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Indicator Confirms Existence of Organizational Type, Explains Complexities of Type Within the Workplace
by Karen Grawe
Organizations have their own separate personality types, a growing body of
evidence indicates. This type is often different from the personality types of
the team, the founder or the current CEO.
The evidence stems from results from the Companies Are People, Tootm
(CAP2) organizational type indicator, developed by Fekete + Company, a Columbus,
Ohio, firm.
It’s possible to determine a psychological type for an organization because
it has all the necessary components: preferences for focusing energy, gathering
information, making decisions and implementing action. Type clarifies the
characteristics...the values, strengths and challenges...of the
organization.
This new component helps to explain the complexities of team building,
long-term planning, and corporate identity development within any organization.
In short, using knowledge of team and individual types alone in troublesome
situations does not always work because the organizational type also affects the
results.
Organizational Type Different from Team Type
Results from using the indicator with 57 organizations from three countries show
the organizational type was different from the team type 81 percent of the time.
The CEO’s personality type differed from the organizational type 85 percent of
the time.
The organizations taking the profile so far range from start-up companies to
organizations more than 100 years old, from manufacturers to retailers to
not-for-profit museums. Leaders from all 57 organizations concurred with their
organization’s type in workshops with senior management and other selected staff
members.
CEOs See Organizations Differently Than Does Staff
The 74-question indicator also detected differences between the perceptions of
CEOs and their key management staff. In 78 percent of the cases, the CEO
selected a different organizational personality type than did the staff. During
the group discussions, all of these CEOs obtained additional information about
the realities within the organization, changed their minds and reached consensus
with their staff.
The confirmation of organizational type adds a new dimension to working with
type within organizations that increases the opportunity for honest discussion
of working styles and decision making. It also presents an opportunity for
senior executives and others to erase the barrier between themselves and the
CEO, offering significant information that a CEO may not otherwise hear.
Deliberate Changes in Organizational Type
Thus far, the 57 organizations have recorded 12 of the 16 personality types.
ENFP and ESTJ organizations are the most common profiled by CAP2.
Some evidence suggests that an organization can deliberately change its type
over time. Three organizations have taken the indicator two or more times over a
multi-year period. One stayed true to original type with little change. The
other two became more F over time. One believed that it changed because it lost
a partner; the other consciously tried to change to become more creative and
people-focused.
Both also decided to make more decisions based on their newly defined core
values, so it0146s logical that they became more F over time.
Organizations Exhibit Inferior Function Under Stress
Preference, whole-type characteristics and type dynamics appear to translate to
organizations in a fairly straightforward manner. This matches the ideas set
forth in "The Character of Organizations" by William Bridges.
Organizations who take the indicator typically self-report some form of
serious dysfunction or are in the midst of major transition, such as
repositioning, branding or merger. Anecdotal evidence emerging from discussions
supports predictions for exhibiting the organizational inferior during this
stress.
For example, ENTJ and ESTJ organizations tend to exhibit oversensitivity and
unexpected outbursts when they are under stress and acting through their
inferior, introverted feeling. Organizational coaches may find themselves called
by ESFJ and ENFJ organizations to search for answers when they are acting in
their inferior function, introverted thinking.
Further, understanding organizational type as a new element in the type
equation allows coaches and others to understand workplace conflicts and
complexities not apparent when dealing only with team and individual type.
For example, one respected Chicago institution found itself in a position in
which its heavily ESFJ/ESTJ management group could get little done. The
organizational profile, confirmed by the group, was ENTP. It was as if Felix
Unger was trying to manage Indiana Jones without understanding how he worked
best.
Further, indicator results from two key people - the CEO and the Chief of
Staff - produced polar opposite organizational profiles. One thought the
organization was an ENFP; the other, an ISTJ. This alone indicated clear
problems that needed resolution. Discussing the implications for this situation
turned skeptics about type and the organizational indicator into avid advocates
of both.
Development of the Organizational Indicator
Fekete + Company itself is a good example of what happens when a company
understands that its organizational type is different from its team type.
When it was first profiled, everyone who had worked at the company more than
three months agreed it was an ENTJ. No one in the organization was an ENTJ. The
CEO was an ISTJ; the team type, ISFJ. But an ENTJ profile, translated into an
expression of organization, fit the company well. The company has continued to
test ENTJ over the past four years, even with multiple changes in staff and team
type.
Translating ENTJ into an organization resulted in a new view of the company’s
strengths as The Architect of Ideas and the development of its core ideology:
Smart Marketing. Dealing with the challenges of an ENTJ organization - primarily
a lack of sensitivity to people’s needs - resulted in deliberate efforts to make
the working environment more playful and people-focused through creative
meetings, unique office décor and field trips.
The first proprietary software version of the instrument was introduced in
Spring 1996. Because the process originally required visualizing an organization
as a person, some found it difficult. The next revision eliminated much of this
problem by using word-pairs and organizational behavior questions developed from
a list of 224 organizational behaviors classified into E/I, S/N, T/F and J/P.
At this point, Fekete + Company discovered William Bridges. Pleased to find
agreement with him on a number of points, the indicator was slightly revised to
ensure no duplications between his questions to evaluate type and CAP2, with
tie-breaker questions added. The current software, Version 4, allows the
collection of data for each individual question to assist in the validation
process.
The Center for the Applications of Psychological Type, Inc., is reviewing the
gathered data. Preliminary results of the validation of the CAP2 indicator are
encouraging, with further study anticipated as more results are completed.
Karen Grawe (INFJ) is author of the Companies Are People, Too, type
indicator. For more information contact Fekete + Company (614)436-7774, fax
(614) 436-2393, e-mail:
sfekete@companiesarepeopletoo.com. Please visit the web site
www.companiesarepeopletoo.com
for more information.
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