Workaholics Anonymous—A 12-Step Program of Recovery and Personal Transformation (Step 2)

The speed of life has never been faster than it is today… and it is speeding up exponentially.

Consider this:

• In 2006, the amount of data created and captured was more than 3 million times all the information in all the books ever written. On top of that, 3,000 new books are published each and every day.

• 210 billion e-mails are sent every day, more than 2 million every second. For the 1.3 billion e-mail users, that equals an average of 161 demands on our time every day.

• The number of text messages sent and received every day exceeds the population of the planet.

• In 2004, it was estimated that knowledge was doubling every 18 months. IBM now predicts in the next couple of years, information will double every 11 hours.

For a workaholic, these are dangerous times. The natural boundaries of work, personal and family times have been erased. Technology has pierced the walled garden between these important segments of our lives. There is now a constant open door to our attention, one that is always connected, always available for contact and always at the mercy of a never-ending stream of information and demands. Each day we wake up with an inbox full of e-mail and we swim all day in incoming phone calls, instant messages, text messages, news updates, notes, files and paperwork—all with new requests and demands on our time.

In STEP 1 we discussed the importance of focusing on a few major priorities, instead of everything. Hopefully, you have stopped doing the minor tasks that keep your accumulative achievements minor, and you now have the time to commit yourself to the major projects that will contribute to your breakthrough achievements. Now that you have removed many of the distracting tasks and activities, it becomes important to protect against the accumulation of new ones.

STEP 2: Create and Protect Your Boundaries

1. Put a “junk” filter on your life.

In order to filter incoming requests, it is important to first get clear on what you do want.

1.1. Start with your values. Who are you? Who do you want to become? What is most important to you in life? What direction do you want your life to take?

1.2. Put focus on your goals. What are your three most important goals for the year? This month? This week? Today?

1.3. Identify what and who is important. Decide what areas of your life you want to develop and expand, and then leave room for it.

After ”white listing” everything associated with the above, put a junk filter on everything else and keep it out of your inbox and off your “to-do” list.

2. Just say NO.

Nancy Reagan was right. There is no middle ground here. If it doesn’t fit your priority list, then you have to start drawing the line in the sand. This is one of the most important disciplines you can develop to unhook yourself from your addictions. Not being able to say “no” stems from not having clarity and conviction about your own direction in life.

If you aren’t comfortable with saying “no,” say “no, thank you.” People most often over-commit because they try to please everyone, need to feel liked, or are afraid to disappoint people. If you have trouble saying “no,” it’s because you are a pleaser. If you feel you need to provide an explanation, simply state, “That sounds really great. I wish there were more time in the day, but unfortunately I just don’t have the time right now. Thanks for thinking of me anyway!”

3. You get in life what you TOLERATE.

This is one of the greatest success philosophies I’ve ever heard. You get in life what you tolerate is true in every area of your life — relationships with family, friends and colleagues. What you have decided to tolerate is also reflected in the situations and circumstances of your life right now. Put another way, you will get in life what you accept and expect you are worthy of.

If you tolerate disrespect, you will be disrespected. If you tolerate people being late and making you wait, people will show up late for you. If you tolerate being underpaid and overworked, that will continue for you. If you tolerate your body being overweight, tired and perpetually sick, it will be.

It’s amazing how life will organize around the standards you set for yourself. Some think they are the victim of other people’s behavior, but in actuality, we have ultimate control over how people treat us. So many people live at the end of strings, like a puppet to outside forces. Protect your emotional, mental and physical space so you can live in flow and with peace, rather than in the chaos and stress the world will hurl upon you.

Support Network

It was very interesting and informative to read everyone’s “stop doing” list in the last post. Continue this collective instruction by listing 3 things (in the comment section below) you are no longer going to tolerate in your life going forward.

Here are three things I do not tolerate:

1. People being late. I will just leave if someone is more than 15 minutes late without calling to explain. For regular office meetings that perpetually start late, I ask people to text me when everyone is finally assembled and ready, rather than being the guy always on time and having his time wasted.

2. Negative People and opinions.

3. TV. I personally don’t watch broadcast TV at all, but I don’t allow it to be on during dinner, and I don’t allow news programs to be running in the background.

Next Week — Step 3: We will discuss how to take these new boundaries to the next level of achievement.

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Workaholics Anonymous—A 12-Step Program of Recovery and Personal Transformation (Step 1)

Core Ingredients of Self-Management

If you lack the iron and the fizz to take control of your own life, the gods will repay your weakness by having a grin or two at your expense. Should you fail to pilot your own ship, don’t be surprised what inappropriate port you find yourself docked.

—Tom Robbins

The two keys ingredients for making it all work are:

* Control
* Perspective

If you can maintain a sufficient level of each of these factors in yourself or in your organization, you probably won't find much room for improvement. Your world will be in order and you’ll be focused exactly as you should be. Only when one or both of them slip away from optimal should you be concerned that something needs correction.

Control and perspective are closely intertwined dynamics, but achieving each one involves different approaches, whether the matter at hand is your teenager doing homework, your soccer team’s practice, your next vacation, or your product launch. If your kitchen is a mess, for example, cleaning it up and placing all the tools and equipment where they belong will be a very different exercise from deciding what to cook and how to present it. But the two activities remain very related, in that without an organized kitchen, it will be very challenging to stay focused on the dinner itself; likewise, an insufficient focus on the recipes, the various components of the dinner event itself, and the plan for deploying them will allow the situation to quickly get out of control again.

A matrix constructed on the axes of control and perspective can be useful, both as a map for assessing your own standing with respect to these elements (or that of another person or a particular situation) and as a guide for improvement.

The four quadrants described by these axes identify, in very general terms, the syndromes that are typically experienced with the varying combinations of low and high control, and low and high perspective. The obvious optimal state would be elevated levels of both — the sector that is labeled “Captain and Commander.” Finding oneself in any of the other three quadrants, though, is not necessarily a bad thing. Just as any high-performance vehicle frequently gets off course, the best of us often fall away from the high-control, high-perspective state. It’s the nature of human experience, which is always in some form of motion, to veer off course — sometimes in major, but consistently in minor, ways.

If, however, you tend to spend too much time in one of the less-than-optimal quadrants, you’ll probably deserve the negative labels that are attached to them — Victim, Micromanager, or Crazy Maker. But these labels are best used as warnings for a course correction, much like the lane control bumps on a highway, when you drift as a result of your exploration and forward motion. In such cases a positive aspect will more aptly describe the syndromes — Responder, Implementer, and Visionary.

Adapted from “Getting Things Done” by David Allen

Workaholics Anonymous—A 12-Step Program of Recovery and Personal Transformation (Step 1)

I took a major step in making this my best year ever: I admitted that I’m a workaholic in need of intervention. I know many of you out there are like me—in constant motion but never quite able to move beyond relative success.

So, I’m going to share what I have learned from the super-achievers I’ve interviewed over the past year. I’ve outlined 12 Steps for changing those behaviors that block our creative juices and stifle our potential. This week, we’re going to focus on putting a stop to the little things that keep us from achieving our big goals in life.

STEP 1: Make a STOP-Doing List
We all have our to-do lists, those sometimes endless tasks that we believe, when finished, will shoot us into the stratosphere of success. However, have you noticed that while you check some tasks off, the list keeps growing? Your work days get longer, your time with family dwindles, and you find that even though you are in constant motion, you’re really standing still.

Pareto Principle, 80/20 Rule: 20 percent of your activity produces 80 percent of your income. Simply put, it means that you should spend 80 percent of your time on the 20 percent of your activities really responsible for driving your income.

I know the Pareto Principle principle well. Yet I'm still sucked into the 80 percent of the unproductive activities. Why? Because I’m an addict. I’m like a moth to a flame. I say to myself, “Oh, there is something small I can accomplish and get off my plate. Let me get involved in that!” But, that must stop!

As I went through my 2009 goal-planning exercise, I ADDED several major projects and heavyweight to-dos to my list. My dilemma became crystal clear. The only way I will have time for my big-idea projects is to stop doing the little stuff that completely consumes me all day, every day.

Separate the Majors from the Minors
If you chronicle your activities hourly or look back over your calendar for the previous week, I’ll bet you spent major chunks of time on minor activities that resulted in minor achievements. We all do it. It’s called the “results by volume” approach. I know this because I am guilty of it.

The Pareto Principle is different from the being busy versus being productive debate—that’s Efficacy Training 101. This is a more suave understanding of achievement. I’m always focused on being productive; I am relentless about it. I never waste time, and I’m always looking for ways to multitask and do more in the same amount of time. I even joke by saying I work in a 26/7 environment, where every day I have to figure out how to get two extra hours of work completed with time that doesn’t exist!

There are many projects and initiatives we engage in that, if successful, still produce minor achievements. This is how we end up with less than the big triumphs we see others attain.

Here is the Key to STEP 1:
Distinguish between the major and minor projects, activities, commitments, responsibilities and initiatives. Then, STOP doing the minors. You will now have the time to focus your energy and creative thought process (remember my theme for the year: Do Less, Think More) on bigger and better things—the things that will produce the breakthrough results and victories you seek.

Now, looking back, every big-time CEO or super-achiever I have met has lived this principle. None of them would allow themselves to become mired in minor tasks; they give their time and attention only to major issues. They focus their organizations on major goals and initiatives and constantly say no to distracting, minor projects.

There’s an old axiom that now makes sense to me, “It is not what you do that determines the level of your success, but rather what you don’t do.” Keep that in mind as you review your to-do lists.

Accomplish More by Doing Less
So, to start on your road to recovery, make the following two lists now:

* List 10 projects, activities or commitments you are going to STOP doing.

* List the three most important projects or activities necessary to achieve your BHAGs (Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals). FOCUS on them.

Each day, don’t make a long list of minor to-dos; just write down the three major activities you want to achieve that day.

Ah, feeling better already? I know I am.

Support Group
Here’s a way we can all support each other on this journey. In the comment section below, write three things you are going to STOP DOING in 2009. Later, I will organize and publish the Top 10—something that will be interesting and useful to us all.

Here are three of mine:
1. Stop checking e-mail all day. I will check e-mail only twice a day, ideally at 10:30 A.M. and 4 P.M.
2. Stop working on Saturday. Saturday will be my day to focus on my family and refuel.
3. Stop being the center of control. I will empower others to deliver and lead more.

Next Week – STEP 2. Stay the course with me. STEP 2 is a big one… and one that will help you further stay committed to STEP 1.

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Workaholics Anonymous—A 12-Step Program of Recovery and Personal Transformation (Step 2)

Grow Your Power and Boost Your Influence

Getting others to listen to you is the result of a 4-step process.

Do you want to be more influential and powerful? Do you want your employees, your customers and your vendors to listen to what you have to say and do what you want them to do? We all do. Everyone wants to make an impression on the world; it only seems natural. But many of us don't know how to do it. If you're like most entrepreneurs who want to increase their effect on others, then you need to know the right steps.

Gaining power is a four-step process that is easy to learn. It takes insight, openness and willingness to make some changes.

To start, think about a few crucial definitions. First, we have influence--the ability to make people do things they wouldn't have done without our input or impact. The result of that is what we know as power. No influence, no power.

But how do you actually gain influence as an entrepreneur? Start with your goals. Someone once said, "If you don't know where you're going, you'll probably end up somewhere else." Your goals are your roadmap to achieving results and power, so they need to be specific and measurable. Everyone wants success, and most want to gain wealth, but if your roadmap isn't specific and measurable, then you'll probably end up in Dharavi when you thought you were headed for Dariyaganj. In other words, how will you know if you actually earned that Rs. 2 lakh profit on your last contract if you don't have a specific means to count your revenue, sort out the expenses from the profits and attribute both to various cost centers, departments or teams in your company?

Second, become aware of that little voice in your head that constantly evaluates your performance. Everyone has one, but some people are more tuned in to that voice than other people. Unfortunately, as a result of criticizing parents, teachers and bosses, we've developed a sharply negative inner voice rather than a positive one. We frequently tell ourselves, "I made a terrible mistake again," "I just can't seem to make it in this competitive world," "I'm not as good, smart or aggressive as other people."

There's often a kernel of truth to these thoughts, but most people exaggerate them. And when that happens, we feel bad about ourselves or think our actions are not up to par, and success becomes more difficult to attain. The key here is to decrease its impact; identify the negativity of our self-talk, minimize it and make it more rational. At the same time, work on maximizing your positive self-talk, and give yourself a verbal pat on the back when things work out. Repeat these positive attributions and feel better about yourself.

Third, identify your tools--resources (traits, characteristics and factors) you can use to impact people. You always have many more tools than you think, but you don't realize it until you finally take inventory of them. You'll be amazed at how many unused resources you have. For instance, can you rely on your knowledge, skills, abilities and intelligence to influence people? Do you have a positive reputation that others admire? Do you have problem-solving skills, time, equipment, integrity and force of personality that can be useful? How about charisma, perceptiveness, position and social networks--can these factors assist you in attaining your goals? And there are many other tools. Once you start thinking about them, especially the ones that have brought you success in the past, you'll continue to create this powerful list of resources.

Fourth, discover your influencing techniques. These are methods or means to successfully use your tools to exert influence and become powerful; there are six of them that effective entrepreneurs typically use. To begin, you create rapport with your employees, customers and vendors. You build bridges toward influence by reaching out to people, building relationships, telling them what you like and dislike, how you feel about their work, their products and themselves. You'll understand these individuals better and they'll understand you better. The result is increased influence and power--just what you want.

Effective entrepreneurs are also assertive: They state their needs and wishes in a way that doesn't step on other people. Don't be too aggressive, which usually leads to anger, frustration, resistance and sometimes sabotage. Being assertive is the means to make your ideas and actions known to others in a way that's acceptable to them and therefore allows you to more successfully influence them.

Using logic, explaining issues, ideas and directions in a clear, orderly manner is another way to exert influence and gain power. People will see that you can explain things in ways they can understand. And when people understand things, they're far more willing to agree to what you're requesting.

Yet another technique used to impact people is building teams. This tried-and-true method allows people to work together toward a common goal in a united and coordinated manner. People share their thoughts, ideas and actions, almost always coming up with end products that are richer, more appropriate and more successful than any one or two individuals could have created alone. What's more, team members will admire and respect you for putting the team together to address a problem or challenge. You win out as an influential leader.

Powerful entrepreneurs are credible. They influence people because of the way they talk, the way they dress and the way they respond to issues. They demonstrate a strong knowledge base, respond to questions and challenges in a timely, complete and accurate manner, and they use their teams to build performance and outcomes. Employees, vendors and customers easily learn to trust credible leaders and want to work with and buy from them because of their reliability.

Finally, effective leaders use cultural hierarchy to influence people. This technique is two-fold: It involves using cultural norms and sharing power. In the first instance, entrepreneurs create an atmosphere where everyone knows "how it's done around here." You run a tight ship. There are few questions or vagaries. The modus operandi is clear. Your employees' morale and esprit is a result of the rules and behaviors the entrepreneur sets down. Leader who are in charge by virtue of their positions are valued by others for having created a pleasant atmosphere. When working with employees, customers and vendors, the entrepreneur can influence people based on the norms of operation.

The other aspect of cultural hierarchy involves the sharing of power. The executive's power is increased when it's shared with managers who can inform their subordinates that they're acting or responding in a specific way because they have the chief executive's permission to do so. This is especially helpful in a team of peers where one person needs to be in charge or more powerful. That person is given the mantle of increased power by the top entrepreneur and can therefore influence peers.

Exerting power is a process, which, when followed, gets other people to do what you want them to do. Each time this process is used, the individual builds a repertoire and a base of successes.

The Johari Window

Creating Better Understanding Between Individuals and Groups

The Johari Window is a communication model that can be used to improve understanding between individuals within a team or in a group setting. Based on disclosure, self-disclosure and feedback, the Johari Window can also be used to improve a group's relationship with other groups

Developed by Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham (the word “Johari” comes from Joseph Luft and Harry Ingham), there are two key ideas behind the tool:

1. That individuals can build trust between themselves by disclosing information about themselves; and
2. That they can learn about themselves and come to terms with personal issues with the help of feedback from others.

By explaining the idea of the Johari Window to your team, you can help team members understand the value of self-disclosure, and gently encourage people to give and accept feedback. Done sensitively, this can help people build more-trusting relationships with one another, solve issues and work more effectively as a team.

Explaining the Johari Window:

The Johari Window model consists of a foursquare grid (think of taking a piece of paper and dividing it into four parts by drawing one line down the middle of the paper from top to bottom, and another line through the middle of the paper from side-to-side). This is shown in the diagram below:

Using the Johari model, each person is represented by their own four-quadrant, or four-pane, window. Each of these contains and represents personal information – feelings, motivation – about the person, and shows whether the information is known or not known by themselves or other people.

The four quadrants are:

Quadrant 1: Open Area

What is known by the person about him/herself and is also known by others.

Quadrant 2: Blind Area, or "Blind Spot"

What is unknown by the person about him/herself but which others know. This can be simple information, or can involve deep issues (for example, feelings of inadequacy, incompetence, unworthiness, rejection) which are difficult for individuals to face directly, and yet can be seen by others.

Quadrant 3: Hidden or Avoided Area

What the person knows about him/herself that others do not.

Quadrant 4: Unknown Area

What is unknown by the person about him/herself and is also unknown by others.

The process of enlarging the open quadrant vertically is called self-disclosure, a give and take process between the person and the people he/she interacts with.

As information is shared, the boundary with the hidden quadrant moves downwards. And as other people reciprocate, trust tends to build between them.

Tip 1:

Don’t be rash in your self-disclosure. Disclosing harmless items builds trust. However, disclosing information which could damage people’s respect for you can put you in a position of weakness.

Using the Tool:

The process of enlarging the open quadrant horizontally is one of feedback. Here the individual learns things about him- or her-self that others can see, but he or she can’t.

Tip 2:
Be careful in the way you give feedback. Some cultures have a very open and accepting approach to feedback. Others don’t. You can cause incredible offence if you offer personal feedback to someone who’s not used to it. Be sensitive, and start gradually.

If anyone is interested in learning more about this individual, they reciprocate by disclosing information in their hidden quadrant.

For example, the first participant may disclose that he/she is a runner. The other participant may respond by adding that he/she works out regularly at the local gym, and may then disclose that the gym has recently added an indoor jogging track for winter runners.

As your levels of confidence and self-esteem rises, it is easier to invite others to comment on your blind spots. Obviously, active and empathic listening skills are useful in this exercise.

The Johari Window in a Team Context

Keep in mind that established team members will have larger open areas than new team members. New team members start with smaller open areas because little knowledge about the new team member has yet been shared. The size of the Open Area can be expanded horizontally into the blind space, by seeking and actively listening to feedback from other group members.

Group members should strive to assist a team member in expanding their Open Area by offering constructive feedback. The size of the Open Area can also be expanded vertically downwards into the hidden or avoided space by the sender’s disclosure of information, feelings, etc about himself/herself to the group and group members.

Also, group members can help a person expand their Open Area into the hidden area by asking the sender about himself/herself. Managers and team leaders play a key role here, facilitating feedback and disclosure among group members, and by providing constructive feedback to individuals about their own blind areas.

Key Points:

In most cases, the aim in groups should be to develop the Open Area for every person.

Working in this area with others usually allows for enhanced individual and team effectiveness and productivity. The Open Area is the ‘space’ where good communications and cooperation occur, free from confusion, conflict and misunderstanding.

Self-disclosure is the process by which people expand the Open Area vertically. Feedback is the process by which people expand this area horizontally.

By encouraging healthy self-disclosure and sensitive feedback, you can build a stronger and more effective team.

What's Your Humor Style?

Are you a joker? A teaser? A clown? How you deploy your sense of humor says a lot about how you relate to others and to yourself.

In today's personality stakes, nothing is more highly valued than a sense of humor. We seek it out in others and are proud to claim it in ourselves, perhaps even more than good looks or intelligence. If someone has a great sense of humor, we reason, it means that they are happy, socially confident and have a healthy perspective on life.

This attitude would have surprised the ancient Greeks, who believed humor to be essentially aggressive. And in fact, our admiration for the comedically gifted is relatively new, and not very well-founded, says Rod Martin, a psychologist at the University of Western Ontario who studies the way people use humor. Being funny isn't necessarily an indicator of good social skills and well-being, his research has shown—it may just as likely be a sign of personality flaws.

He has found that humor is a double-edged sword. It can forge better relationships and help you cope with life, or it can be corrosive, eating away at self-esteem and antagonizing others. "It's a form of communication, like speech, and we all use it differently," says Martin. We use bonding humor to enhance our social connections—but we also may wield it as a way of excluding or rejecting an outsider. Likewise, put-down humor can at times be an adaptive, healthy response: Employees suffering under a vindictive boss will often make the office more bearable by secretly ridiculing their tyrant.

Though humor is essentially social, how you use it says a lot about your sense of self. Those who use self-defeating humor, making fun of themselves for the enjoyment of others, tend to maintain that hostility toward themselves even when alone. Similarly, those who are able to view the world with amused tolerance are often equally forgiving of their own shortcomings.

Put-Down Humor

This aggressive type of humor is used to criticize and manipulate others through teasing, sarcasm and ridicule. When it's aimed against politicians by the likes of Ann Coulter, it's hilarious and mostly harmless. But in the real world, it has a sharper impact. Put-down humor, such as telling friends an embarrassing story about another friend, is a socially acceptable way to deploy aggression and make others look bad so you look good.

When challenged on their teasing, the put-down joker often turns to the "just kidding" defense, allowing the aggressor to avoid responsibility even as the barb bites. Martin has found no evidence that those who rely on this type of humor are any less well-adjusted. But it does take a toll on personal relationships.

Bonding Humor

People who use bonding humor are fun to have around; they say amusing things, tell jokes, engage in witty banter and generally lighten the mood. These are the people who give humor a good name. They're perceived as warm, down-to-earth and kind, good at reducing the tension in uncomfortable situations and able to laugh at their own faults.

Talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres embraces her audience by sharing good-natured, relatable humor. Her basic message: We're alike, we find the same things funny and we're all in this together.

Nonetheless, bonding humor can have a dark side. After all, a feeling of inclusion can be made sweeter by knowing that someone else is on the outs. J.F.K. and his brothers would often invite a hated acquaintance to vacation with them; they'd be polite to his face, but behind his back, the brothers would unite in deriding the hapless guest.

Hate-Me Humor

In this style of humor, you are the butt of the joke for the amusement of others. Often deployed by people eager to ingratiate themselves, it's the familiar clown or "fat guy" playfulness that we loved in John Belushi and Chris Farley—both of whom suffered for their success. A small dose of it is charming, but a little goes a long way: Routinely offering yourself up to be humiliated erodes your self-respect, fostering depression and anxiety. It also can backfire by making other people feel uncomfortable, finds Nicholas Kuiper of the University of Western Ontario. He proposes that it may remind others of their own tendency toward self-criticism.

Farley, who died at age 33 from an overdose, had a streak of self-loathing. "Chris chose the immediate pleasure he got in pleasing others over the long-term cost to himself," his brother wrote after his death. The bottom line: Excelling at this style of humor may lead to party invitations but can ultimately exact a high price.

Laughing At Life

When we admire someone who "doesn't take himself too seriously," this is the temperament we're talking about. More than just a way of relating to other people, it's a prism that colors the world in rosier shades. Someone with this outlook deploys humor to cope with challenges, taking a step back and laughing at the absurdities of everyday life. The Onion is a repository of this benign good humor. The columnist Dave Barry has perfected it with quips like this: "Fishing is boring, unless you catch an actual fish, and then it is disgusting."

Studies that link a sense of humor to good health are probably measuring this phenomenon; when you have a wry perspective, it's hard to remain anxious or hostile for long. Martin calls it "self-enhancing humor," because you don't need other people to entertain you—if something peculiar or annoying happens, you're perfectly capable of laughing at it on your own.

Personality

Personality factors are extremely important in organizational settings. Often the 'wrong' personality proves disastrous and causes undesirable tensions and worries in organizations. The cost of such tensions and worries are enormous when interpreted from the point of view of employee-employer relations, peer relations and superior-subordinate relations. Sometimes, personality difficulties are the root cause of organizational conflicts and often lead to turnover and job dissatisfaction.

Personality and Its Determinants

Personality does not mean that a person has charm, a smiling face, or a positive attitude towards life. Gordon Allport defined personality as the dynamic organization within an individual of those psycho-physical systems that determine his unique adjustments to his environment. Personality, in essence, refers to the sum total of ways in which an individual reacts and interacts with others. This is most often described in terms of measurable personality traits that a person exhibits.

Personality is the result of both heredity and environmental factors and is moderated by the situational conditions.

i) Heredity: Heredity refers to those factors that were determined at conception. Factors such as physical appearance, temperament, energy level, and biological rhythms are the characteristics, which are generally influenced by one’s parents, i.e. one’s biological, physiological, and inherent psychological make up. The Heredity Approach believes that personality of an individual is the molecular structure of the genes, located in the chromosomes.

ii) Environment: Among the various factors, culture plays an important role in the formation of personality, i.e. the early conditioning, and the norms among the family, friends, and social groups. With the socialization process experienced in groups, personality does get altered over time.

iii) Situation: Though an individual’s personality is generally stable and consistent, it does change in different situations. Different demands in different situations bring forth different aspects of one’s personality. Personality patterns should, therefore, be not looked at in isolation.

The relationship of all these three factors affects the formation and development of personality. Physiological inheritance is entirely an internal contribution. Group and the culture are the early environmental factors that affect the formation of our behavior at later stages. Family atmosphere and social setting encountered during early stages of life and also the education are the important factors that influence the formation of personality at the initial stages. Whatever a child learns at this stage invariably lasts throughout one’s life. Peer groups or primary affiliations at work and social activities normally shape our personality in the later part of our life.

The relationship of all these three factors affects the formation and development of personality. Physiological inheritance is entirely an internal contribution. Group and the culture are the early environmental factors that affect the formation of our behavior at later stages. Family atmosphere and social setting encountered during early stages of life and also the education are the important factors that influence the formation of personality at the initial stages. Whatever a child learns at this stage invariably lasts throughout one’s life. Peer groups or primary affiliations at work and social activities normally shape our personality in the later part of our life.

Personality Types

Personality typing is a tool with many uses. It is especially notable for its use in the areas of growth and self-development. It is used as a tool for discovery, rather than as a method for putting people into boxes, or as an excuse for behavior. The sixteen personality types that are used are based on the well-known research of Carl Jung, Katharine C. Briggs, and Isabel Briggs Myers.

The theory of personality types, as it stands to-day, contends that

i) An individual is either primarily Extroverted or Introverted
ii) An individual is either primarily Sensing or Intuitive
iii) An individual is either primarily Thinking or Feeling
iv) An individual is either primarily Judging or Perceiving

The possible combination of these preferences form 16 different personality types. This does not mean that all (or even most) individuals will fall strictly into one category or another.

The theory of personality types contends that each of us has a natural preference which falls into one category or the other in each of the four areas indicated above, and that our native personality type indicates how we are likely to deal with different situations that life presents, and in which environments we are most comfortable.

The Four Preferences

The four preferences or the four pairs of dimensions, viz. Extroversion and introversion, Sensing and Intuition, Thinking and Feeling, and Judging and Perceiving are present to some degree in all people.

i) Extroversion and Introversion: There is a world inside ourselves, and a world outside ourselves. When we are dealing with the world outside of our self, we are “extroverting”. When we are inside our own minds, we are “introverting”. Persons more introverted than extroverted tend to make decisions somewhat independently of constraints and prodding from the situation, culture, people, or things around them. They may dislike being interrupted while working and may tend to forget names and faces.

Extroverted persons are attuned to the culture, people, and things around them, endeavoring to make decisions congruent with demands and expectations. The extrovert is outgoing, socially free, interested in variety and in working with people. The extrovert may become impatient with long, slow tasks and does not mind being interrupted by people.

ii) Sensing and Intuition: This preference refers to how we gather information. There are two distinct ways of perceiving the data that we gather. The “Sensing” preference absorbs data in a literal, concrete fashion. The “Intuitive” preference generates abstract possibilities from information that is gathered. We all use both Sensing and Intuition in our lives, but to different degrees of effectiveness and with different levels of comfort.

The intuitive person prefers possibilities, theories, gestalts, the overall, invention, and the new, and becomes bored with nitty-gritty details, the concrete and actual, and facts unrelated to concepts. The intuitive person thinks and discusses in spontaneous leaps of intuition that may leave out or neglect details. Problem solving comes easily for this individual although there may be a tendency to make errors of fact.

The sensing type person prefers the concrete, real, factual, structured, tangible, here and now, becoming impatient with theory and the abstract, mistrusting intuition. The sensing type person thinks in careful, detail-by-detail accuracy, remembering real facts, making few errors of fact, but possibly missing a conception of the overall.

iii) Thinking and Feeling: People have the capability to make decisions based on two very different sets of criteria – Thinking and Feeling. When someone makes a decision that is based on logic and reason, they are operating in Thinking mode. When someone makes a decision that is based on their value system, or what he or she believes to be right, they are operating in Feeling mode. We all use both modes for making decisions, but we put more trust into one mode or the other.

The feeler makes judgments about life, people, occurrences, and things based on empathy, warmth, and personal values. As a consequence, feelers are more interested in people and feelings than in impersonal logic, analysis, and things, and in conciliation and harmony more than in being on top or achieving impersonal goals. The feeler gets along well with people in general.

The thinker makes judgments about life, people, occurrences, and things based on logic, analysis, and evidence, avoiding the irrationality of making decisions based on feelings and values. As a result, the thinker is more interested in logic, analysis, and verifiable conclusions than in empathy, values, and personal warmth. The thinker may step on others’ feelings and needs without realizing it, neglecting to take into consideration the value of others.

iv) Judging and Perceiving: Judging and Perceiving preferences, within the context of personality types, refer to our attitude towards the external world, and how we live our lives on a day-to-day basis.

The perceiver is a gatherer, always wanting to know more before deciding, holding off decisions and judgments. As a consequence, the perceiver is open, flexible, adaptive, non-judgmental, able to see and appreciate all sides of issues, always welcoming new perspectives and new information about issues. However, perceivers are also difficult to pin down and may be indecisive and noncommittal, becoming involved in so many tasks that do not reach closure that they may become frustrated at times. Even when they finish tasks, perceivers will tend to look back at them and wonder whether they are satisfactory or could have been done another way. The perceiver wishes to roll with life rather than change it.

The judger is decisive, firm, and sure, setting goals and sticking to them. The judger wants to close books, make decisions, and get on to the next project. When a project does not yet have closure, judgers will leave it behind and go on to new tasks and not look back.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Various Personal Styles

Possible Strengths	Possible Weaknesses
Introvert
Independent	Misunderstands the external
Works alone	Avoids others
Reflects	Loses opportunities to act
Works with ideas	Is misunderstood by others
Is careful of generalizations	Needs quiet to work
Is careful before acting	Dislikes being interrupted
Extrovert
Understands the external	Has less independence
Interacts with others	Does not work without people
Is open	Needs change, variety
Acts, does	Is impulsive
Well understood	Is impatient with routine
Intuitor
Sees possibilities	Is inattentive to detail, precision
Sees gestalts	Is inattentive to the actual and practical
Imagines, intuits	Is impatient with the tedious
Works out new ideas	Leaves things out in leaps of logic
Works with the complicated	Loses sight of the here- and – now
Solves novel problems	Jumps to conclusions
Senser
Attends to detail	Does not see possibilities
Is practical	Loses the overall in details
Has memory of detail, fact	Mistrusts intuition
Works with tedious detail	Does not work out the new
Is patient	Is frustrated with the complicated
Is careful, systematic	Prefers not to imagine future
Feeler
Considers others’ feelings	Is not guided by logic
Understands needs, values	Is not objective
Is interested in conciliation	Is less organized
Demonstrates feeling	Is uncritical, overly accepting
Persuades, arouses	Bases justice on feelings
Thinker
Is logical, analytical	Does not notice people’s feelings
Is objective	Misunderstands others’ values
Is organized	Is uninterested in conciliation
Has critical ability	Does not show feelings
Is just	Shows less mercy
Stands firm	Is uninterested in persuading
Perceiver
Compromises	Is indecisive
Sees all sides of issues	Does not plan
Is flexible, adaptable	Has no order
Remains open for changes	Does not control circumstances
Decides based on all data	Is easily distracted from tasks
Is not judgmental	Does not finish projects
Judger
Decides	Is unyielding, stubborn
Plans	Is inflexible, inadaptable
Orders	Decides with insufficient data
Controls	Is judgmental
Makes quick decisions	Is controlled by task or plans
Remains with a task	Wishes not to interrupt work

Conclusion

Learning about our personality type helps us to understand why certain areas in life come easily to us, and others are more of a struggle. Generally, people who have the same strengths in the dimensions will seem to “click”, whereas who have different strengths in the dimensions will not see eye-to-eye on many things. People will normally gravitate toward others who have similar strengths and weaknesses. People’s values, beliefs, decisions, and actions will be greatly influenced by all four of the stronger dimensions in their typology. Although a person’s typology cannot be changed to its opposite, each person can learn to strengthen the weaker dimensions to some extent and to develop personal life strategies to overcome problems that result from the weaknesses.