> Actually, people don't fall equally into the four MBTI quadrants, so things may
> be better or worse than you thought. Here are the percentages as I understand
> them:
>
> NT 12%
> NF 12%
> SJ 38%
> SP 38%
>
And let's not forget that people tend to self-select into groups of people
that react significantly more homogeneously than a random sample. For
example, at my company, while I haven't done a formal survey, observation
indicates that we have a large number of people who react more-or-less like
NT's. 50% would not surprise me. Well, I think software engineering in
general and this company in particular will be a lot more comfortable for NT's
than for some other personality types.
> So, depending on your type, either 88% or 62% of people will react differently
> than you do.
>
> Anyway, remember that the percentages are simply an artifact of grouping people
> together into only four groupings, under the assumption that they are similar
> enough that the groupings mean something.
> Here's my theory: there are currently about 5.5 billion personality types. In
> solving problems or reacting to situations, *everybody* will act differently
> than you do, and that's exactly why it's so nice to have you around.
At some level of detail, of course, we are all different. But how do
you work with 5.5 billion personality types in a useful mental model?
We all do some amount of aggregation of the data around us, MBTI is more
conscious and formal, but most of the time we do it automatically and
informally. The crucial thing to me is, how fluid can we be about accepting
new data, correcting the model in real time as we are making it? Otherwise
MBTI or any other model becomes a set of prejudices, and may distort
more than it helps.
--Rachel Silber rachel@ontos.com
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>