TM - January 2008 - (Page 49)

through a workshop on personality type and interpreted their results. She used the analogy of rooms in a house to explain the 16 different personality types that describe people. To make her point, Teel figuratively placed each employee in a different room in the house and then explained how everyone had to be comfortable walking from one room to the next — dealing with all eight of the personality preferences: Extraversion– Introversion, Sensing–Intuition, Thinking–Feeling and Judging–Perceiving. Since its introductory workshop, the company has continued to incorporate the MBTI framework into its off-site programs. Assessment and Understanding: Enhancing Professional and Personal Lives that blossoming of perception has allowed us to do many things with and for the business.” Shaffer said she has long believed people sometimes have trouble understanding each other due to basic differences in how they take in information and make decisions about it. Once immersed in the MBTI instrument, she said she realized having a clear understanding of the basics of personality type and type development would help her gain greater understanding of herself and others, and of the impact type has on daily interactions. When the company is locked in a leadership meeting, the participants often remind themselves not to get too lopsided on the Thinking side, making decisions based solely on logic and objective analysis. They Reactions to the assessment’s implementation varied. “Initially, our employees had a great deal of resistance to something they thought might pigeonhole or categorize them,” Shaffer said. “They wanted to know what it meant to their jobs.” In response, Shaffer said she spent a lot of time explaining to them that the goal of the MBTI tool is to create an atmosphere of understanding and improved communication. She also said the assessment would be used ethically, not against them in any way, and she assured them it would be used to their benefit, not to stereotype people or to assign good and bad characteristics. Though many factors combine to influence an individual’s behavior, values and attitudes, the MBTI description summarizes underlying patterns common to most people of that type. “The MBTI assessment gives us a way to describe why people do what they do,” Shaffer explained. “We have it fully integrated into our culture now. In any area of the company, at any moment in the day, you might hear someone saying ‘My Perceiving preference is off the chart today; I need to get back into focus,’ or, ‘I’m a Sensing type; I need more concrete information.’ It has become a really valuable way for us to connect to one another. In fact, it is not a judgmental system: It is a benign, neutral way of explaining the cause and effect, or the ‘why I do what I do when I do it.’” Shaffer said the MBTI assessment is the perfect instrument for Shaffer Title because it mirrors the company’s core values and can provide benefits, not just in the workplace but throughout employees’ lives. “I’m an Intuitive type, and Jarett is a Sensing type,” Shaffer said. “We would come to classic clashes of not understanding where the other person was coming from, and it was inhibiting the growth of the company. Just learning the basics of ‘this is how I think, this is how he thinks, and it doesn’t make him right or me right’ opened up understanding. And often ask for feedback from the Feeling types, who focus on values and subjective evaluation of personcentered concerns. Just as important, when they find that the Extraverts are doing all the talking, they ask the Introverts for their ideas and impressions. The MBTI Assessment Day to Day Shaffer said she sees the impact of the assessment every day in communications between staff members and between staff and the company’s diverse customers, who may include anyone from a firsttime home buyer who has just drained his piggy bank to empty nesters scaling back for retirement and real estate professionals with a range of experience levels. To ensure the company remains true to its core values and mission — providing superior customer service, a combination of modern technology and oldfashioned standards of manners, integrity and respect — Shaffer’s employees are even beginning to “type watch” customers on the phone to help improve communications. Application continued on page 52 talent management magazine www.TalentMgt.com 49 January 2008 http://www.TalentMgt.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of TM - January 2008

TM - January 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Learning Connections: Working With Those People Leading Edge: Hub Caps for a Buggy Human Performance: Hawthorne Effect Revisited Beyond Affirmative Action: The Changing Face of Recruitment Assessment Centers in Talent Management: Strategies, Use and Value Nontraditional Benefits- How to Hook the Best Talent Intersection of Web 2.0 and Talent Management Cross-Training for Workforce Agility Mapping Talent Among Younger Workers Dashboard: Using Personality Data to Identify and Develop High-Potential Leaders Application: Shaffer Title Uses Myers-Briggs to Develop Common Corporate Language, Jump-Start Growth Insight: Dreier, Stein & Kahan LLP: Using Strategy to Bring Back the Law Profession Advertisers' Index Editorial Resources Full Potential: Stop in the Name of Leadership

TM - January 2008

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