The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) was the first and remains the most used psychometric profiling tool in the world. The MBTI was developed by the mother and daughter team of Katherine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, students of Karl Jung, one of the fathers of modern psychology. It’s original purpose was to help identify the best roles for women entering the workplace during World War II and it wasn’t until the 1960’s that the MBTI was used commercially by organisations.
One of the four MBTI behavioural pairs is Introvert/Extrovert. With all the MBTI pairs, our behaviour sits somewhere on a scale from mild to extreme. There is no right or wrong level however, when it comes to communicating with and influencing others, we need to consider both their and our position on the scale for our communication to have the desired impact. It is this interdependence of our relative positions on the MBTI scale, and its importance in communicating with influence that I want to discuss in this week’s blog.
I sit on the extreme level of the extrovert scale. My wife often jokes that I could go to the washroom and come back with a business lead. For someone in sales and marketing it’s generally an advantage to be outgoing and social in order to build a network and meet new clients. There is a problem however: extreme extroversion is not responded to well by people on the introvert scale, and often my clients are introverts. I therefore need to adjust my behaviour to fit with what my target is likely to respond best to.
The first challenge we face is identifying whether our counterpart is an extrovert or introvert. Do they prefer being in groups and feed of the energy, or do they prioritise personal time. In a work context the department someone works in can give a good indication. For example, people who work in IT or accounts are often introverted while those that work in marketing and customer facing roles are more extroverted. This is because we tend to gravitate towards roles that fit our personality.
If you consider yourself extroverted and deal regularly with colleagues in IT, legal, audit etc, your outgoing personality may make them feel a little uncomfortable and potentially close up in your presence. Alternatively, if you are on the introvert scale and need to deal regularly with colleagues who are more extroverted, simple steps such as opening the conversation casually (eg discussing the weekend or something of interest outside of work) rather than focusing purely on business will shift their perception of you and improve your ability to connect and communicate effectively.
The general rule in communication is if you want to influence someone you need to adapt your communication style to the format they use themselves. The law of liking that ‘people like people like themselves’ is universal. We could apply this methodology not only introvert/extrovert, but to any behavioural trait our target exhibits.
If you found this blog useful, please click ‘like’ below and forward to friends and colleagues to subscribe. If you disagree or have anything to add, please comment!
To catch up on previous blogs and make sure you’re not missing out on some great insights, check out the archives here.