewhere in Nebraska yesterday that has been without power since around the first of the year and isn’t expected to get it back for several more weeks.

And then here in Savannah we’ve still been wearing short sleeve shirts with 70 degree days. I mean look at the current temperature map. There’s a whole lot of pink in places that are usually yellow this time of year.

Don’t get me wrong. For my part I’m not complaining. We’ve had it easy so far this winter.

But wildly unusual weather like this does make it a bit challenging to continue to be a global warming skeptic.

A Convenient Theory

One Way to CC It logo

Now I admit that being skeptical on the global warming thing is probably not so popular. But please don’t think that I am anti-environment. Fuel economy is high on our priority list in my car purchases. And even though the places we’ve lived in the South make it challenging to recycle my wife and I have recycled on our own through private concerns when we could.

In spite of the fact that I care, I’m still skeptical. It just seems too convenient to hear the high priests of the environment declare “Global Warming” at every single unusual weather thing that happens. Record high temperatures? Global Warming. El Niño? Global Warming. Oranges freezing in California? Obviously Global Warming!

I find it a tad suspicious that the theory seems to bend just a touch each time so that regardless what happens it can be incorporated as evidence the sky is falling. No, wait: The earth is warming.

Perhaps I’m a little simple minded or ignorant. But I have questions about the whole deal.

But how does record cold weather somewhere provide evidence that the planet is warming up?

Comparing how ever many millions of years our planet has been around with the few thousand years folks have been walking around (and the few hundred we’ve actually been recording the temperatures) how can we really be sure this isn’t some cyclical thing that is perfectly normal for our world?

When they take ice core probe temperatures they have to make some assumptions about things such as build up rates and stability of temperature at various depths. While these assumptions may be reasonable, how can we be sure they are true?

Different Biases

Now I admit I bring my own biases to the topic. Personally I think it is a bit arrogant for humans to believe we have that much influence or control over our planet.

As evidence exhibit A I’ll point to the science of Meteorology. In spite of all our technological advances and know how it is still pretty much a crap shoot whenever the weather guessers try to predict the future conditions in any particular location.

If our best scientists have such a hard time telling us accurately whether it is going to rain on the kids soccer game tomorrow night, how can we be so confident that what they tell us is coming down the road in a few centuries is any more accurate?

I guess I get the feeling on this one that many folks have made up their minds that human activity on this planet is bad by definition. Therefore they seem to present everything that happens through the bias that “proves” we are flushing ourselves down the toilet.

Maybe we are. I’ve gotta admit things are definitely a bit weird right now.

But maybe the planet is more resilient that most folks give it credit for. But that’s just The Way I C it.

Chris Cree is a regular contributor here at Successful-Blog and he helps businesses fuel growth through blogging with his consulting business, SuccessCREEations.

Change the World: A Small Generous Act that I Didn’t Expect

by

Thank You Is a Better Response

Change the World!

It was coffee at Starbucks with friend that I don’t get to see often enough. How cool is that? I was adding milk to my coffee, pretending it was real cream. She reached over to get me a napkin and a stirrer. For a split second, I stiffened. I wanted to say, “i can do that!”

Then I caught myself. At least, I think I did.

This was a friend who was doing a kind thing for me. She wasn’t trying to make me feel “less.” She was showing I was “more” to her. I hope I said, “Thank you.”

“Thank you” is a better response than “I can do that!”

I almost ran over her small generous act by not seeing it, by being tied up in my independence and my history with two big brothers. That would have taken something from both of us.

That “I can do that!” feeling is easy to watch for. It usually comes in response to a small, generous act that I didn’t expect.

Be on the look out for the small, generous acts of others. People are doing them all around us every day.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

______________
If you’re ready to change the world, send me your thoughts in a guest post. Feel free to take the gorgeous Change the World image up there that Sandy designed back to your blog. Or help yourself to this one.

Change the World!.

Email me about what you’re doing or what we might do. Let’s change the world one bit at a time together. Together it can’t take forever.