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Many of you have no doubt seen personality inventories that are quite useful in explaining communication styles. TMI USA uses such a profiling strategy in our Putting People First program. We have given animal titles to the four styles, Panther, Peacock, Dolphin and Owl, and they are four of our corners that you see each month. This is the last month of our four-month look at a personality test that also breaks people into four categories: Thinkers,
We will look at how the four basic categories influence perception, and, thereby, use of time. This particular personality profiling test is more complex than the following descriptions will make it seem. After taking the test, one is categorized as one of the two rational functions (thinking and feeling) and one of the two perceptual modes (Intuition and Sensation), and then you are given a rating on Introversion or Extraversion. This is a more complex model than is traditionally used in business communication profiling. It's based on Carl Jung's notion of psychological types, and the actual test we refer to in this profiling was developed by the Jungian Institute. It is not quite parallel to TMI's communication styles survey, nor is it like many of those that are on the market today. We would love to be able to reproduce the test on which this survey is based, so you could take it yourself. It is, however, copyrighted, and the Copyright is owned by the Society of Jungian Analysts of Northern California located in San Francisco, California. The descriptions of the four types are adapted from a chapter written by Harriet Mann, Miriam Siegler and Humphry Osmand, and reproduced in Psychology Today, December, 1972. Osmand and his colleagues were interested to see how people in these Jungian categories experience time in unique ways. If you are interested in obtaining a copy of this article and find it difficult to locate the original Psychology Today article, you can also find it in the book by Humphry Osmond, et al., The Future of Time (New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1971). One way to conceptualize the four styles is to imagine time as a continuum, or time as the past, present, or future. Each of these four styles finds their natural comfort in one place or another in relation to time. We think you might be able to see yourself in the descriptions, and then better understand your tendencies towards time. You can review the other three months by searching our archives. Feeling Type Sensation
Type Intuitive Type
Time as a Continuum Sensation Type The Sensation type is concerned with the now, with the current, and whatever is happening immediately around them. They are very effective at handling "concrete reality." They have little interest in the past or the future. The Sensate tends to be very practical, because they have a firm grasp on reality. They know what is happening with others around them. For this reason, they are generally very attuned politically. They like to influence their environment; they generally prefer to, and are good at working with their hands. They are extremely adept when it comes to emergencies and crises. Sensates are definitely not lazy people; their orientation towards time keeps them constantly active. However, when planning is required, they are at a disadvantage. In fact, planning to a Sensate is more than a waste of time—it's not even real. There is no sensation in the future; it's all thought. Sensates respond to the demands of the situation, and not because of any thought-out plan that no longer be relevant. They get easily upset over delays, because no action is taking place when there is a delay. At such a time, they will move into other action. "Let's do something," is their mantra. They can accomplish long range tasks, but it won't be through planning. The task has to compel them. Sensates are the ones most resistant to the ideas of strategic planning. It doesn't mean that they aren't effective or can't accomplish things; they think of planning as a waste of time because nothing is happening while one is planning. Frankly, most Sensates will never voluntarily come to a Time Manager program. They are there because someone has told them to be there. The workspace of the Sensate is a dead give away. It is generally messy, at least to the outsider. But Sensates are so rooted in the present, that when they put a piece of paper down, if it doesn't get moved by someone else, they will almost always know where it is. The Sensate is the type of person who can look at huge piles on his or her desk, and reach in the middle of one of these piles, and pull out the right paper. This approach would be deadly for the other styles. Janelle M. Barlow, President
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