October 31, 2023 • 51 mins
Thinking and Feeling in the Workplace. Thinkers focus on facts and logic, and value truthfulness over tact. Feelers focus on harmony, support, and no-conflict situations. It’s easy to see where miscommunication can occur! Edythe and Marc share tips for both types.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hey, folks, in our never ending quest to Understand personality,
we are tackling a really important issue in today's episode,
and it relates to the Meyers Briggs dichotomy of thinking
and feeling. Let me be the first to tell you
that whatever personality type you have, you're normal and there's
nothing wrong with you. And I think this conversation really
(00:24):
speaks to the fact, and it's a great point that
Mark and I both try to get across in our podcasts.
You have your own unique gifts. Sometimes we all just
miscommunicate and we say things that we wish we didn't,
and conflict happens. So we're here to help you through
all of that. If you are a thinking type, feelers
(00:47):
may mystify you for a number of reasons. They may
frustrate and annoy you because of all of their feelings.
And if you're a feeling type, like both Mark and
I are, you may feel like you are minimized or
just told to get over it. It's not personal one
of my favorites, and those things may annoy and frustrate
(01:10):
you too. So if any of this sounds familiar, you
are definitely going to want to tune into this episode
where we break down this dichotomy and give you some
pointers on interacting with both thinkers and feelers.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Enjoy.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Welcome to the new Myers Briggs Question Corner. I'm Edith
Richards and I'm Mark Mappy, and we're here to answer
your questions about all things personality and all things Myers breaks.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
From college to careers to relationships. Personality is the key
to finding the right fit.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another exciting episode of Meyers
Briggs Question Corner. Last time, we talked about both my
type and Marx type. I am an E NFP type
and Mark is an I NFP type. We also talked
about which work environments frustrate us and make us feel good.
(02:36):
We touched briefly on the dichotomy of introversion and extraversion,
also intuitive and sensing, some on perceiving and judging. We
didn't really get into the thinking and feeling dichotomy quite
so much. So, this dichotomy is very interesting, and I
thought we'd delve into that a bit more.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
So.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Absolutely, I feel this dichotomy is so important because it
really centers around how we make decisions. I think our
audience will greatly benefit from this, and also kind of
the terminology of thinking and feeling can be kind of confusing.
You know, being a thinker doesn't mean you're like Plato
or Aristotle right, and don't have feelings, and feeling doesn't
(03:22):
mean that you can't think. I think sometimes people get
really confused about the terminology. So I think this diconomy
needs some further exploration, don't you think at it?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, definitely, definitely, And I like how you said that
it just because you're a thinker doesn't mean you don't feel,
and just because you're a feeling type doesn't mean you
don't think. So let me first start by explaining what
this really means. And quick reminder to all of our listeners.
All of us fall on a continuum. We all do
(03:52):
both thinking and feeling things, but there's one that comes
more easily and more naturally to you than the other.
And that's what we mean by preference. So, folks tuning in,
if you have a preference for thinking, you probably rely
on objectivity when you make decisions. You evaluate situations and
(04:13):
people based on logic and facts and data. You are
likely to confront situations directly and conflict probably isn't such
a scary thing for you. You are ruled by your head,
not your heart. You value truthfulness over tactfulness. Now, this
(04:36):
doesn't mean that you don't have feelings or emotions. It
just means that you prioritize objective judgment and logic over
empathy and the personal impact on people. Now, if you
are a feeling type, and again this is both you
and me, mark, you value harmony over logic. And we
(04:58):
feeling types make decisions for a values based perspective. We
naturally consider the impact of our decisions on other people.
We tend to be warm and compassionate. We tend to
be relationship focused. We may be peacemakers because we are
more conflict avoidant than thinking types, and that word conflict.
(05:21):
We don't like conflict. We might sweep things under the rug. Now,
I think it's common to say that thinkers are critical
while feelers are emotional. But again it's important to say
that we can both be equally critical or emotional, and
it comes down to which we prioritize when we make decisions,
(05:42):
truth or tact That's an easy way of looking at it.
So with this dichotomy, it's easy to see where we
can have some miscommunications, and the fact is that we
have to all of us. We have to deal with
thinking and feeling types, because half the population is thinking
and the other half is feeling or in some some
(06:04):
statistics say that there are more feelers than thinkers. But
the fact is we're going to have to deal with
both at one point or another. So this brings me
to a question for you, Mark, do you have thinkers
in your life? Do you work with thinkers or you know,
have thinking friends or family members? And you know, I'm
(06:25):
also thinking about you in your career field and being
a football coach as a thinker, So can you share
a little bit about that and you know how these
thinkers might impact your life?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And in some way you mentioned the fact that there
might be more than half of the population might be feelers.
I don't think I experienced that. It seems like wherever
I go, I'm always dealing with a bunch of thinkers.
And maybe that's maybe they're attracted to me. They say
opposite to tract. I mean, I don't know, but like
seem to attract a lot of thinkers. And this is
(06:57):
very but it's funny that you mentioned that in the
field that I'm in. So I'm a by trade, I'm
a teacher. Well that's a feeling, you know, that's a
feeling profession. I want to be around a lot of feelers.
But in the coaching profession, which I also coach high
school football, but I started coaching college football, it's a
lot of thinkers are involved in that particular profession, and
(07:20):
it can be very difficult because a lot of times
it comes down to making decisions and there are i'd
say thousands of decisions that need to be made during
a football game, and it's really important to figure out,
you know, what type of individual preferences you're dealing with,
because it's going to lead you to either positive decision
or a negative decision. You know. One of the things
that I struggle with a lot is I want everybody
(07:42):
to come. I want to have a win win proposal,
Like I want people to win. I want people to
feel like they're included in conversations, that they feel like
they're things are working out for them. And sometimes I
feel like thinkers don't necessarily have to have that feeling.
They don't necessarily have to feel that everybody won, because
a lot of times their decisions are based on facts
(08:03):
and on data, and if the data says this, then
that's where we need to go. So I'll even talk
a little bit more about this a little bit specifically
about coaching football. So football has become a very analytical profession.
And I know a lot of people will think those
football players like their actual thinkers, thinkers in the modern
way we use thinkers, not thinkers as far as MBTI.
(08:23):
But yeah, there's a lot of analytical data and research
that's being done. So a lot of times you'll see
in your preparation for the game, they will have all
this analytics. You might hear that a lot in sports analytics,
where you know, based on this down and distance, it's
a terminology we use in sports. But basically, in this situation,
(08:44):
the decision is to do this right, and we're just
going to go straight off the data that sort of stuff,
and it doesn't really matter what happens or the results
of it. The data made that decision. And sometimes I
struggle with it because I think a lot of times
sports is a very endeavor and you know, what is
the situation, how do people feel in that situation? I
(09:06):
think that goes into making that decision overall, and so
I feel like a lot of times and businesses and sports,
a lot of these decisions are being made. We want
to make irrational decisions, we want to make things based
off the data. But I just don't think that really
happens a lot. So sometimes I struggle with that, Like
I'm definitely not the person that's putting in the data.
(09:27):
I feel like a lot of times I can make
a good decision based off my knowledge of people and
how decisions are being made during the game. But that's
kind of where we're headed in our sport. And so
I don't know if you've experienced a lot of that
in your profession, but like being able to make decisions,
you know, analytically, data based and your profession compared to
(09:50):
a lot of times making decisions based off of feelings
and if everybody gets a chance to win from that.
Do you experience that on your job often.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Pretty much every day like what you described, though I'm not,
you know, a teacher or in the sports profession, but yeah,
it does kind of feel like we're surrounded by thinkers
and you know something that you just said, Mark, it's
you rely on your ability to to was it read
(10:17):
people or relate to people over the data, So you're
prioritizing your interactions with people, I think over the data.
It was something to that effect, and you know, I'm
thinking about that from a thinking point of view, and
you know they're going to be most thinking types are
going to look at that as inaccurate because it's subjective.
(10:41):
It's not necessarily driven, even though it's you know, one
could argue it's qualitative data over quantitative data, but it
really it speaks to I think, the way that they
come to a decision and how that is different between
a thinking type and a feeling type.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
So when I do group activities with Myers Briggs, one
that I use to explain this TF dichotomy in what
I do is, you know, I separate them into groups.
One group is thinking, one group is feeling, and you
give them a task or a problem to solve. And
one that I really like to do to explain this
difference is give them the task to fire someone. So
(11:23):
imagine that you are a manager this group, your group
is our managers, and you've been told that you need
to let someone go from your team due to budget cuts, right,
and you have whatever number of people, like you have
ten people on your team and you have to let
five of them go. So this is the problem. The
(11:45):
issue is that everybody on your team is an equal performer.
No one's better than anybody else, so all things are equal.
How do you decide who you're going to fire? And
you know, you have each group, one thinking group, one
feeling group coming to solve this problem, and it's fascinating
to watch the decision making process for each group. So
(12:06):
the thinking group. Typically, what happens with the thinking group
is they get right down to business. They're going to
be rational, they're going to be objective. They're ultimately going
to find some very impartial way to solve this problem,
and usually it comes down to something like drawing straws
or something random.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
The feeling group, on the other hand, they're going to
have a lot of trouble, at least initially solving this
problem because it's a very human problem, right, firing somebody,
And you know, you just watch the body language of
these people that they're grimacing and they have these pained
looks on their faces and they're saying a lot of
(12:48):
the time overtly they're saying, Oh, I really don't want
to do this. I don't want to. I don't want
to think about firing somebody. I don't want to hurt
somebody because it the whole thing makes them uncomfortable. But
inev and this is the really interesting part. Both groups
come to the same conclusion. It's just their decision making processes.
(13:08):
Different feelers are going to prioritize people and communications and
harmony and how they deliver that information. That's important because
feelers want to be tactful. Thinkers prioritize logic and consistency
and analyzing. You mentioned that word being analytical. Absolutely, they're
(13:31):
going to look at the pros and the cons and
they're not going to let their own personal wishes or
personal feelings or the wishes and feelings of other people
influence their decisions. They're going to be truthful, but not
always tactful.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
That makes so much sense, you know, when you're talking
about a decision of firing somebody, like I cringe, so like, yeah,
I have to learn some of my face. Like it's
a good way to realize if you are a feeler,
like if you have to put yourself in that position
to fire somebody, do your grimace or are you a
person who's like, well, I mean it's business, right, like
the whole Godfather lie right, It's not personal. It's business
(14:09):
Like I would struggle like being in that situation because
to me, it's all personal. So it's really hard to
separate that. And I think when it comes down to it,
like a lot of times, it help me to understand
the differences is I really feel like thinkers are about
the win, and no matter how we can get to that,
they care about what's the best way to win. And
I think for thinkers it's not just the win. Yes,
(14:32):
we want to win, but it's the win win, Like
how does everybody? That's why I think we struggle with
conflicts so much and just dealing with that. And I
always wanted you to talk a little bit about it,
just a little bit about like how thinkers and feelers
deal with conflict in a way, Like how how are
they different with that? Because I know I hate it.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, yeah, very typical for a feeler. We don't like conflict.
So an easy way to look at this is that
thinkers are going to come at it from a logical,
impersonal point of view, and feelers are going to personalize
things because, like you said, everything is personal to us.
But I also want to stress that there's a lot
(15:12):
of nuances to this too. So for example, if we're
under a lot of stress, we may behave differently than
our natural preferences. So example, for me at work, if
I'm in a stressful situation, I've trained myself to stay
stoic and as much as possible not to take things personally.
(15:35):
But you know, I just look at the cause and
effect of things and I take the personal out of
it as much as I can. But you know, this
is something I've had to train myself to do and thinkers,
you know, and I've seen many thinkers react emotionally when
someone or something pushes their buttons, So it's important to
(15:56):
remember this too. There's always going to be times when
we behave outside of our natural preferences. And as I'm
recalling this topic about you know, arguing and looking at
things in a different situation, I'm recalling this interaction a
couple of years back that I had, and it really
speaks to this thinking and feeling dichotomy. So there was
(16:19):
this guy I know who identified as a thinking type,
and he was in his mid or late thirties at
the time, and this guy was involved with a gaming group,
and this group met in person a few times a
week to do their thing. Well, there were some interpersonal
dynamics going on in the gaming group with some of
(16:39):
the group members, particularly a couple of women who were
in the group, and they just did not like this
guy for whatever reason. And he was having a really
tough time because he wanted to continue participating in this
group that he loved, but he wasn't connecting with these
women and some of the other group members, and in fact,
(17:00):
he was having arguments with these women and about how
they were playing the game, and it was getting to
the point that he thought he might have to leave
the group. But he didn't think that he should leave
the group because he firmly believed that these other women
were wrong and he was right. So he shared something
(17:21):
with me that he did that could be considered offensive.
So I remember that. I just don't remember what it
was because it was it was so long ago, but
I do remember having a pretty visceral reaction to it,
and I was thinking that, wow, if he did this
to me like I would be offended, so I could
understand why these other women were offended. And I think
(17:45):
we had this conversation and there was a misunderstanding of
his intentions. And I think we talked about that and
how he might have been coming across because he's not
a bad guy, he was just kind of clueless in
terms of certain specs of his behavior. Right. So what
was really interesting, though, was that I explained to this
(18:06):
guy how his behavior may have been interpreted and why
these women might have taken issue with him, and he
was tuning into me. He was listening to me, but
I could tell he didn't really believe me, and partly, okay,
it might have been just a hot button issue for him,
and he was like digging his heels in. But finally
I said, have you ever thought about apologizing for your behavior?
(18:33):
And I explain like that for some people, just hearing
the words i'm sorry can diffuse things and it can
calm them down, right, And so anyway, I made this
suggestion and he said I can't. And I'm like, what,
I'm thinking to myself, what And he said I can't apologize.
(18:58):
It just kind of stopped me in my tracks because
in my mind, I'm thinking, what's the big deal. Anybody
can apologize, and sometimes it's what's needed to get through things.
And at least maybe part of you might realize that
I intentionally, unintentionally offended somebody, so let me apologize for that. Right,
(19:19):
But in his mind he was saying, I can't apologize
for something I didn't do, like literally, I cannot apologize
for that and so, and it took me a really
long time to understand what he meant. And I think
it really speaks to this thinking feeling dichotomy here, because
you know, thinking types, just like anybody else, are perfectly
(19:41):
capable of apologizing, right, They're going to be less likely
to apologize just to smooth things over, right, And that's
where a feeling type they might be more apt to
want to apologize to just smooth things. So I think
(20:02):
that can be a difference between how these two types
handle conflict.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Right, I totally understand what you're saying. It if about
the thinking and feeling dynamic, and I think I see
it every day, like you see these interactions every day
when it comes to making decisions. You have individuals who
are seeking harmony, who want to see things work out,
don't want to see the conflict, are a little bit
into the emotions. They're very cognizant of other people in
(20:31):
a group, right, Like, sometimes you're in a group and
you're very cognizant about how people feel in a group,
and are they able to get do they want to
get things contributed to the group, and you're realizing that
maybe they're not, and you want to kind of get
them to do that or get the leader to point
those individuals out. I think that stuff's really really important
to be able to have. And you have thinkers who
(20:51):
maybe necessarily don't want to get into everybody's feelings and
don't want things to be subjective, And so how do
we get to making decisions, how we get to interacting
with each other? And I think one of the stories
that I always come up with is when I was
a head football coach. As a head football coach, I
struggled with some of the task of being a head
football coach. Now as a position coach, I loved it.
(21:14):
My job was to get that player to reach their potential,
and I was going to do it like I was
going to find ways, I was going to research, I
was going to do all these things that were needed
to help that player reach their potential because I feel
like it's so important for an individual to feel like
they can but what if they can't like, what if
they can't get to that level? It's hard for me
(21:37):
to move on from a guy. And I remember one
time my head football coach, I'm an assistant position coach,
is an individual that's coaching an individual position. The head
football coach would oftentimes come up to me and say, hey, Mark,
we got to move on. You know, we got to
move on from Joey or Bob or you know, Sarah.
We got to move on because they're just not going
(21:59):
to get there. And I struggled with that. Well, when
I'm now in a role as a head football coach,
it's my decision to come up with and say, hey, like,
we have to move on from that that I struggle with.
You know, I've set a standard that I feel like
is important for our team to succeed. But what happens
when you know, meeting that standard or something's going on
(22:21):
at home with that individual and they don't reach that standard?
Do I lower the standard? And so those were some
of the conversations I would have with my coaching colleagues
that were thinkers, and they refuse, which I totally agree
with them. They refuse to lower the standard. And at
times if a kid just didn't reach that standard, Well,
(22:42):
then a consequence was needed. I needed that. I needed
them to help me, like I needed that reminder. I
need them to remind me of that, right, And so
like it's it's a level where I don't naturally give
up on a kid, not saying that you ever give
up on kids, right, but there's sometimes where a kid's
not to the standard and we have to move on, Right,
(23:03):
we have to move on from that situation or we
need to figure out ways to you know, love them
up more, find other reasons, but moving on to you know,
practice too, we have to move on with different individuals.
That's something that I had to learn from that. But
I think also I was also able to help my
(23:23):
coaches understand in order for your players to reach their potential,
you can't be impersonal. You can't be just totally objective,
like you have to understand the individual to reach them
so they can reach their potential. So, although we're not
removing the standard thinkers, you need to be less impersonal
and more personal, you know, less objective and more subjective,
(23:46):
build less into the data and building relationships to get
that individual to give more. Right. And then from my standpoint,
I had to realize that, Look, sometimes the standard is
the standard, then you have to rely on that in
order to get us to where we need to go.
So I think we learn from each other basically by
having two different individual prefaces in individual groups.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, and I like how you said that that we
really do need each other, like we need feelers, need
the thinkers to kind of maintain a standard and really
for the best of the group. Right, You're not trying
to single out one person at the expense of the
rest of the people. And thinkers need feelers because they
(24:30):
need to be reminded about the humanity of an individual
person a lot of the time, right, and a lot
of our work environment. Sometimes the world in general, I
feel like it it seems like it favors thinking types
because thinking may look like competency, and our world tends
(24:51):
to favor logical decisions and truth and honesty and justice
unfortunately are sometimes sometimes I think our world tends to
devalue emotion. So if we're considered nice or polite or
empathetic in a lot of places, these aren't always either
(25:13):
considered positive traits or they're minimized. And I don't know
about you, Mark but I've often felt like I'm overlooked
or dismissed because of these things, because I show up
with these traits, and you know, a lot of this
it goes beyond what the Meyers Briggs measures here because
we're humans, and as humans, we're emotional beings. All of us,
(25:36):
even the thinking types out there, are still emotional beings.
And I'm an emotional intelligence practitioner as well, and I
know from my work in this area that if we
don't find a way to control our emotions, they will
control us. So I've found ways to navigate being a
feeler in the workplace, and that's to use my natural
(25:59):
power of empathy to build a supportive team. And I
regularly ask my team for feedback and I do whatever
I can to support them. And I watch how they
function at work, How do they deal with stress, what
situations are stressful for them, Try to understand their personality preferences,
things they like to do, things they don't like to do,
(26:21):
How do they handle deadlines and things like that, so
I can notice if they're struggling. And I communicate regularly
with people, so if I see a problem, I'll say
something diplomatically. I have one lady on my team who's
a thinker, and if there's a problem, I tell her
straight away, I don't beat around the bush, and that works.
(26:44):
I have several feelers on my team and I generally
use this sandwich approach with them. So I give my
negative feedback sandwiched between two pieces of positive feedback.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Mark that's part.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, Yeah, it can be. And yesterday I had a
great day yesterday because one of my direct reports told
me that I'm the best manager he's ever had, So
I think I'm doing something right. But you know, this
is where we feeling types can really thrive by showcasing
our emotional intelligence and building and fostering relationships and collaboration
(27:25):
and even conflict resolution and trust and psychological safety, and
these are all kind of hot topics in today's world.
And yeah, I think the world is moving more in
this direction, to moving away from a completely data driven,
(27:45):
impersonal world to more of a world that values these
types of things. But I do think there's more to
it than just looking at it from a thinking and
feeling perspective. Per se.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Absolutely, some of the things that you know, as you
were speaking to get points to a lot of the
things that we mentioned in our first episode that can
really help you once you know about Meyer's breaks is like,
in any environment, bring your strengths, right, Like, bring who
you are and your gifts to that field, because that's
going to help bring value to where you need to go.
(28:19):
So it doesn't mean that when you're in a thinking environment,
you're no longer empathic, right, You're no longer going to
now care about individual's decision when it comes to or
individual's emotions when it comes to decisions. No, like, still
bring who you are into those fields and continue to
try to bring as many of those gifts into those
(28:40):
into those areas and bring in a way to bring
value to that job. And another thing that you also
mentioned too, editor I thunk was was was genius is
understand who you're dealing with, Like, understand the different types
that you're deal with, personality types that you're dealing with
in your job. So if you're dealing with somebody who's
a thinker, they probably don't want you to be around Bush,
(29:00):
they probably don't want to meet, right, But if you're
dealing with somebody who is a feeler, they probably do
want to discuss how that meeting went and their opinions
and their feelings and their emotions. So again, being able
to be an individual understands mayers, briggs. Don't be afraid
to be yourself throughout the day, regardless of what that
personality type, because those are your strengths, right and two,
(29:22):
be able to understand who you're interacting with and give
them what they need and those sorts of things. So
I think that's really really important. You know. One of
the things I was doing, I was trying to do
my research about thinking and feeling and that sort of stuff,
right is, And I don't want to get into any stereotypes,
but are there more females that are feelers and more
(29:43):
males that are thinkers out there just in general? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, this is well documented. There are more women who
are feelers, and statistics on personality type report that it's
you know, the most recent I read it was like
up to seventy five percent of women, But I I've
seen other statistics at more like sixty percent. So it's
sixty to seventy five percent of women are feelers, let's
(30:08):
just say that. And then we have forty forty three
percent of men are feelers, So yeah, it could be
that not all men are from Mars and not all
women are from Venus. But you know this, this brings
up the point of being a feeling man in a
world where most men are thinkers and you being in
(30:32):
the sports world, because you've talked about that pretty extensively
this time, and how that plays out for you being
a feeling man.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Uh yeah, yeah, as you have said, like, I'm a feeler,
that's who I am, and I am in a dominated
thinking profession in sports and more specifically in football. I
think one of the things that I try to do
is one of the things that you talked about in
your job and your corporate profession is I try to
bring who I am to that. One of the things
(31:00):
that feelers tend to be is very value based, very
value oriented, and there's certain things that we value and
we stick by those values, and I think what we
do is we end up gaining respect from that. So
one of my main values that I think comes from
my feeling preference is helping people reach their potential. Like
(31:22):
that's who I am, and doesn't matter who you are.
I'm not just going to the most talented person and
trying to help them reach their potential. I'm trying to
help everybody reach their potential, regardless of what they we
deem they can offer our football team. And I think
what people begin to see as I begin to coach
that way might be coaching a little bit different than
(31:42):
they are. They begin to respect you for that, They
begin to respect how I'm always there for every kid,
not just some kids. How I'm always trying to create
ways for people to succeed win win over just getting
the win. A lot of times, you know, we will
celebrate win. What I care about is that, guys, and
you see how Johnny played today. He didn't play perfect,
(32:06):
but he played better than he did last week. That's
a win for me. Is this not the bottom line
for me that I care about it? It's about how
each individual is progressing so a large time. A lot
of times when we look with people with feeling temperaments, right,
we see an idea that a lot of times people
can look at them as like soft because it's emotional
(32:27):
and that sort of stuff. But when it comes to
their values, they're very strong and can be very almost
appear to be very objective. So now they're very objective
with their values when they used to be subjective, when
it comes to the things that they value. They are
not very very objective and kind of look like a thinker.
(32:48):
So that's kind of where I feel I am, and
I'm not afraid to be myself knowing that I'm going
to be respected for that, and people might ask can
you help me do that or work with me on
that process. So that's kind of how I deal with being,
I guess an individual from maybe Jupiter and not necessarily
(33:10):
in general.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, I know, right, And it's speaking to what you
were saying there. It's feeling types can still you know,
they can dig their deals in too. And if we're
very passionate about something, yeah, I think that's that's well
said that we can come across. We can come across
as thinking types like no, don't violate my values. If
(33:31):
it's something that's very important to me and value centered,
we can draw a hard line there. And that's where
there can be some I think misconceptions about feeling types.
People might think, you know, if you're a feeler, that
you're just nice and warm and kind and you want
everybody to be happy and all that kind of stuff,
(33:53):
which is partially true. But if you wrong a feeler,
if you step on their values, or if you do
something that really pisses them off or makes them upset,
You've got to watch out because feelers can be the
most vengeful people ever. Feelers can make people suffer if
(34:16):
we want them to. If we feel wronged, we want
you to feel our pain.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
I mean, I understand that. I'm a coach, so I
understand that there has to be different ways in which
you have to interact with people to get the best
out of them. That's kind of what I was talking
about originally. But to do that, you have to understand
people their personalities and you have to have like what
I call it tool belt of strategies that will help
you coach them up lead them. You know, I'm a
(34:45):
feeler type, so I understand the Sangwich technique that you
talked about earlier, edif and that sort of stuff. And
depending on each kid, like you may have to double
up the bread on that. It may not be just
one positive one, you know, and then the criticism and
then an they're positive, you might have to double up
the bread on that. And in business you hear a
lot about this, saying which technique that you talked about?
(35:07):
Some use a three to one positive the negative ratio.
For every negative comment you make, you have to provide
three positive comments. But here's the thing. These strategies aren't
one size fits all. You have to understand people, really
get to know them, and then you will know what
strategy to use. So one of my players might need
the three to one, they might need the stranuage the
(35:29):
sang which approach right, But another player might just need
the information to get better. They're different people, they're unique individuals.
I can't treat everybody the same. I have to understand
them and then know what particular strategy in order to
be able to use for them. And I really think
that the MBTI really helps you figure that out.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. You know, last week
I was going through some slides for this presentation I
was giving, and I was just talking things through with
a bunch of people at work, and I got some
unsolicited advice, quite a lot of unsolicited advice. Now, normally
I like to hear other people's opinions because I know
(36:09):
that I miss things. I appreciate the perspectives that somebody
else might have. But this time, the advice that I
was getting last week, it wasn't it wasn't that it
was only unsolicited, but it was framed in kind of
at least this is how I felt. It was framed
in kind of like a your wrong way. And the perpetrators,
(36:30):
and I will call them perpetrators, they didn't have context
into this subject. So I wasn't really sure why they
were telling me these things. But you know, I kept
my mouth shut, as I've trained myself to do. Keep
your mouth shut, just listen, try to be open minded.
And the tone, for some reason, it was just getting
(36:50):
more and more critical, and it was hard not to
take it personally because you know, I worked hard on
that presentation and I know what I'm talking about, but
everything was pointing to the faults of it and nothing
was pointing to the good stuff. So in my head,
I'm asking myself, well, was there anything that you liked
(37:11):
about my presentation? Was there anything good here?
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know?
Speaker 1 (37:15):
So I'm going to say to our thinking friends who
are tuning in here, remember that it's not what you say,
but it's how you say it. So be careful of
how you're expressing. Whatever you're expressing, think about your body language,
think about your tone of voice, and don't forget to
give praise. So tell somebody what they did well and
(37:38):
what you like about their work, because I think in
today's world we can all use a little bit more
of that. When we feelers get criticized, it's painful. So
even if the criticism is meant to be constructive and
to help us, so it would be it would be helpful,
I think, to say something positive in addition to offering
(38:01):
the criticism, which is kind of getting back to that
sandwich approach there.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, it's again it's understanding your people, right. It's understanding
your people. It's understanding what they need.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
It.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
It's something that we've always talked about. It is about
the platinum rule, giving people what they need, not not
what I need, right, And I think it's very important.
And I think one of the things for a lot
of people who feel like they might be a fish
out of water, right, Like individuals who feel like this
is I just don't feel comfortable in my environment. I
don't feel a lot of times. It's because it's a
(38:34):
lot of times it's personality mismatches, right. And for those
individuals who have that fish out of water feeling, I
wouldn't look at it as a fish out of water.
But I would look at it as you're a different
fish in a different water, right, and I'm still and
you're gonna still try to make that water or that
work work for you, Right, So I'm going to find
(38:55):
a way try to figure out if you can find
a current that allows you to swim effectively. So that's
something that's really really important. Get out of the feeling
of like I'm different, like I feel like people don't
like me, or a lot of times it's just a
personality mismatch. Instead try to figure out is there a
current within that stream that allows you to swim effectively
(39:19):
and to do the things that you need to do.
Can you get into that environment, can you do the
things that naturally fits you, so that way you don't
have to expend as much energy to swim, and then
you can get further along, right, that sort of stuff.
So being able to do that, and although it's great
to be in that environment that works, really really good
for you. You can be effective in any environment that's there.
(39:42):
And I think that's really really important to help people
function in their day Because one of my things is
always like know thyself and put thyself in the best environment.
But what happens if I'm not right. And some of
the things that Edith and I are been talking about
today is is that's not the end of you just
figure out the right stream to feel and then to
and get to that spot. Be a different You're a
(40:03):
different fish in a different water. Find the stream that
effectively works for you.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah. Yeah, great analogy there with the current and the stream,
because I mean, ideally, let's say we'd all like to
be in that current that best suits our natural swimming style, right,
but it's it doesn't always work out that way, and
we're at some point we're going to be in environments
or with people that are contrary to our natural type.
(40:32):
And I want to remind our listeners that if you
if you're like me and you're an E NFP type
and you're in the corporate world and you are surrounded
by ESTJ and ISTJ types, nothing wrong not saying there's
anything wrong with E STJ and ISTJ types. Got to
love my my ESTJ and ISTJ peaks. Yeah, but you know,
(40:52):
it's it can be exhausting being around people who are
very different from us day after day, and you feel
like then and you have to you feel like you're
swimming upstream constantly because your natural gifts are not always
recognized or honored. But I want to remind folks tuning
in here that these environments sometimes they are the best
(41:16):
opportunities for growth. Yeah, and I really like what you
said earlier Mark that you know this gives you an
opportunity to enhance something else inside yourself, to flex to
the other areas that don't come quite so naturally. And
when you do that, like, hey, you can work in
(41:36):
just about any environment.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, that's absolutely And I think that's the whole Again,
it goes back to our win win So we're all
leaning on our personality times, both Edith and I are like,
let's go back to the win win right, Like, how
can we all win even if you're not in the
right environment? How can we all win? How can you win?
How can we get to a win win right? One
(41:59):
of the things that and a lot of times leaning
on my intuitive preference. A lot of times my advice
can be very general and very pigh in the sky
and just like, hey, look, just find the right stream, right,
and you couldn't be in good shape. And probably a
lot of our sensors are like, what does that exactly
mean like, I need specific information and specific tasks and
(42:24):
things that I can do in order to be successful.
So it can you please give us some information about it. If
you're a feeler and you're working in an environment a
thinking environment, or if you're a thinker and you're working
in a feeling environment, what's some advice that you can
give those those individuals.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, yeah, So my advice to all of our feeling
friends tuning in. First of all, know that there's nothing
wrong with you. You are still a unique person with
great qualities, and just because you're a feeler doesn't make
you any less than we all have our own superpowers.
And for feelers, it's often the ability to collect, elaborate,
(43:00):
to have empathy, to tune in to other people, to harmonize,
to help people, and to make this world a better place.
I love the win when mark We want to have
a positive impact on other people. And these are all
great qualities that we can bring whatever career choice or
(43:22):
whatever workplace or relationships that we're in now to navigate
the world of thinkers. First, you want to understand thinkers
have the ability to feel, just like we have the
ability to think. They can adjust themselves just like we can.
Different situations are going to call for different emotions. There
(43:44):
are times when we need to demonstrate empathy. There's other
times when we need to be assertive and express our
opinions bluntly so that other people will tune into us.
And all of us have the ability to do this.
So Secondly, when you are in the heat of the moment,
(44:05):
I'm gonna ask you, I'm going to plead with you
to please think before you reply out of emotion. When
we are stressed out, sometimes our emotions can get the
best of us and we're going to be more likely
to say things that we might later regret, or say
things we didn't really mean, or do things that we
wish we hadn't. So be careful of this tendency. If
(44:30):
someone hurts us or offends us, we may want to
lash out there in the moment, So just be careful,
especially in the professional world and online, because this behavior
can come back to bite you. And third, this is
easier said than done, but practice not taking things personally.
(44:51):
The thinker who did you wrong probably isn't giving this
situation a second thought. He or she is not dwell
on it. So why are you just get up, brush
yourself off, and move on.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
That's excellent advice. What about our what about our thinking types, Like,
what's some advice for them? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, yeah, so thinking types, I would say that any type,
just try to keep in mind that even constructive criticism
can sting, and it can make a feeler unproductive. Feeling
types are energized through appreciation and encouragement, so just keep
(45:36):
that in mind. So any type of criticism, you know,
you just try to want to balance that out as
much as you can. And then also remember that whatever
problem it is that you're trying to solve, for feeling types,
the problem is always secondary to the people who are involved. Yeah, so,
(45:56):
so remember that we want to make things better too.
We want to solve the problem, but we are also
going to look at the impact of whatever solution it
is you're proposing and how that will affect people. So
the last thing I want to say to our thinking
friends who are tuning in. You may struggle with empathy,
and you may be trying to convince us of something
(46:20):
using logic or some type of scientific approach or a
cost benefit analysis or whatever analytical tool you have. Understand
that feelers want to be tactful and they're going to
do whatever we can to establish and maintain harmony. And
that's very important to us. So if you're trying to
(46:44):
convince us of something, I would say, think about approaching
it from an empathic point of view and think about
how it will affect the people involved.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
No doubt. You know one thing you were mentioning there,
AM was at the snicker what I've think, think the thinker,
the thinking win win, like how feelers use win win
is cost benefit analysis? Like I hate that phrase, but
it's exactly what we need. But I think thinkers use
cost benefit analysis and everything that they do, but like
it's I use when when they use cost benefit analysis.
(47:17):
You know, one of the things that you know we
need to do is feelers too, right, we need to
be cognizant of thinkers and feeling occupations. That's what we
should be doing, Like we're feeling, so we should be
looking and trying to feel like how our thinkers are
doing in those type of situations. You know, you know,
when I'm in a meeting in school, there's always like
one or two thinkers with a bunch of feelers. I'm
(47:39):
so laser focused on our thinkers and how they are feeling,
because I'm always trying to steer the meeting back to
the point, because I know sometimes we can veer off
with just all the different thoughts that our feelers are using,
so sometimes we can kind of get stared off of
the meeting. And I'm always just kind of telling people, like,
you know, if you have a personal comment, you could
probably mention that after the meeting, just to help our
(48:02):
thinkers as they kind of come down to And you know,
one of the strategies that I have my brother use,
and I think it's excellent. When he's like facilitating meetings
and that sort of stuff, he's so great at reading
the room and so when he feels like sometimes there's
you know, thinkers that need to move on. You see
this classically in the Zoom meeting. You can see that
there's people engaged in the meeting, and you see there's
(48:23):
individuals on their phones moving on. One of the things
that he'll always say is, you know, there's a feeler
really expressing certain things, and as they're getting towards the end,
he'll say, you know, let's put a pin in that
and come back to that later. And what I really
love about that strategy is it doesn't offend the feeler
or the feeling types or the next feeler who wanted
to talk about their feelings, right, because there's an idea
(48:46):
that we're going to come back and I get to
discuss my feelings later. But what it does for the
thinker makes them jump for joy, and so I love
the whole you know, let's put a pin in that
and come back to that later, so that way we
can keep the meeting focused. But it also gives our
feelers the idea that you know, we can still discuss
this at the end if we have time. Something is
just a really good tool for your toolbox.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah, I like to put a pin in it too,
because yeah, there's it's non offensive to everybody. It also,
you know, it gets into some of the other dichotomies too,
the the J and the P and the the S
and the and the end too, because yeah, especially I'm
thinking J and P because certain people you know will
naturally go off on tangents and other people, you know,
(49:29):
they want to stay laser focused and they're just looking
to get out of this meeting and finish and finish
things up. And yeah, but to bring it back to
the thinking and feeling. For the feelers who are tuning in,
especially in the professional world, I would say take the
emotion out of it as much as you can. Don't
over focus on your own feelings or anybody else's feelings
(49:53):
for that matter too.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
So with that, I think we're going to start to
close out here. But what a great discussion, Mark, And
this is the dichotomy here that I personally feel can
be the most contentious of the four dichotomies of the
Myers Briggs and you know, as we were talking about,
can cause all sorts of communication mishaps. And you know,
like we said here that the more we know ourselves,
(50:21):
that's the first step in better responding to the people
and the situations around you so that we can all
work on being more productive. So thank you very much
for tuning in. Thanks to you Mark for all of
your insight into this.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Absolutely I love it. Thanks Claudie, thank you, thank you audience.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
All right, take care, folks, Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Follow us on social media and your favorite podcast.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Platform, and please reach out to me on LinkedIn and
on my website at top career dot com for more
updated content. While the Myers Briggs and MBTIR trademarks of
the Meersbriggs Foundation, viewpoints expressed here are our own
Hey, folks, in our never ending quest to Understand personality,
we are tackling a really important issue in today's episode,
and it relates to the Meyers Briggs dichotomy of thinking
and feeling. Let me be the first to tell you
that whatever personality type you have, you're normal and there's
nothing wrong with you. And I think this conversation really
(00:24):
speaks to the fact, and it's a great point that
Mark and I both try to get across in our podcasts.
You have your own unique gifts. Sometimes we all just
miscommunicate and we say things that we wish we didn't,
and conflict happens. So we're here to help you through
all of that. If you are a thinking type, feelers
(00:47):
may mystify you for a number of reasons. They may
frustrate and annoy you because of all of their feelings.
And if you're a feeling type, like both Mark and
I are, you may feel like you are minimized or
just told to get over it. It's not personal one
of my favorites, and those things may annoy and frustrate
(01:10):
you too. So if any of this sounds familiar, you
are definitely going to want to tune into this episode
where we break down this dichotomy and give you some
pointers on interacting with both thinkers and feelers.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Enjoy.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Welcome to the new Myers Briggs Question Corner. I'm Edith
Richards and I'm Mark Mappy, and we're here to answer
your questions about all things personality and all things Myers breaks.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
From college to careers to relationships. Personality is the key
to finding the right fit.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Hello everybody, and welcome to another exciting episode of Meyers
Briggs Question Corner. Last time, we talked about both my
type and Marx type. I am an E NFP type
and Mark is an I NFP type. We also talked
about which work environments frustrate us and make us feel good.
(02:36):
We touched briefly on the dichotomy of introversion and extraversion,
also intuitive and sensing, some on perceiving and judging. We
didn't really get into the thinking and feeling dichotomy quite
so much. So, this dichotomy is very interesting, and I
thought we'd delve into that a bit more.
Speaker 3 (02:58):
So.
Speaker 1 (02:59):
What do you think about that?
Speaker 3 (03:01):
Absolutely, I feel this dichotomy is so important because it
really centers around how we make decisions. I think our
audience will greatly benefit from this, and also kind of
the terminology of thinking and feeling can be kind of confusing.
You know, being a thinker doesn't mean you're like Plato
or Aristotle right, and don't have feelings, and feeling doesn't
(03:22):
mean that you can't think. I think sometimes people get
really confused about the terminology. So I think this diconomy
needs some further exploration, don't you think at it?
Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, definitely, definitely, And I like how you said that
it just because you're a thinker doesn't mean you don't feel,
and just because you're a feeling type doesn't mean you
don't think. So let me first start by explaining what
this really means. And quick reminder to all of our listeners.
All of us fall on a continuum. We all do
(03:52):
both thinking and feeling things, but there's one that comes
more easily and more naturally to you than the other.
And that's what we mean by preference. So, folks tuning in,
if you have a preference for thinking, you probably rely
on objectivity when you make decisions. You evaluate situations and
(04:13):
people based on logic and facts and data. You are
likely to confront situations directly and conflict probably isn't such
a scary thing for you. You are ruled by your head,
not your heart. You value truthfulness over tactfulness. Now, this
(04:36):
doesn't mean that you don't have feelings or emotions. It
just means that you prioritize objective judgment and logic over
empathy and the personal impact on people. Now, if you
are a feeling type, and again this is both you
and me, mark, you value harmony over logic. And we
(04:58):
feeling types make decisions for a values based perspective. We
naturally consider the impact of our decisions on other people.
We tend to be warm and compassionate. We tend to
be relationship focused. We may be peacemakers because we are
more conflict avoidant than thinking types, and that word conflict.
(05:21):
We don't like conflict. We might sweep things under the rug. Now,
I think it's common to say that thinkers are critical
while feelers are emotional. But again it's important to say
that we can both be equally critical or emotional, and
it comes down to which we prioritize when we make decisions,
(05:42):
truth or tact That's an easy way of looking at it.
So with this dichotomy, it's easy to see where we
can have some miscommunications, and the fact is that we
have to all of us. We have to deal with
thinking and feeling types, because half the population is thinking
and the other half is feeling or in some some
(06:04):
statistics say that there are more feelers than thinkers. But
the fact is we're going to have to deal with
both at one point or another. So this brings me
to a question for you, Mark, do you have thinkers
in your life? Do you work with thinkers or you know,
have thinking friends or family members? And you know, I'm
(06:25):
also thinking about you in your career field and being
a football coach as a thinker, So can you share
a little bit about that and you know how these
thinkers might impact your life?
Speaker 3 (06:37):
And in some way you mentioned the fact that there
might be more than half of the population might be feelers.
I don't think I experienced that. It seems like wherever
I go, I'm always dealing with a bunch of thinkers.
And maybe that's maybe they're attracted to me. They say
opposite to tract. I mean, I don't know, but like
seem to attract a lot of thinkers. And this is
(06:57):
very but it's funny that you mentioned that in the
field that I'm in. So I'm a by trade, I'm
a teacher. Well that's a feeling, you know, that's a
feeling profession. I want to be around a lot of feelers.
But in the coaching profession, which I also coach high
school football, but I started coaching college football, it's a
lot of thinkers are involved in that particular profession, and
(07:20):
it can be very difficult because a lot of times
it comes down to making decisions and there are i'd
say thousands of decisions that need to be made during
a football game, and it's really important to figure out,
you know, what type of individual preferences you're dealing with,
because it's going to lead you to either positive decision
or a negative decision. You know. One of the things
that I struggle with a lot is I want everybody
(07:42):
to come. I want to have a win win proposal,
Like I want people to win. I want people to
feel like they're included in conversations, that they feel like
they're things are working out for them. And sometimes I
feel like thinkers don't necessarily have to have that feeling.
They don't necessarily have to feel that everybody won, because
a lot of times their decisions are based on facts
(08:03):
and on data, and if the data says this, then
that's where we need to go. So I'll even talk
a little bit more about this a little bit specifically
about coaching football. So football has become a very analytical profession.
And I know a lot of people will think those
football players like their actual thinkers, thinkers in the modern
way we use thinkers, not thinkers as far as MBTI.
(08:23):
But yeah, there's a lot of analytical data and research
that's being done. So a lot of times you'll see
in your preparation for the game, they will have all
this analytics. You might hear that a lot in sports analytics,
where you know, based on this down and distance, it's
a terminology we use in sports. But basically, in this situation,
(08:44):
the decision is to do this right, and we're just
going to go straight off the data that sort of stuff,
and it doesn't really matter what happens or the results
of it. The data made that decision. And sometimes I
struggle with it because I think a lot of times
sports is a very endeavor and you know, what is
the situation, how do people feel in that situation? I
(09:06):
think that goes into making that decision overall, and so
I feel like a lot of times and businesses and sports,
a lot of these decisions are being made. We want
to make irrational decisions, we want to make things based
off the data. But I just don't think that really
happens a lot. So sometimes I struggle with that, Like
I'm definitely not the person that's putting in the data.
(09:27):
I feel like a lot of times I can make
a good decision based off my knowledge of people and
how decisions are being made during the game. But that's
kind of where we're headed in our sport. And so
I don't know if you've experienced a lot of that
in your profession, but like being able to make decisions,
you know, analytically, data based and your profession compared to
(09:50):
a lot of times making decisions based off of feelings
and if everybody gets a chance to win from that.
Do you experience that on your job often.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Pretty much every day like what you described, though I'm not,
you know, a teacher or in the sports profession, but yeah,
it does kind of feel like we're surrounded by thinkers
and you know something that you just said, Mark, it's
you rely on your ability to to was it read
(10:17):
people or relate to people over the data, So you're
prioritizing your interactions with people, I think over the data.
It was something to that effect, and you know, I'm
thinking about that from a thinking point of view, and
you know they're going to be most thinking types are
going to look at that as inaccurate because it's subjective.
(10:41):
It's not necessarily driven, even though it's you know, one
could argue it's qualitative data over quantitative data, but it
really it speaks to I think, the way that they
come to a decision and how that is different between
a thinking type and a feeling type.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Right.
Speaker 1 (10:59):
So when I do group activities with Myers Briggs, one
that I use to explain this TF dichotomy in what
I do is, you know, I separate them into groups.
One group is thinking, one group is feeling, and you
give them a task or a problem to solve. And
one that I really like to do to explain this
difference is give them the task to fire someone. So
(11:23):
imagine that you are a manager this group, your group
is our managers, and you've been told that you need
to let someone go from your team due to budget cuts, right,
and you have whatever number of people, like you have
ten people on your team and you have to let
five of them go. So this is the problem. The
(11:45):
issue is that everybody on your team is an equal performer.
No one's better than anybody else, so all things are equal.
How do you decide who you're going to fire? And
you know, you have each group, one thinking group, one
feeling group coming to solve this problem, and it's fascinating
to watch the decision making process for each group. So
(12:06):
the thinking group. Typically, what happens with the thinking group
is they get right down to business. They're going to
be rational, they're going to be objective. They're ultimately going
to find some very impartial way to solve this problem,
and usually it comes down to something like drawing straws
or something random.
Speaker 3 (12:26):
Right.
Speaker 1 (12:27):
The feeling group, on the other hand, they're going to
have a lot of trouble, at least initially solving this
problem because it's a very human problem, right, firing somebody,
And you know, you just watch the body language of
these people that they're grimacing and they have these pained
looks on their faces and they're saying a lot of
(12:48):
the time overtly they're saying, Oh, I really don't want
to do this. I don't want to. I don't want
to think about firing somebody. I don't want to hurt
somebody because it the whole thing makes them uncomfortable. But
inev and this is the really interesting part. Both groups
come to the same conclusion. It's just their decision making processes.
(13:08):
Different feelers are going to prioritize people and communications and
harmony and how they deliver that information. That's important because
feelers want to be tactful. Thinkers prioritize logic and consistency
and analyzing. You mentioned that word being analytical. Absolutely, they're
(13:31):
going to look at the pros and the cons and
they're not going to let their own personal wishes or
personal feelings or the wishes and feelings of other people
influence their decisions. They're going to be truthful, but not
always tactful.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
That makes so much sense, you know, when you're talking
about a decision of firing somebody, like I cringe, so like, yeah,
I have to learn some of my face. Like it's
a good way to realize if you are a feeler,
like if you have to put yourself in that position
to fire somebody, do your grimace or are you a
person who's like, well, I mean it's business, right, like
the whole Godfather lie right, It's not personal. It's business
(14:09):
Like I would struggle like being in that situation because
to me, it's all personal. So it's really hard to
separate that. And I think when it comes down to it,
like a lot of times, it help me to understand
the differences is I really feel like thinkers are about
the win, and no matter how we can get to that,
they care about what's the best way to win. And
I think for thinkers it's not just the win. Yes,
(14:32):
we want to win, but it's the win win, Like
how does everybody? That's why I think we struggle with
conflicts so much and just dealing with that. And I
always wanted you to talk a little bit about it,
just a little bit about like how thinkers and feelers
deal with conflict in a way, Like how how are
they different with that? Because I know I hate it.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
Yeah, yeah, very typical for a feeler. We don't like conflict.
So an easy way to look at this is that
thinkers are going to come at it from a logical,
impersonal point of view, and feelers are going to personalize
things because, like you said, everything is personal to us.
But I also want to stress that there's a lot
(15:12):
of nuances to this too. So for example, if we're
under a lot of stress, we may behave differently than
our natural preferences. So example, for me at work, if
I'm in a stressful situation, I've trained myself to stay
stoic and as much as possible not to take things personally.
(15:35):
But you know, I just look at the cause and
effect of things and I take the personal out of
it as much as I can. But you know, this
is something I've had to train myself to do and thinkers,
you know, and I've seen many thinkers react emotionally when
someone or something pushes their buttons, So it's important to
(15:56):
remember this too. There's always going to be times when
we behave outside of our natural preferences. And as I'm
recalling this topic about you know, arguing and looking at
things in a different situation, I'm recalling this interaction a
couple of years back that I had, and it really
speaks to this thinking and feeling dichotomy. So there was
(16:19):
this guy I know who identified as a thinking type,
and he was in his mid or late thirties at
the time, and this guy was involved with a gaming group,
and this group met in person a few times a
week to do their thing. Well, there were some interpersonal
dynamics going on in the gaming group with some of
(16:39):
the group members, particularly a couple of women who were
in the group, and they just did not like this
guy for whatever reason. And he was having a really
tough time because he wanted to continue participating in this
group that he loved, but he wasn't connecting with these
women and some of the other group members, and in fact,
(17:00):
he was having arguments with these women and about how
they were playing the game, and it was getting to
the point that he thought he might have to leave
the group. But he didn't think that he should leave
the group because he firmly believed that these other women
were wrong and he was right. So he shared something
(17:21):
with me that he did that could be considered offensive.
So I remember that. I just don't remember what it
was because it was it was so long ago, but
I do remember having a pretty visceral reaction to it,
and I was thinking that, wow, if he did this
to me like I would be offended, so I could
understand why these other women were offended. And I think
(17:45):
we had this conversation and there was a misunderstanding of
his intentions. And I think we talked about that and
how he might have been coming across because he's not
a bad guy, he was just kind of clueless in
terms of certain specs of his behavior. Right. So what
was really interesting, though, was that I explained to this
(18:06):
guy how his behavior may have been interpreted and why
these women might have taken issue with him, and he
was tuning into me. He was listening to me, but
I could tell he didn't really believe me, and partly, okay,
it might have been just a hot button issue for him,
and he was like digging his heels in. But finally
I said, have you ever thought about apologizing for your behavior?
(18:33):
And I explain like that for some people, just hearing
the words i'm sorry can diffuse things and it can
calm them down, right, And so anyway, I made this
suggestion and he said I can't. And I'm like, what,
I'm thinking to myself, what And he said I can't apologize.
(18:58):
It just kind of stopped me in my tracks because
in my mind, I'm thinking, what's the big deal. Anybody
can apologize, and sometimes it's what's needed to get through things.
And at least maybe part of you might realize that
I intentionally, unintentionally offended somebody, so let me apologize for that. Right,
(19:19):
But in his mind he was saying, I can't apologize
for something I didn't do, like literally, I cannot apologize
for that and so, and it took me a really
long time to understand what he meant. And I think
it really speaks to this thinking feeling dichotomy here, because
you know, thinking types, just like anybody else, are perfectly
(19:41):
capable of apologizing, right, They're going to be less likely
to apologize just to smooth things over, right, And that's
where a feeling type they might be more apt to
want to apologize to just smooth things. So I think
(20:02):
that can be a difference between how these two types
handle conflict.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
Right, I totally understand what you're saying. It if about
the thinking and feeling dynamic, and I think I see
it every day, like you see these interactions every day
when it comes to making decisions. You have individuals who
are seeking harmony, who want to see things work out,
don't want to see the conflict, are a little bit
into the emotions. They're very cognizant of other people in
(20:31):
a group, right, Like, sometimes you're in a group and
you're very cognizant about how people feel in a group,
and are they able to get do they want to
get things contributed to the group, and you're realizing that
maybe they're not, and you want to kind of get
them to do that or get the leader to point
those individuals out. I think that stuff's really really important
to be able to have. And you have thinkers who
(20:51):
maybe necessarily don't want to get into everybody's feelings and
don't want things to be subjective, And so how do
we get to making decisions, how we get to interacting
with each other? And I think one of the stories
that I always come up with is when I was
a head football coach. As a head football coach, I
struggled with some of the task of being a head
football coach. Now as a position coach, I loved it.
(21:14):
My job was to get that player to reach their potential,
and I was going to do it like I was
going to find ways, I was going to research, I
was going to do all these things that were needed
to help that player reach their potential because I feel
like it's so important for an individual to feel like
they can but what if they can't like, what if
they can't get to that level? It's hard for me
(21:37):
to move on from a guy. And I remember one
time my head football coach, I'm an assistant position coach,
is an individual that's coaching an individual position. The head
football coach would oftentimes come up to me and say, hey, Mark,
we got to move on. You know, we got to
move on from Joey or Bob or you know, Sarah.
We got to move on because they're just not going
(21:59):
to get there. And I struggled with that. Well, when
I'm now in a role as a head football coach,
it's my decision to come up with and say, hey, like,
we have to move on from that that I struggle with.
You know, I've set a standard that I feel like
is important for our team to succeed. But what happens
when you know, meeting that standard or something's going on
(22:21):
at home with that individual and they don't reach that standard?
Do I lower the standard? And so those were some
of the conversations I would have with my coaching colleagues
that were thinkers, and they refuse, which I totally agree
with them. They refuse to lower the standard. And at
times if a kid just didn't reach that standard, Well,
(22:42):
then a consequence was needed. I needed that. I needed
them to help me, like I needed that reminder. I
need them to remind me of that, right, And so
like it's it's a level where I don't naturally give
up on a kid, not saying that you ever give
up on kids, right, but there's sometimes where a kid's
not to the standard and we have to move on, Right,
(23:03):
we have to move on from that situation or we
need to figure out ways to you know, love them
up more, find other reasons, but moving on to you know,
practice too, we have to move on with different individuals.
That's something that I had to learn from that. But
I think also I was also able to help my
(23:23):
coaches understand in order for your players to reach their potential,
you can't be impersonal. You can't be just totally objective,
like you have to understand the individual to reach them
so they can reach their potential. So, although we're not
removing the standard thinkers, you need to be less impersonal
and more personal, you know, less objective and more subjective,
(23:46):
build less into the data and building relationships to get
that individual to give more. Right. And then from my standpoint,
I had to realize that, Look, sometimes the standard is
the standard, then you have to rely on that in
order to get us to where we need to go.
So I think we learn from each other basically by
having two different individual prefaces in individual groups.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Yeah, and I like how you said that that we
really do need each other, like we need feelers, need
the thinkers to kind of maintain a standard and really
for the best of the group. Right, You're not trying
to single out one person at the expense of the
rest of the people. And thinkers need feelers because they
(24:30):
need to be reminded about the humanity of an individual
person a lot of the time, right, and a lot
of our work environment. Sometimes the world in general, I
feel like it it seems like it favors thinking types
because thinking may look like competency, and our world tends
(24:51):
to favor logical decisions and truth and honesty and justice
unfortunately are sometimes sometimes I think our world tends to
devalue emotion. So if we're considered nice or polite or
empathetic in a lot of places, these aren't always either
(25:13):
considered positive traits or they're minimized. And I don't know
about you, Mark but I've often felt like I'm overlooked
or dismissed because of these things, because I show up
with these traits, and you know, a lot of this
it goes beyond what the Meyers Briggs measures here because
we're humans, and as humans, we're emotional beings. All of us,
(25:36):
even the thinking types out there, are still emotional beings.
And I'm an emotional intelligence practitioner as well, and I
know from my work in this area that if we
don't find a way to control our emotions, they will
control us. So I've found ways to navigate being a
feeler in the workplace, and that's to use my natural
(25:59):
power of empathy to build a supportive team. And I
regularly ask my team for feedback and I do whatever
I can to support them. And I watch how they
function at work, How do they deal with stress, what
situations are stressful for them, Try to understand their personality preferences,
things they like to do, things they don't like to do,
(26:21):
How do they handle deadlines and things like that, so
I can notice if they're struggling. And I communicate regularly
with people, so if I see a problem, I'll say
something diplomatically. I have one lady on my team who's
a thinker, and if there's a problem, I tell her
straight away, I don't beat around the bush, and that works.
(26:44):
I have several feelers on my team and I generally
use this sandwich approach with them. So I give my
negative feedback sandwiched between two pieces of positive feedback.
Speaker 3 (26:58):
Mark that's part.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Yeah, Yeah, it can be. And yesterday I had a
great day yesterday because one of my direct reports told
me that I'm the best manager he's ever had, So
I think I'm doing something right. But you know, this
is where we feeling types can really thrive by showcasing
our emotional intelligence and building and fostering relationships and collaboration
(27:25):
and even conflict resolution and trust and psychological safety, and
these are all kind of hot topics in today's world.
And yeah, I think the world is moving more in
this direction, to moving away from a completely data driven,
(27:45):
impersonal world to more of a world that values these
types of things. But I do think there's more to
it than just looking at it from a thinking and
feeling perspective. Per se.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Absolutely, some of the things that you know, as you
were speaking to get points to a lot of the
things that we mentioned in our first episode that can
really help you once you know about Meyer's breaks is like,
in any environment, bring your strengths, right, Like, bring who
you are and your gifts to that field, because that's
going to help bring value to where you need to go.
(28:19):
So it doesn't mean that when you're in a thinking environment,
you're no longer empathic, right, You're no longer going to
now care about individual's decision when it comes to or
individual's emotions when it comes to decisions. No, like, still
bring who you are into those fields and continue to
try to bring as many of those gifts into those
(28:40):
into those areas and bring in a way to bring
value to that job. And another thing that you also
mentioned too, editor I thunk was was was genius is
understand who you're dealing with, Like, understand the different types
that you're deal with, personality types that you're dealing with
in your job. So if you're dealing with somebody who's
a thinker, they probably don't want you to be around Bush,
(29:00):
they probably don't want to meet, right, But if you're
dealing with somebody who is a feeler, they probably do
want to discuss how that meeting went and their opinions
and their feelings and their emotions. So again, being able
to be an individual understands mayers, briggs. Don't be afraid
to be yourself throughout the day, regardless of what that
personality type, because those are your strengths, right and two,
(29:22):
be able to understand who you're interacting with and give
them what they need and those sorts of things. So
I think that's really really important. You know. One of
the things I was doing, I was trying to do
my research about thinking and feeling and that sort of stuff,
right is, And I don't want to get into any stereotypes,
but are there more females that are feelers and more
(29:43):
males that are thinkers out there just in general? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (29:47):
Yeah, this is well documented. There are more women who
are feelers, and statistics on personality type report that it's
you know, the most recent I read it was like
up to seventy five percent of women, But I I've
seen other statistics at more like sixty percent. So it's
sixty to seventy five percent of women are feelers, let's
(30:08):
just say that. And then we have forty forty three
percent of men are feelers, So yeah, it could be
that not all men are from Mars and not all
women are from Venus. But you know this, this brings
up the point of being a feeling man in a
world where most men are thinkers and you being in
(30:32):
the sports world, because you've talked about that pretty extensively
this time, and how that plays out for you being
a feeling man.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Uh yeah, yeah, as you have said, like, I'm a feeler,
that's who I am, and I am in a dominated
thinking profession in sports and more specifically in football. I
think one of the things that I try to do
is one of the things that you talked about in
your job and your corporate profession is I try to
bring who I am to that. One of the things
(31:00):
that feelers tend to be is very value based, very
value oriented, and there's certain things that we value and
we stick by those values, and I think what we
do is we end up gaining respect from that. So
one of my main values that I think comes from
my feeling preference is helping people reach their potential. Like
(31:22):
that's who I am, and doesn't matter who you are.
I'm not just going to the most talented person and
trying to help them reach their potential. I'm trying to
help everybody reach their potential, regardless of what they we
deem they can offer our football team. And I think
what people begin to see as I begin to coach
that way might be coaching a little bit different than
(31:42):
they are. They begin to respect you for that, They
begin to respect how I'm always there for every kid,
not just some kids. How I'm always trying to create
ways for people to succeed win win over just getting
the win. A lot of times, you know, we will
celebrate win. What I care about is that, guys, and
you see how Johnny played today. He didn't play perfect,
(32:06):
but he played better than he did last week. That's
a win for me. Is this not the bottom line
for me that I care about it? It's about how
each individual is progressing so a large time. A lot
of times when we look with people with feeling temperaments, right,
we see an idea that a lot of times people
can look at them as like soft because it's emotional
(32:27):
and that sort of stuff. But when it comes to
their values, they're very strong and can be very almost
appear to be very objective. So now they're very objective
with their values when they used to be subjective, when
it comes to the things that they value. They are
not very very objective and kind of look like a thinker.
(32:48):
So that's kind of where I feel I am, and
I'm not afraid to be myself knowing that I'm going
to be respected for that, and people might ask can
you help me do that or work with me on
that process. So that's kind of how I deal with being,
I guess an individual from maybe Jupiter and not necessarily
(33:10):
in general.
Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, I know, right, And it's speaking to what you
were saying there. It's feeling types can still you know,
they can dig their deals in too. And if we're
very passionate about something, yeah, I think that's that's well
said that we can come across. We can come across
as thinking types like no, don't violate my values. If
(33:31):
it's something that's very important to me and value centered,
we can draw a hard line there. And that's where
there can be some I think misconceptions about feeling types.
People might think, you know, if you're a feeler, that
you're just nice and warm and kind and you want
everybody to be happy and all that kind of stuff,
(33:53):
which is partially true. But if you wrong a feeler,
if you step on their values, or if you do
something that really pisses them off or makes them upset,
You've got to watch out because feelers can be the
most vengeful people ever. Feelers can make people suffer if
(34:16):
we want them to. If we feel wronged, we want
you to feel our pain.
Speaker 3 (34:23):
I mean, I understand that. I'm a coach, so I
understand that there has to be different ways in which
you have to interact with people to get the best
out of them. That's kind of what I was talking
about originally. But to do that, you have to understand
people their personalities and you have to have like what
I call it tool belt of strategies that will help
you coach them up lead them. You know, I'm a
(34:45):
feeler type, so I understand the Sangwich technique that you
talked about earlier, edif and that sort of stuff. And
depending on each kid, like you may have to double
up the bread on that. It may not be just
one positive one, you know, and then the criticism and
then an they're positive, you might have to double up
the bread on that. And in business you hear a
lot about this, saying which technique that you talked about?
(35:07):
Some use a three to one positive the negative ratio.
For every negative comment you make, you have to provide
three positive comments. But here's the thing. These strategies aren't
one size fits all. You have to understand people, really
get to know them, and then you will know what
strategy to use. So one of my players might need
the three to one, they might need the stranuage the
(35:29):
sang which approach right, But another player might just need
the information to get better. They're different people, they're unique individuals.
I can't treat everybody the same. I have to understand
them and then know what particular strategy in order to
be able to use for them. And I really think
that the MBTI really helps you figure that out.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. You know, last week
I was going through some slides for this presentation I
was giving, and I was just talking things through with
a bunch of people at work, and I got some
unsolicited advice, quite a lot of unsolicited advice. Now, normally
I like to hear other people's opinions because I know
(36:09):
that I miss things. I appreciate the perspectives that somebody
else might have. But this time, the advice that I
was getting last week, it wasn't it wasn't that it
was only unsolicited, but it was framed in kind of
at least this is how I felt. It was framed
in kind of like a your wrong way. And the perpetrators,
(36:30):
and I will call them perpetrators, they didn't have context
into this subject. So I wasn't really sure why they
were telling me these things. But you know, I kept
my mouth shut, as I've trained myself to do. Keep
your mouth shut, just listen, try to be open minded.
And the tone, for some reason, it was just getting
(36:50):
more and more critical, and it was hard not to
take it personally because you know, I worked hard on
that presentation and I know what I'm talking about, but
everything was pointing to the faults of it and nothing
was pointing to the good stuff. So in my head,
I'm asking myself, well, was there anything that you liked
(37:11):
about my presentation? Was there anything good here?
Speaker 2 (37:14):
You know?
Speaker 1 (37:15):
So I'm going to say to our thinking friends who
are tuning in here, remember that it's not what you say,
but it's how you say it. So be careful of
how you're expressing. Whatever you're expressing, think about your body language,
think about your tone of voice, and don't forget to
give praise. So tell somebody what they did well and
(37:38):
what you like about their work, because I think in
today's world we can all use a little bit more
of that. When we feelers get criticized, it's painful. So
even if the criticism is meant to be constructive and
to help us, so it would be it would be helpful,
I think, to say something positive in addition to offering
(38:01):
the criticism, which is kind of getting back to that
sandwich approach there.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Yeah, it's again it's understanding your people, right. It's understanding
your people. It's understanding what they need.
Speaker 1 (38:12):
It.
Speaker 3 (38:12):
It's something that we've always talked about. It is about
the platinum rule, giving people what they need, not not
what I need, right, And I think it's very important.
And I think one of the things for a lot
of people who feel like they might be a fish
out of water, right, Like individuals who feel like this
is I just don't feel comfortable in my environment. I
don't feel a lot of times. It's because it's a
(38:34):
lot of times it's personality mismatches, right. And for those
individuals who have that fish out of water feeling, I
wouldn't look at it as a fish out of water.
But I would look at it as you're a different
fish in a different water, right, and I'm still and
you're gonna still try to make that water or that
work work for you, Right, So I'm going to find
(38:55):
a way try to figure out if you can find
a current that allows you to swim effectively. So that's
something that's really really important. Get out of the feeling
of like I'm different, like I feel like people don't
like me, or a lot of times it's just a
personality mismatch. Instead try to figure out is there a
current within that stream that allows you to swim effectively
(39:19):
and to do the things that you need to do.
Can you get into that environment, can you do the
things that naturally fits you, so that way you don't
have to expend as much energy to swim, and then
you can get further along, right, that sort of stuff.
So being able to do that, and although it's great
to be in that environment that works, really really good
for you. You can be effective in any environment that's there.
(39:42):
And I think that's really really important to help people
function in their day Because one of my things is
always like know thyself and put thyself in the best environment.
But what happens if I'm not right. And some of
the things that Edith and I are been talking about
today is is that's not the end of you just
figure out the right stream to feel and then to
and get to that spot. Be a different You're a
(40:03):
different fish in a different water. Find the stream that
effectively works for you.
Speaker 1 (40:08):
Yeah. Yeah, great analogy there with the current and the stream,
because I mean, ideally, let's say we'd all like to
be in that current that best suits our natural swimming style, right,
but it's it doesn't always work out that way, and
we're at some point we're going to be in environments
or with people that are contrary to our natural type.
(40:32):
And I want to remind our listeners that if you
if you're like me and you're an E NFP type
and you're in the corporate world and you are surrounded
by ESTJ and ISTJ types, nothing wrong not saying there's
anything wrong with E STJ and ISTJ types. Got to
love my my ESTJ and ISTJ peaks. Yeah, but you know,
(40:52):
it's it can be exhausting being around people who are
very different from us day after day, and you feel
like then and you have to you feel like you're
swimming upstream constantly because your natural gifts are not always
recognized or honored. But I want to remind folks tuning
in here that these environments sometimes they are the best
(41:16):
opportunities for growth. Yeah, and I really like what you
said earlier Mark that you know this gives you an
opportunity to enhance something else inside yourself, to flex to
the other areas that don't come quite so naturally. And
when you do that, like, hey, you can work in
(41:36):
just about any environment.
Speaker 3 (41:38):
Yeah, that's absolutely And I think that's the whole Again,
it goes back to our win win So we're all
leaning on our personality times, both Edith and I are like,
let's go back to the win win right, Like, how
can we all win even if you're not in the
right environment? How can we all win? How can you win?
How can we get to a win win right? One
(41:59):
of the things that and a lot of times leaning
on my intuitive preference. A lot of times my advice
can be very general and very pigh in the sky
and just like, hey, look, just find the right stream, right,
and you couldn't be in good shape. And probably a
lot of our sensors are like, what does that exactly
mean like, I need specific information and specific tasks and
(42:24):
things that I can do in order to be successful.
So it can you please give us some information about it. If
you're a feeler and you're working in an environment a
thinking environment, or if you're a thinker and you're working
in a feeling environment, what's some advice that you can
give those those individuals.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
Yeah, yeah, So my advice to all of our feeling
friends tuning in. First of all, know that there's nothing
wrong with you. You are still a unique person with
great qualities, and just because you're a feeler doesn't make
you any less than we all have our own superpowers.
And for feelers, it's often the ability to collect, elaborate,
(43:00):
to have empathy, to tune in to other people, to harmonize,
to help people, and to make this world a better place.
I love the win when mark We want to have
a positive impact on other people. And these are all
great qualities that we can bring whatever career choice or
(43:22):
whatever workplace or relationships that we're in now to navigate
the world of thinkers. First, you want to understand thinkers
have the ability to feel, just like we have the
ability to think. They can adjust themselves just like we can.
Different situations are going to call for different emotions. There
(43:44):
are times when we need to demonstrate empathy. There's other
times when we need to be assertive and express our
opinions bluntly so that other people will tune into us.
And all of us have the ability to do this.
So Secondly, when you are in the heat of the moment,
(44:05):
I'm gonna ask you, I'm going to plead with you
to please think before you reply out of emotion. When
we are stressed out, sometimes our emotions can get the
best of us and we're going to be more likely
to say things that we might later regret, or say
things we didn't really mean, or do things that we
wish we hadn't. So be careful of this tendency. If
(44:30):
someone hurts us or offends us, we may want to
lash out there in the moment, So just be careful,
especially in the professional world and online, because this behavior
can come back to bite you. And third, this is
easier said than done, but practice not taking things personally.
(44:51):
The thinker who did you wrong probably isn't giving this
situation a second thought. He or she is not dwell
on it. So why are you just get up, brush
yourself off, and move on.
Speaker 3 (45:08):
That's excellent advice. What about our what about our thinking types, Like,
what's some advice for them? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Yeah, yeah, so thinking types, I would say that any type,
just try to keep in mind that even constructive criticism
can sting, and it can make a feeler unproductive. Feeling
types are energized through appreciation and encouragement, so just keep
(45:36):
that in mind. So any type of criticism, you know,
you just try to want to balance that out as
much as you can. And then also remember that whatever
problem it is that you're trying to solve, for feeling types,
the problem is always secondary to the people who are involved. Yeah, so,
(45:56):
so remember that we want to make things better too.
We want to solve the problem, but we are also
going to look at the impact of whatever solution it
is you're proposing and how that will affect people. So
the last thing I want to say to our thinking
friends who are tuning in. You may struggle with empathy,
and you may be trying to convince us of something
(46:20):
using logic or some type of scientific approach or a
cost benefit analysis or whatever analytical tool you have. Understand
that feelers want to be tactful and they're going to
do whatever we can to establish and maintain harmony. And
that's very important to us. So if you're trying to
(46:44):
convince us of something, I would say, think about approaching
it from an empathic point of view and think about
how it will affect the people involved.
Speaker 3 (46:56):
No doubt. You know one thing you were mentioning there,
AM was at the snicker what I've think, think the thinker,
the thinking win win, like how feelers use win win
is cost benefit analysis? Like I hate that phrase, but
it's exactly what we need. But I think thinkers use
cost benefit analysis and everything that they do, but like
it's I use when when they use cost benefit analysis.
(47:17):
You know, one of the things that you know we
need to do is feelers too, right, we need to
be cognizant of thinkers and feeling occupations. That's what we
should be doing, Like we're feeling, so we should be
looking and trying to feel like how our thinkers are
doing in those type of situations. You know, you know,
when I'm in a meeting in school, there's always like
one or two thinkers with a bunch of feelers. I'm
(47:39):
so laser focused on our thinkers and how they are feeling,
because I'm always trying to steer the meeting back to
the point, because I know sometimes we can veer off
with just all the different thoughts that our feelers are using,
so sometimes we can kind of get stared off of
the meeting. And I'm always just kind of telling people, like,
you know, if you have a personal comment, you could
probably mention that after the meeting, just to help our
(48:02):
thinkers as they kind of come down to And you know,
one of the strategies that I have my brother use,
and I think it's excellent. When he's like facilitating meetings
and that sort of stuff, he's so great at reading
the room and so when he feels like sometimes there's
you know, thinkers that need to move on. You see
this classically in the Zoom meeting. You can see that
there's people engaged in the meeting, and you see there's
(48:23):
individuals on their phones moving on. One of the things
that he'll always say is, you know, there's a feeler
really expressing certain things, and as they're getting towards the end,
he'll say, you know, let's put a pin in that
and come back to that later. And what I really
love about that strategy is it doesn't offend the feeler
or the feeling types or the next feeler who wanted
to talk about their feelings, right, because there's an idea
(48:46):
that we're going to come back and I get to
discuss my feelings later. But what it does for the
thinker makes them jump for joy, and so I love
the whole you know, let's put a pin in that
and come back to that later, so that way we
can keep the meeting focused. But it also gives our
feelers the idea that you know, we can still discuss
this at the end if we have time. Something is
just a really good tool for your toolbox.
Speaker 1 (49:08):
Yeah, I like to put a pin in it too,
because yeah, there's it's non offensive to everybody. It also,
you know, it gets into some of the other dichotomies too,
the the J and the P and the the S
and the and the end too, because yeah, especially I'm
thinking J and P because certain people you know will
naturally go off on tangents and other people, you know,
(49:29):
they want to stay laser focused and they're just looking
to get out of this meeting and finish and finish
things up. And yeah, but to bring it back to
the thinking and feeling. For the feelers who are tuning in,
especially in the professional world, I would say take the
emotion out of it as much as you can. Don't
over focus on your own feelings or anybody else's feelings
(49:53):
for that matter too.
Speaker 3 (49:55):
I love it. I love it.
Speaker 2 (49:57):
So yeah.
Speaker 1 (49:58):
So with that, I think we're going to start to
close out here. But what a great discussion, Mark, And
this is the dichotomy here that I personally feel can
be the most contentious of the four dichotomies of the
Myers Briggs and you know, as we were talking about,
can cause all sorts of communication mishaps. And you know,
like we said here that the more we know ourselves,
(50:21):
that's the first step in better responding to the people
and the situations around you so that we can all
work on being more productive. So thank you very much
for tuning in. Thanks to you Mark for all of
your insight into this.
Speaker 3 (50:39):
Absolutely I love it. Thanks Claudie, thank you, thank you audience.
Speaker 1 (50:43):
All right, take care, folks, Thanks for tuning in.
Speaker 3 (50:52):
Follow us on social media and your favorite podcast.
Speaker 1 (50:56):
Platform, and please reach out to me on LinkedIn and
on my website at top career dot com for more
updated content. While the Myers Briggs and MBTIR trademarks of
the Meersbriggs Foundation, viewpoints expressed here are our own
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