I like what I see emerging from this thread, especially Reed's reply to
Jyotsna. Reed hypothesizes that most of the participants on this list are
"N" for intuitive instead of "S" for sensor. I have no reason to doubt
this, but I'm especially biased toward "N" for obvious reasons: I'm an
ENTJ!
Over the last couple of years the Meyers-Briggs test has floated around my
department and my immediate team. What I've found interesting is that the
best "engineers" we've had are "N" instead of "S," and all the managers
were "S" instead of "N." This changed, of course, when I was hired as the
Quality Manager.
Also of interest, in my little informal study, was that the "N's" had
higher IQ's than did the "S's". This is not to imply that the engineers
are smarter than the managers. . .but I'll let history make the final
decision. (At last count the average IQ in SWAT was 135, some with IQS in
the 150's and 160's. . . pretty damn smart people; recently, however, the
team has been reconstructed, so I don't know if this is true anymore.)
In the SWAT Team, the predominate personality traits were "NTJ" and we
were equally mixed between "I" and "E" ("I meaning introverted and "E"
meaning extroverted). The SWAT Team was the most aggressive and tenacious
team I've ever worked with. It had an incredible disdain for any perceived
incompetency, and was infamous for its belligerency and bigotry against
stupidity! But they could get work done, do it well, and do it fast. The
team was much more interested in the forces at play than they were with
all the detail complexity that is common in our industry.
All of this information has made me wonder a few things:
1) Does individual intelligence play a role in overall intelligence of the
organization? Can a Learning Organization emerge and thrive if those who
comprise it do not have a relatively high IQ (by that I mean an IQ equal
to or greater than 120, two standard deviations above the average)?
2) Does personality type play a role? Do NTJ's naturally pick up on system
dynamics faster, and integrate the new way of thinking better, than do
other personality types? (I know there was some discussion on this a while
back, and I believe it was Robert who basically dismissed the Meyers-Brigg
as nothing more than a sophisticated way of labeling people. . .I still
wonder.)
One thing I can say, is that Microsoft hires only the brightest people,
and without question, they're the most competitive company in the computer
industry. it seems rather natural for them to subconsciously apply the
guiding ideas of a LO and other management practices that help them
achieve their desired results. I'm about to decide it has a lot to do with
the individual intelligence of those they employ, and their ability to
integrate the intelligence of the individuals in the organization.
Any comments?
--Benjamin B. Compton ("Ben") | email: bcompton@novell.com Novell, GroupWare Support Quality Manager | fax: (801) 222-6991
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>