Discussion: View Thread

On 27 Feb 98 at 15:50, Emily Schultheiss wrote:

> Andrea,
>
> I know what you mean about unpredictable outcomes for S/N and T/F
> exercises. I think that's because the behavior becomes somewhat
> "contaminated" by the culture of the organization. Especially in more
> traditional technical industries (engineering-oriented, chemical,
> manufacturing), the N's and the F's have learned effective behavior that is
> often counter to their preference.

I'm a bit curious about this approach. On what basis, when we see
behaviour that isn't "consistent with a particular style", do we
conclude that it is a result of some sort of "contamination by the
culture", rather than a measurement instrument that is ineffective,
or test administration that isn't standard", or a construct that is
invalid, etc?

I would be interested in hearing from management developers in terms
of how you approach this kind of issue with learners.

Do you teach the importance of parsimony and Occam's razor as part of
explaining observations?


>
> Here are some that have sometimes worked for me:
> S/N - describe the meeting room.
> - Show them something, allow them to examine it, and ask them to describe
> it after you take it away.
> - Find as many uses as possible for a common item (a brick, perhaps).
> You can also ask each group to do two different activities: for example,
> describe the meeting room and describe an ideal meeting room. Compare how
> they've done the two tasks and ask each group which task was the easiest
> for them.
>
> T/F - Deal with a problem employee. (Give them facts, including both
> performance information and personal information.)
> - Explain to a new employee why this is a good place to work.
>
> Emily Schultheiss
> Why settle for surviving...when you could be thriving?
>
>
Robert Bacal, Inst.For Cooperative Communication, rbacal@escape.ca
Visit our Resource Centre for articles on mgmt.,training,communication, and defusing hostility
at http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal (204) 888-9290
*Site Last Updated On Jan 24, 1998*

Cross posted to OD Net and Management Development lists. My apologies if you
receive this twice.

I am looking to refresh my cadre of like-type MBTI exercises. Any great ideas
out there? Any web sites I might visit? Right now I use these exercises for
exploring like types in like-type groups:
E/I: Planning a recognition event for yourself.
S/N: Describing an object, like a marker or a lipstick.
T/F: Deciding who gets to attend a conference in the Caribbean, or other
great location.
J/P: Reviewing what you did last weekend.

I find that the differences are not always clear in the outcomes of these
exercises, especially in the S/N and T/F exercises. I would appreciate any
and all ideas you have, especially exercises you have tried and like. I'm in
design right now for a large, global meeting.

I will, of course, gather all the replies and send them to the list
membership.

Thanks for your creative ideas!

Andrea

Andrea Sigetich Affiliates
Organization Coaching for magnificent management and team development
Personal Coaching for amazing individual results
OrgCoach@aol.com

Andrea,
I'd appreciate if you'd share a summary of responses you receive...
Here's what I use:
E/I - Come up with your ideal weekend, in a fishbowl-observation format
S/N - Describe an object, in a group breakout format. I usually use a piece
of fruit, or a simple drawing which could be described quite literally, or
interpreted abstractly
T/F - Define "marriage," in a group breakout session format (this one
usually yields great examples of the differences!)
J/P - Discuss a topic. I usually use "the environment" because it's
something everyone can contribute *something* to, is a very broad topic
(which drives the Js crazy, and illustrates their need to structure
everything), and is relatively boring to the Ps, which allows them to feel
all right about straying from the topic.

Hope this helps you!
-Amy
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amy Roszak, Director of Training
Strategic Planning and Organizational Development
PHEAA
Harrisburg, PA
email: aroszak@pheaa.org
http://www.pheaa.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-----Original Message-----
From: OrgCoach <OrgCoach@AOL.COM>
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Date: Friday, February 27, 1998 12:10 PM
Subject: [MG-ED-DV] MBTI Exercises


>Cross posted to OD Net and Management Development lists. My apologies if
you
>receive this twice.
>
>I am looking to refresh my cadre of like-type MBTI exercises. Any great
ideas
>out there? Any web sites I might visit? Right now I use these exercises
for
>exploring like types in like-type groups:
>E/I: Planning a recognition event for yourself.
>S/N: Describing an object, like a marker or a lipstick.
>T/F: Deciding who gets to attend a conference in the Caribbean, or other
>great location.
>J/P: Reviewing what you did last weekend.
>
>I find that the differences are not always clear in the outcomes of these
>exercises, especially in the S/N and T/F exercises. I would appreciate any
>and all ideas you have, especially exercises you have tried and like. I'm
in
>design right now for a large, global meeting.
>
>I will, of course, gather all the replies and send them to the list
>membership.
>
>Thanks for your creative ideas!
>
>Andrea
>
>Andrea Sigetich Affiliates
>Organization Coaching for magnificent management and team development
>Personal Coaching for amazing individual results
>OrgCoach@aol.com
>

Amy, thanks! I will send out the other ideas I receive on MBTI. Your
exercises look great!

Andrea

Andrea,

I know what you mean about unpredictable outcomes for S/N and T/F
exercises. I think that's because the behavior becomes somewhat
"contaminated" by the culture of the organization. Especially in more
traditional technical industries (engineering-oriented, chemical,
manufacturing), the N's and the F's have learned effective behavior that is
often counter to their preference.

Here are some that have sometimes worked for me:
S/N - describe the meeting room.
- Show them something, allow them to examine it, and ask them to describe
it after you take it away.
- Find as many uses as possible for a common item (a brick, perhaps).
You can also ask each group to do two different activities: for example,
describe the meeting room and describe an ideal meeting room. Compare how
they've done the two tasks and ask each group which task was the easiest
for them.

T/F - Deal with a problem employee. (Give them facts, including both
performance information and personal information.)
- Explain to a new employee why this is a good place to work.

Emily Schultheiss
Why settle for surviving...when you could be thriving?

Andrea,
For E/I I have participants self-select their preference and form 2
groups. I ask each group to describe (charting the responses) the
opposite type and what's it like to work with the opposites. Typically
positive and negative stuff gets generated. I find that it is a way to
begin to look at how we need/appreciate each other and also how we bug
each other. I remember one group of E's (nurses) who described the I's
as sexier and better lovers--can't remember all the reasons they had but
it got the day off to a fun start.

My favorite exercise for S/N is to use M&M's. I give each group a clear
glass containing M&Ms candies. The task is to describe (chart) what
they see in the glass. Typically the S's get real sensory and eat the
candy, but not until they count the 8 reds, 4 blues, etc. The N's
nurses from that same group I mentioned above described M&M's as PMS
food. I typically don't get that many sexual references.

But in my outside-the-box life I want to do a combination of two of my
favorite things: an MBTI-wine tasting. I bet the S's would be able to
detect the flavors, be making notes about the vintage, calcuating case
prices, etc. The N's would be recalling the wine they had when....or
thinking about serving it with...

Do you think there's some possible marketing angle here? :-)

Have a great weekend,
Susie

--
H. Susie Coddington, Ph.D., Coddington Learning Co.
410.992.9563 hsusie@erols.com
LEARNING NEVER ENDS . . .

For the E/I- plan what you would do on a weekend if you could anything. I
put them in a circle from the highest E to the highest I and they share. You
can see the shift between the two occurring.

T/F- Describe what conflict means to you. T sees conflict when there is
emotion occurring while F sees it when someone is merely critiquing the
issues.

J/P- Planning a vacation.

The best one of I have been using, I picked up last year at OBTC conference.
I first have each person draw a metaphor for the MBTI. Then, based on the
different types I have in class, I put them the ST, SF, NT and NF together
in a group to draw a group picture.
We then look at the differences in the group picture and also the
differences in the process they took in developing the picture. The
most interesting one I ever did, I had to put an SF and NF together because
of the class make-up. They found a way to use both pictures but half of the
picture was full of details, while the other half was extremely abstract.
They did, however, work through it very well. I have saved all of the
pictures my students have drawn so I can see how it unfolds over a period of
time.

I would like to get a consolidation of other's exercises.
Sandy

**********************************************************************
Sandra King, Ph D sandraking@mindspring.com
MBA Department Office phone: 301-687-4046
Frostburg State University Home phone: 301-729-1173
Frostburg, MD 20150 Fax: 301-687-4486
***********************************************************************

-----Original Message-----
From: OrgCoach <OrgCoach@AOL.COM>
To: MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU <MG-ED-DV@MAELSTROM.STJOHNS.EDU>
Date: Friday, February 27, 1998 12:12 PM
Subject: [MG-ED-DV] MBTI Exercises


>Cross posted to OD Net and Management Development lists. My apologies if
you
>receive this twice.
>
>I am looking to refresh my cadre of like-type MBTI exercises. Any great
ideas
>out there? Any web sites I might visit? Right now I use these exercises
for
>exploring like types in like-type groups:
>E/I: Planning a recognition event for yourself.
>S/N: Describing an object, like a marker or a lipstick.
>T/F: Deciding who gets to attend a conference in the Caribbean, or other
>great location.
>J/P: Reviewing what you did last weekend.
>
>I find that the differences are not always clear in the outcomes of these
>exercises, especially in the S/N and T/F exercises. I would appreciate any
>and all ideas you have, especially exercises you have tried and like. I'm
in
>design right now for a large, global meeting.
>
>I will, of course, gather all the replies and send them to the list
>membership.
>
>Thanks for your creative ideas!
>
>Andrea
>
>Andrea Sigetich Affiliates
>Organization Coaching for magnificent management and team development
>Personal Coaching for amazing individual results
>OrgCoach@aol.com

On 5 Mar 98 at 12:50, Tim Edlund wrote:

> O.K., I suppose that I may be the only one who hasn't understood this
> whole thread - it appears to be talking about various type of experiential
> exercises, but without the full description you might as well be talking
> Greek.

I understand the thread...and I suspect you probably do to (even more
than you might realize).

> Second, as I understand experiential exercises, they should
> consist of more than an activity which different classifications of people
> respond to in different ways. As I understand the process, exercises
> should also include a complete description of how to administer the
> exercise, what is learned, and how to debrief the participants so that
> they too learn. Perhaps everyone else can infer all this; I sure can't.

Absolutely! The problem is that many people in the "let's use a test
for learning industry" are making a great number of assumptions,
first about the theory, then the instrument, and the self-evidence of
the meaning of the results, and the process that might be used to run
the exercise and debrief it.

There are reasons why these assumptions are made. My experience is
that people using these instruments do so because they "made sense to
them", assuming they will make sense to everyone else.


They are also, in addition to making assumptions (which may or may
not be true), making money from the process, and that tends to cloud
the mind to other evidence and logic.

I have said before (and been flamed before) for saying that typology
instruments are the astrology (what's your sign) thing of the 90's.

There are several articles in the Workplace2001 newsletter on this
topic...one specifically on the MBTI and the other on the use of pop
psychology in the workplace. They can be accessed via the Public
Sector Manager newsletter button at http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal.



Public Sector Manager/Workplace2001 Newsletter Online is available at
http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal/psm.htm. Articles archive at:
http://www.escape.ca/~rbacal/articles.htm .
Bacal & Associates rbacal@escape.ca

O.K., I suppose that I may be the only one who hasn't understood this
whole thread - it appears to be talking about various type of experiential
exercises, but without the full description you might as well be talking
Greek.
Everyone is using single letter abbreviations (S, N, & others)
without once defining what they are. Can someone help?
Second, as I understand experiential exercises, they should
consist of more than an activity which different classifications of people
respond to in different ways. As I understand the process, exercises
should also include a complete description of how to administer the
exercise, what is learned, and how to debrief the participants so that
they too learn. Perhaps everyone else can infer all this; I sure can't.

There is implied in some of the descriptions that the exercise
facilitator is observing, watching people sort themselves by how they act,
and sort of chuckling at how predictable they are. Nothing on how to share
that with the participants so that they learn from the exercise.

Now, at NEDSI (25-27 March in Boston) I'm holding a workshop on
experiential exercises, as a beginning, and could use one or two well
crafted, fully specified exercises involving the decision sciences
(basically - most business school disciplines). I'm still a novice at
this stuff. You could be the presenter of an exercise, or you could
send it to me and I could present it. [If this sounds like a call for
help - you got it right!]

By the way, to avoid net clutter, it's entirely appropriate to reply to me
privately; not to the net as a whole.

Tim Edlund, Morgan State University

Ted: Sorry to confuse you!! This whole thread, which I initiated, has been a
gathering of exercises to facilitate understanding of the Myers-Briggs Type
Indicator (MBTI) when facilitating it with teams. Our discussion here has
been rather wrought with lingo, as we were exploring a subset of the
facilitated experience, something called like-type exercises.

MBTI is an indicator of preferences which deal with an individual's decision-
making and data gathering modes, in particular. There are eight preferences
on four scales, they are typically referred to by their single letter
abbreviations, Extraversion (E), Introversion (I), Sensing (S), iNtuition (N),
Thinking (T), Feeling (F), Judging (J) and Perceiving (P).

The exercises we have been exploring are used in the second half an an
experiential session. After you have explained the MBTI, administered and
scored the instrument, and individuals have confirmed their type, they then
meet with others of the same preference to further explore the behaviors
typically associated with this preference.

It is, by the way, a wonderful instrument for indivdual understanding, team
dynamics, and basic diversity exploration.

Andrea

Andrea Sigetich Affiliates
Organization Coaching for magnificent management and team development
Personal Coaching for amazing individual results
OrgCoach@aol.com