1. Happy Spring—Renewal, Rejuvenation, and Type

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    | Berens CORE, Cognitive Dynamics, Ego Development, Essential Motivators, Human Agility, Interaction Styles, Personality Type, Perspective Taking, Temperament, Type Dynamics
    2015-04-05
    Today is Easter Sunday, a day celebrated by many as a reminder of rebirth and regeneration. Whether you celebrate Easter or not, it is spring and a time when there is new growth. It is a time that can remind us of the benefits of ‘letting go’ to ‘let come.’ Fall is a time of letting go as the leaves change color and drop off the trees and as plants slow down. Then in winter there is a kind of hibernation. And then in spring comes reemergence of leaves and blossoms. The beauty of the new leaves and spring flowers can only happen after the letting go. But this happens only when there are nutrients and water. Born in California, I lived in Kansas from age 2 until nearly 20, when I got married and we moved to California. I often am nostalgic for the markers of the seasons. Last weekend, I found lilacs in Trader Joe’s and bought 2 bunches. They are my favorite flower for the scent and the colors. And they remind me of joyful times in my grandmother’s garden and making May baskets. Oh, the joy of having them sitting in my line of sight as I...
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  2. 3 Domains of Self-Leadership

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    | Berens CORE, Cognitive Dynamics, Cognitive Styles, Ego Development, Essential Motivators, Interaction Styles, Leadership Development, Organizational Health Programs, Personality Type, Temperament, Type Dynamics, Uncategorized
    2015-03-21
    Notice that I didn’t say, “The 3 Domains…,” there are many domains of self-leadership, but in this blog, I want to share with you information about three domains of self-leadership that seem to have been forgotten in the current literature. Self-Leadership There are many articles, blogs, books, and websites devoted to discussing self-leadership. Their definitions and guidance range from checklists with ‘rules’ to follow that focus on setting goals to a focus on self-awareness and self-management. All of these have some value. Of course I favor the ones that focus on self-awareness and self-management. I also like the ones that cite the evidence that leadership development and organizational change programs need to start with self-leadership of not just the leaders, but also the individuals at all levels. And they also cite evidence that organizations are more successful by traditional measures when they do provide coaching and training that develops self-leadership. So how do we develop this self-leadership across an organization? How do we approach development of self-awareness when the focus is on actions to take rather than self-reflection? We can develop a great deal of the self-awareness needed for self-leadership through the Berens CORE™ Approach to introducing the multiple lenses...
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  3. What Your MBTI® Results Probably Didn’t Tell You

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    | Berens CORE, Cognitive Dynamics, Cognitive Styles, Facilitation, Instruments, Interaction Styles, Personality instruments, Personality Type, Temperament, Type Dynamics, Uncategorized
    2015-03-17
    By that I mean, what the results alone didn’t tell you and what you may not have experienced in your interpretive session. For more information than what is in the video read the following updated blog post from 2010: Getting the Most Out of the Type Code The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® self-report instrument was developed by Isabel Myers to help individuals find their best-fit type. In order to develop the instrument, the J-P dichotomy was added. Now the four-letter type code that results from her work has become a standard for referring to the 16 types no matter how you arrive at determining the best-fit. Traditionally, type has been approached by explanation of the four dichotomies of Extraversion vs Introversion, Sensing vs iNtuiting, Thinking vs Feeling, and Judging vs Perceiving. By exploring preferences for one or the other pole of the dichotomies most clients get some very valuable information that they can use in their personal and professional lives. A growing number of type practitioners have found it useful and powerful to understand the type code in terms of other, related models that provide different information about important aspects of the 16 personality types. They use the four temperaments or Interaction Styles or...
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  4. Stress Triggers, Mindfulness, and the Shadow

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    | Cognitive Dynamics, Communication, Integral, Interpersonal Agility, Mindfulness, Personality Type, Temperament, Uncategorized, Wisdom
    2014-10-18
    When we are stressed we are not as agile as we need to be. And stress takes a toll on our health and quality of life. Personality related stress is often unconscious. Here is a story about an experience of mine where I unpack the relevance of all the models to one stressful situation. Each lens—Essential Motivators, Interaction Styles, and Cognitive Dynamics—helps me understand myself better and grow into having more positive interactions. I hope my story helps you see how you can use type lenses to increase your level of mindfulness and interpersonal agility. So here goes… I recently found myself in a situation where I didn’t show up in a way that I wanted. It was a somewhat difficult conversation and I made it more difficult by expressing my anger inappropriately. On reflection, I realized that I was more stressed in general than I had realized and that level of stress tipped me into a shadowy place, where something ‘had’ me rather than me being my authentic, best self. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t express anger. The issue was that in this instance expressing that anger was counterproductive. I lost some credibility when I did so and it...
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  5. Cognitive Style, Respect, and Forgiveness

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    | Cognitive Dynamics, Cognitive Styles, Personality Type, Perspective Taking, Uncategorized
    2014-09-13
    I recently conducted a workshop with a type knowledgeable group and they explored their Cognitive Styles related to a burning issue inside their organization. The insights that emerged were amazing and they were able to apply them immediately. What I noticed was that by looking at their Shadow Cognitive Styles, they were able to realize how they had discounted input from other styles and were extremely irritated by interactions with people who were habitually engaging in those styles. And this led them to disrespect the person even though they had tried not to. This new lens on type provided a leverage point for understanding and potentially resolving some very profound interpersonal tensions. It provided a language for the individuals to be more mindful as they could then control for their internal judgments. These individuals use Essential Motivators, Interaction Styles, and Cognitive Dynamics rather fluently to help them with clear communication, developing good relationships, and recognizing their own core needs, drives, and talents. The Cognitive Styles lens was helpful in ways that the other lenses had not been, so it confirmed to me that it adds information that the other models do not. What is Cognitive Style? Cognitive Style is a...
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  6. Why Personality Type Instruments Don’t Work…

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    | Berens CORE, Consulting, Facilitation, Integral, Personality Type, Uncategorized
    2013-10-06
    The MBTI® instrument has come under lots of criticism recently in the popular press. For those of us who have trained people to use this instrument and have found it useful, this can be painful. We realize that the criticism often comes from wanting the instrument to do things it isn’t designed to do. And usually it is a result of not following best practices such as the ones Jane Kise has described very thoroughly in a recent blog. I’ve been teaching people to use Psychological Type, Temperament and other models of individual differences since 1976 and conducted MBTI® Certification Programs for 17 years. At first we just took the instrument results as the indication of one’s type pattern. Then we learned that this often wasn’t as accurate as we thought it was. This inaccuracy is in part the basis for many of the critiques. The critics say they take the ‘test’ one time and it comes out different another time. The MBTI® Manual contains data that indicates that the agreement with instrument results ranges from about 60% -80% of the people agreeing with all four preferences ‘measured’ by the instrument. This really isn’t bad since as the Manual points...
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  7. To Test or Not to Test? That is the question.

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    | Coaching, Facilitation, Personality Type
    2011-03-23
    I was recently asked by a colleague, how she could talk to her client about why she usually doesn’t use instruments in her work. I’ve heard from many practitioners who do not use instruments, especially when doing work with Interaction Styles or Temperament alone. However, organizations have come to expect instruments to be used. It is always a decision that the professional needs to make in the diagnostic and contracting phases. I think instruments are very useful when working with some populations who have little experience with self-reflection. However, as people develop, they become more capable of self-reflection. Since I am usually working with objectives that involve fostering development and developing an understanding of others as much as developing an understanding of self, I tend to not use them. Personality is so complex, that I use a process of collecting multiple data points, such as participant responses to presentations of different patterns, feedback from others, written materials, activities, cross checking against multiple models, and sometimes including instrument results. In my experience and those of many other professionals with years of client work, an instrument usually proves to be one of the weakest data points for the following reasons: There seems...
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  8. MBTI® and Other Instruments and Second Order Change

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    | Coaching, Ego Development, Internal Strength, Personality Type, Temperament, Type Dynamics
    2011-02-14
    If you are a coach or organization change professional you may be wondering if you can use the MBTI® instrument or other typology instruments to get second order change? My answer is yes, IF you know type theory beyond the instrument results and beyond simple dichotomies. You cannot get transformative change by depending solely on the results of the instruments or reports based on simple dichotomies. The very way type is introduced can lead to limited first order change or to more transformational second order change. (Note: this blog uses a lot of short-cut terms that are explained in my article, The Five Lenses of Coaching.) What are First- and Second-Order Change? I found the following simple explanation. First-order change is doing more – or less – of something we are already doing. First-order change is always reversible. Second-order change is deciding – or being forced – to do something significantly or fundamentally different from what we have done before. The process is irreversible: once you begin, it is impossible to return to the way you were doing before. I also found the following useful, brief explanation by Michael Perez First order change: Remedial change. This is a more functionally...
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  9. Out of a Box and Into Interpersonal Agility™

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    | Coaching, Facilitation, Interpersonal Agility, Personality Type
    2010-11-20
    This post is not about out-of-the-box thinking, but about how to keep clients and workshop participants from feeling like they’re being put in a box when introducing them to type models and using type instruments like the MBTI® instrument. Clients often resist type information because of the fear of being put in a box or ‘typecast’ by others. And perhaps the greater danger is limiting themselves by the box they create from the information.   We have a natural tendency to categorize and label. Like the young child with a dog who calls a cat ‘doggie’, we first learn the general characteristics of something, then we generalize them to similar things, than we begin to differentiate.   Set-up or Getting Started The way instruments and/or models are introduced can help take mitigate the problem of people resisting the usefulness and value of the work being done. It can also make a huge difference in how people apply it to themselves to either be in a box or to use it to develop interpersonal agility. Here are just a few of things I use from the Interstrength® Method.   1. Introduce type as a self-discovery process not an instrument result. When...
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