Bringing Jung Type Portraits to Life: A Client Case Study

Bringing Jung Type Portraits to Life:
A Client Case Study

An earlier version of this essay by Jennifer Tucker originally appeared in OKA’s August 2009 newsletter. To try these approaches yourself, visit Portraits of Jung Type Behavior.

The launch of the Portraits of Jung Type Behavior™ has provided a tremendous new training tool for our consulting business. I wanted to share how I used the Portraits recently with a client group, for a very practical sense for how it could be added to your toolbox. First, I’ll tell you about the group I was with, and why I thought the Portraits would be a good fit. Then, I’ll tell you how I used the tool (including a general agenda) and the benefits it had with this particular group. I’ll close with some thoughts on other ways I might use the Portraits in the future.

Group Setting and Portraits Selection

The group I worked with was an emerging leaders program in a government organization. The group of 12 meets every other month to explore leadership topics – we were brought in for both our expertise in psychological type, and for our work in teaching strategic thinking and planning.

The group had already taken the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) assessment, and had been given time and a process for type validation. As we often encounter in groups, there had been comments about “being different at work than home,” and “I have to be this preference in my job, but it’s not really me.” Interestingly, the existing leadership team at the organization is an INTJ group type; this emerging leaders cohort validated a group type of ENTP. Our MBTI introduction had explored the typological differences between IJ and EP teams, which led to some productive action plans for the group.

I selected the Portraits for this group as a next step because I thought it would help highlight the differences between preference and behavior, in a way that might both help the group sort through the difference between “who I am in my preference” and “what I need to do at work.” I also wanted to help those still struggling with validation by giving them another perspective, and third, I wanted a way to quickly and practically key into behaviors as a bridge into our strategic thinking and planning element of the program.

Using the Tool

The JTB™ Portraits is a self-contained two-part self assessment that participants complete in real time during the training. It is a very tactile activity that asks participants to physically sort cards with descriptions of behaviors from top to bottom – from most frequently to least frequently used.

After a 10-15 minute introduction (good content is included in the assessment), we started the sorting exercise – one part asks for the sorting of behaviors associated with the Jungian functions (S, N, T, F) and one part asks for the sorting of behaviors associated with the attitudes (E, I, J, P). The sorting process took about 30 minutes (15 minutes per part). Note – Instructions are right in the booklet. Take it once yourself first, so you are confident with the physical process – it’s quite easy!

With the sorting complete, I asked each participant to report out on their top three (most frequently used) behaviors on each of the assessments. For many in the group, these top behaviors were aligned with their MBTI validated types – most often, two of the top three behaviors were associated with whatever function the participant extraverts (e.g, an ISTP reported “Problem Focused,” “Specific,” and “Detailed” – two behaviors associated with the preference of Sensing, which for an ISTP is extraverted; and one associated with Thinking, which for an ISTP is introverted). We then had open discussion about their results and what they meant.

Here were some insights from the group as a result of this exercise:

For participants who had behaviors associated with their non-preference in their top 3 (e.g., “Publically Guarded” for an ENFJ), they generally commented that this helped them understand how often they were being called to use a non-preference at work, and how draining that can be. The process gave them some concrete footholds on how they might change behaviorally to allow for some of their preferences to “rise to the top” when appropriate. This appeared particularly helpful for the EPs in the group, who realized how they had been wearing their “IJ hats” to try to fit the leadership team’s style. While there are a lot of benefits to modifying behaviors to meet others’ needs, we uncovered the fact that their EP behaviors could also help their IJ colleagues avoid some blind spots that had been tripped on recently.
For participants still working to validate their preferences (e.g., ENTJ versus ENTP), the sorting process helped definitively push them “off the fence” by allowing them to consider a range of behaviors associated with the preferences between which they were debating, which led to clarity about which ones were their true selves. (Note: The “scorecard” on the assessment really helps align results of this exercise with MBTI results – very helpful in validation, and in diving more deeply into understanding “Slight” preference scores!)
For a few people, the major “Ah-ha” lay in the J-P dichotomy, and how that impacts the expression of their functions when it comes to behaviors. It was a GREAT reminder that Js make public their decision making (T or F) and keep their perceiving function (S or N) private; Ps make public their data gathering (S or N) and keep their decision-making function (T or F) private. One INTP commented: “I value my ability to be objective and problem-focused, but those behaviors weren’t very high on my list – I realize now that I THINK I’m showing them my logical decisions, but really, that’s what I’m thinking, not saying. What they hear are my questions and my adaptability.”

After this discussion, I introduced the idea of “overdone behaviors” (explained in the booklet with examples) and then did a two part “Leadership Case Study” exercise to explore how the Portrait behaviors link to leadership. Here are the questions I gave them – they discussed them in pairs and trios, and then volunteers shared a summarized story with the group. Group discussion helped translate stories into practical “Leadership Do’s” that we put on flip charts.

Describe a time when one of your top 3 behaviors helped you be an effective leader. What did you do? What did it look like and why do you think it worked?
Describe a time when you weren’t as effective a leader as you wanted to be – what strength were you taking too far, or, what strength should you have used more of instead? What did you learn from it? What leadership “DO” got ON your list as a result of this misstep?
The output from this discussion was a great list of very concrete actions that could be taken to demonstrate leadership in a variety of settings – with actions on the list that represented all eight preferences.

Agenda

To help you gauge timing with this new tool, here’s an agenda that aligned the clock with the activities above. There were 12 people in the group.

9:00 – 9:15 – Welcome, Introduction to Portraits
9:15 – 9:45 – Participants Completed Portraits (Individual Activity)
9:45 – 10:30 – Sharing of Top 3 Behaviors; Facilitated Discussion about Insights and Links to MBTI assessment
10:30 – 10:45 – Break
10:45 – 11:00 – Discussion about Overdone Behaviors – What they are and what they look like (included in booklet)
11:00 – 11:45 – Leadership Case Studies (Small Group Discussion – 20 minutes; Report outs – 25 minutes)
11:45 – 11:50 – Closing to Wrap Up before Lunch

In the afternoon, we moved to a section of strategic thinking and planning, which flowed nicely from the morning’s activities. Given that we were continuing, we did not have a personal action planning session before lunch. If I were doing only a half-day, I would have built that in.

Other Applications of the Portraits

Here are three other quick ways in which I might use the Portraits with clients, just to give you some possible ideas for integrating into your existing activities:

Type Review: Often, we encounter groups that have taken the MBTI assessment in the past and want a quick review or refresher – either on its own, or as a lead-in into other activities. While the program above was designed for a half-day, without the “Leadership Case Study,” the design could fit within a 1.5 hour block – a great refresher with a fun twist.

Bridge Into Type Dynamics: Many of the insights shared by participants were great comments about the expression of their dominant and auxiliary functions in the form of behaviors. Without ever talking about type dynamics, they were already finding them in their JTB™ Portrait results. Following the Portraits with a type dynamics introduction would provide great theoretical structure to the experiential aspect of the tool.

Bridge to Other Applications: The extension from preference to behavior made type actionable for this group, and created a great bridge into the strategic thinking/planning section of the day. I would readily use the JTB™ Portraits to help set up very actionable follow-on sessions related to team dynamics, communication, conflict management, project management, and change management.

I hope this write-up is helpful in visualizing how you could use the JTB™ Portraits with clients. If you use the tool in a different way with positive outcomes, please write and tell us about it!