Are you ready for a quick, easy and intensely delicious recipe that will leave your organization happy, satisfied and energized? The best part is you already have all of the components at your fingertips. This one dish wonder pulls all of your favourite ingredients together and will have you wondering how you ever survived without it.
Ingredients
| 1 cup Extroversion
3 tablespoons Sensing
¼ cup Thinking
½ cup Judging
|
1 cup Introversion
9 teaspoons iNtuition
¼ cup Feeling
½ cup Perceiving |
Method
- When baking always be precise
As I grew older I could never figure out why when I baked using one of my Mum’s recipes, my baking never tasted quite as good as hers. That is until one day I realized my measuring cup (aka the standard 250ml = 1 cup) was a very different amount to the cup she referred to in her recipes – a vintage teacup.
There is a reason we use standard measurements in baking, it creates structure out of what might otherwise be baking chaos (pinch, smidge, fistful, dash).
The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is a tool that does the same thing for personalities. It takes what might otherwise be seen as a random and chaotic world of unlimited personalities and provides a framework that breaks this complex notion into16 easy to understand types – what I refer to as the 16 types of normal. These 16 types are based on variations of the four dichotomies of extraversion and introversion, sensing and intuition, thinking and feeling, and judging and perceiving.
As a Myers Briggs certified instructor I combine the MBTI assessment and report with a 3-hour workshop where I work with organizations to teach their staff how to use their personality type preferences to promote self-awareness and enhance team effectiveness. A large part of understanding our personality type preferences is in our ability to understand our strengths and limitations, and then use this information to understand how we can adjust our behaviour to better meet the needs of the people we are working with.
- When mixing wet ingredients with dry ingredients always make sure to beat out the lumps
Cookies are not always the most nutritious foods we put in our bodies – but man are they worth it.
Karen Buxman, professional speaker and author, said it best when she asked a group of lecture attendees what they would say was the best part of their job. Of course their answer was the people they work with! Karen then asked the group what was the worst part of their jobs… to which the attendees again stated it was the people they work with.
The first step organizations can make in setting their teams up to succeed is acknowledging the fact that working with people is hard. We are quick to give our teams the tools and education needed to do their job but what about giving them the tools to improve the way they communicate, engage and interact with their colleagues.
Gone are the days of complaining to HR about difficult colleagues, managing interpersonal relations is an organization-wide responsibility.
It is our job as organizations to give our employees the tools they need to better understand each other so to ultimately optimize team performance and organizational effectiveness. This tool achieves this by directly improving communication and building team collaboration.
- Stir in the raisins
I worked with an organization once that was having quite significant internal conflict. One day their office manager informed me that they figured out how to fix their issues – moving forward they were only going to hire introverts!
When completing my Masters I participated in a MBTI workshop. As part of the group discussion I aired my grievances about how people with introverted preferences do not always contribute to group discussion and how I then have to lead the conversation – after all, how lucky were they to have an extrovert like me present. A friend and participant with a preference for introversion respectfully turned to me and said “And in those moments when you are dominating the conversation, I just wish you would just stop talking”.
Understanding our personality provides increased self-awareness for better self-management, and helps us identify which of our behaviour trends have positive outcomes and which of our behaviour trends have less desirable outcomes.
Having raisins in your cookies may not be your cup of tea, but how would you ever know what you like if you are not willing to try?
After all, they do say that variety is the spice of life.
If you need any help customizing a recipe that is perfect for your organization’s uniqueness, contact Salopek & Associates for more information!