Replying to LO28771 --
David, dear consultants, readers,
We breath, we think, we act, we live in metaphores. MBTI and the
philosophies of Carl Jung are - to me - such a set of metaphores (although
Jung calls these archetypes, so maybe i should call them archephores or
metatypes). A personality is also a metaphorical achetype and a kind of
meta...type we can chooses to take on, like a role, an imago, a
perspective, an outlook, an embodiment. Most of us are able to "snap-on" a
personality within a single moment. Personalities like "manager",
"employee", "father" or "mother", "victim", "writer of e-mails" etcetera.
Personalities help us to survive social realities. With every personlity
comes a language, a behaviour, a way to make choices. MBTI is a kind of
map of the different personalities characteristics available.
However, we are not our personalities, we have a choice. What lies behind
these masks is a sophisticated machinery or psychonery that creates
personalitues, and - i agree with you - this is not a personality. But i
do think that we all have a bias towards some characteristics, a
predisposition to a certain choice.
What is interesting is that these metaphores do take on a real existence:
we can enact them and therefor they are.
In haste,
Jan Lelie
DMR consultants wrote:
> I could not help but notice the comments about MBTI.
>
> While I am sure that the inventors of MBTI thought that they were doing a
> service to academia and the world of business they have simply produced a
> tool which has and will continue to be mis-used by managers and bosses who
> are desperate to analyse and understand something which is a field in its
> own right (human behaviour and psychology).
--With kind regards - met vriendelijke groeten,
Jan Lelie
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