MBTI and WHO-DO™

Myers-Briggs measures personality and identifies four categories.  They are Introversion/Extraversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perception.  WHO-DO measures your core nature of work: Mover, Shaker, Prover and Maker.  The two complement each other very well!

Listen to the Podcast…

More information about MBTI and WHO-DO

Myers Briggs Type Indicator explained:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator

WHO-DO™ Assessment: https://thepeoplecatalysts.com/who-do-assessment-welcome/

Allen and Karla Discuss MBTI and WHO-DO™

Karla Nelson:  And welcome to the People Catalysts podcast my friend, Allen Fahden.

Allen Fahden:  Hello, hello.

Karla Nelson:  How are you today?

Allen Fahden:  I’m excited, because we’re going to do part two of core nature versus personality. And that’s one of my favorite topics, so I’m excited.

Karla Nelson:  It is a great topic, and with us launching this beta test, I can’t tell you. It’s going to be great to have a podcast I can actually just send people instead of trying to explain it via electronic. Right? To try to understand the different nuances between your personality and your core nature of work.

Allen Fahden:  Great point.

Karla Nelson:  It’s so drastically different, and everybody just goes, “Oh, I’m just going to dump it all in to one bucket. But it’s probably just because that’s what they know, because people always go to what the familiar thing is for them, and then contrast and compare from what’s familiar.

Allen Fahden:  Absolutely. People are comforted by that. If it’s familiar, like when they first introduced electricity the homes were all being lighted and heated with gas, and so they made the electric light fixtures look just like the gas light fixtures so everybody would be comfortable. And that’s kind of the thing that we’re facing here, where core nature kind of looks like personality. And it couldn’t be further from it.

Karla Nelson:  Yeah, so what we’re going to talk about today is: you can’t get work done with personality and why your core nature work is very different from your personality. And we started the last podcast that we discussed DiSC on with this quote, which I just love it, Edward Rickenbacker, the secret of success. He says, “There’s a six word formula for success. Think things through, then follow through.”

Allen Fahden:  Oh, that’s too simple.

Karla Nelson:  Oh, of course. Well, and I just love what Peter Drucker said, “Yeah, it’s a great idea, but nobody can do it.” Right? So what we’re here to tell you is this is absolutely doable. The only time it doesn’t work is if you don’t do it. And I was just thinking that this morning, Allen, that if they knew that their life would be made so much easier, why don’t people do it? And I just kept on thinking that that would be a really good podcast that we could talk about mindset and something else outside of, “Why wouldn’t you do it?” If you could be 300 to 800% more effective, get 100% buy in, and have happy people, and enjoy your work, why don’t people do it?

Allen Fahden:  Yeah. Really good question. Well, we can explore that.

Karla Nelson:  So anyway, not that I have an answer for it exactly today.

Allen Fahden:  Yeah, who does? But we may have a partial answer by the time we do a podcast on it.

Karla Nelson:  Yeah, I think that’s really interesting. And it’s interesting also to see how far not the core nature of work, but the personality assessments go back.

Allen Fahden:  Oh, yes. It goes all the way back to the Greeks, the Ancient Greeks. So we’re talking, give or take, a few years, a couple of thousand years. So personality profiles, so to speak, have been around for a couple thousand years and still 70% of people hate their jobs, and we’re always having performance problems, especially when it comes to getting things done. Now, the interesting thing, and maybe you’ve heard this before, some of you, and there’s actually a correlation to personality profiles, but the four … The Ancient Greeks, they called them temperaments are phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholy, and choleric, C-H-O-L-E-R-I-C.

Karla Nelson:  No wonder people get PhDs in Meyers-Briggs. Talk about heady, jeez.

Allen Fahden:  Yeah, exactly. These are words you’re going to remember and use in your day to day conversation, right? So it’s interesting, and we’ll shorten Myers-Briggs just the way a lot of Myers-Briggs for conversation. We don’t plan to be experts in Myers-Briggs. You do get PhDs in that, and okay, we’re in fourth grade. But sometimes fourth grade will help you make a few distinctions in your life. And so-

Karla Nelson:  Well, and the easier it is … This is one thing that I really don’t like about a lot of assessments is the more that it goes into depth, the harder it is to apply.

Allen Fahden:  Yes.

Karla Nelson:  Because it’s hard enough to figure out who you are in the midst of all the other permutations. Try to figure out who you are, and then who your team is, and then how that applies to anything about getting work done. And I know we’ll get into that in a little bit.

Allen Fahden:  And who can remember? And that’s why we have simple words like mover-shaker, prover-maker. You know? Who are the movers and shakers? Those are the people getting new things done. So let’s just look at this for a moment. We’ve got NF in Myers-Briggs corresponds neatly to phlegmatic in the Ancient Greeks. SP in Myers-Briggs corresponds neatly to sanguine. And SJ corresponds neatly to melancholy. And NT corresponds neatly to choleric. And so temperaments, personalities, they’re all kind of saying the same things. And then you can go to Wilson social styles and get pretty much the same thing. You can go to DiSC, which we talked about last time. Even-

Karla Nelson:  And all of these-

Allen Fahden:  Even a deck of cards corresponds neatly to a model put forth by the Ancient Greeks: clubs, spades, hearts, and diamonds.

Karla Nelson:  That’s interesting. And I think a big part of the conversation here, Allen, is that personality methodologies and assessments are great, and they can be used for a piece of understanding individuals. That’s always a good thing. But if you don’t have a process to work with, the conflict is still there. And again, the object of the exercise is not to sing kumbaya. It’s to get something done. And I think the way that you do that in utilizing a process, being able to remove the majority of the conflict just by putting people at the right place at the right time doing the right thing. And we break this down in red light, green light, and yellow light relationships. Now all of a sudden you look at it and go, “My goodness.” You can actually really like somebody just for a different reason, not their personality, but that they’re fitting and doing a part of this job that you have to do every day. And they’re doing it a lot better than you, the piece that you don’t want to do.

Allen Fahden:  Absolutely. And you know, it’s interesting how much, in the workplace, you can get to like somebody who does what they say they’re going to do, delivers you good work on time, and is-

Karla Nelson:  And you don’t have to do that part that you don’t like.

Allen Fahden:  And they’re taking away the stuff you hate to do. They’re doing it for you. The person doesn’t have to have a great personality for you to actually like them. When people do nice things for you, we like them.

Karla Nelson:  That’s funny. And you had mentioned something earlier in our conversation, before we got on the podcast here, and you were kind of making a joke, but I think there might be some truth to this. It says, in fact, when you are nicer to others, that you’ll likely get less done because of your being liked or wanting to be part of the group. Right? Because now you’re not going full force. You’re tiptoeing and trying to figure out, “Okay, how do I need to be?”

Allen Fahden:  Right, when that’s the focus. Yes. And then we don’t see what’s really going on in the room sometimes when this happens. So yeah, good point.

Karla Nelson:  Yeah, and then let’s take a look at breaking down that quote. And the reason why we just love this quote is because it’s basically think things through, that’s ideation, then follow through, implementation. So that quote really encapsulates the WHO-DO method and what we do. But when we think things through, because we’re in our head, people tend to argue then. Right? And then when we follow through, often times we’ve miscast people. We’ve put people in the wrong role. And we look at a job as a function versus a role. And that’s not even taking into consideration, and I think this is where a lot of things get gray, how are we in the workplace, and then how are we differently in our personal life, especially when there’s something at stake?

So it gets so convoluted. Now everything becomes so much more gray. And again, then go back to keeping it simple. The object of the exercise is to get something done. And the key here is having a process and having everybody agree on the process and moving together in that together. Having everybody agree to that process. And that’s where everybody gets to put their thumbprint on what you’re going to do and how you’re going to implement it. It’s just that we can’t dump everybody in a room, just give them their function, right?

Allen Fahden:  Right.

Karla Nelson:  We have to have a role, and then you need everybody. You have to have all four core natures of work.

Allen Fahden:  Right. And when you were talking about thinking things through, and then also following through, there are so many things in there that stop you dead. And they’re all problems caused by people doing the wrong parts of the work or people rejecting someone else’s work, just because the core natures don’t fit together.

Karla Nelson:  Yeah, or having to do the work anyway, because it’s got to be done. And now you just are not happy, period, because you’re not doing something that’s fun that you’re good at.

Allen Fahden:  Yeah. You’re just like, “I’m going to take one for the team.” Well, actually, you’re hurting the team by taking one for the team more than you’re helping. The minute you accept your weakness work, that means you are doomed to hating it, to going longer not meeting your deadlines, doing the wrong thing, having lack of focus. So you’re really giving one to the team, and I don’t mean in a good way.

Karla Nelson:  I like how … Lack of focus is so true, because as soon as you have to do your weak work, you find every reason not to do it.

Allen Fahden:  Oh, god, yeah.

Karla Nelson:  So distractions become really hard not to … Your phone rings, or you’re checking your text message, or you’re going on LinkedIn. You find something to do, go get a cup of coffee, whatever.

Allen Fahden:  EBay. Let’s get on eBay, Amazon.

Karla Nelson:  I was just going to say Amazon. And so that’s a big thing, I think, is to understand that when you … Now, do we all every once and a while have to do weak work? Yes, but we should avoid it like the plague and allow the people on your team that do that part of the work really, really well to do it.

Allen Fahden:  Because it’s their-

Karla Nelson:  Or hire them to do it. Right?

Allen Fahden:  Because it’s their peak work. They’re great at it. Why would you deprive them of doing something they’re great at and love to do?

Karla Nelson:  Yeah. It’s a good point. Yeah. I like to employ all core natures of work, because I’ll tell you, I like to coordinate and make sure things get done, but I don’t like to do most of the things that are necessary. I like the strategy aspect of it. It’s great. The people aspect of it is great. But if you don’t have all four core natures of work, figure out a strategy, an objective, whatever you’re trying to get done in your business. Now write down how many things are on that checklist. You’re going to come up with about 100 to 150 things to get. And one of those items, as soon as it’s removed, you’re going to replace it with another one or maybe two. So I think really understanding all that the work that you’re trying to get done encompasses, and then understand, okay, you could see what somebody’s personality is. And I like how you explain this, Allen, as almost like a steering wheel, and gas, and a brake.

And so our method does not take away from anything that is already existing out there. In fact, it puts it in the right process, because personality should be the icing on the cake, not the main course, because again, the object of the exercise is to get something done. This kind of reminds me of a story about, do you remember the trainer?

Allen Fahden:  Oh, yeah.

Karla Nelson:  Disaster.

Allen Fahden:  Disaster. Well, you know, a lot of people do this. Again, it’s that lens. When you’re looking at the electric light that has the fixture on it of the gas light, you start making assumptions that electric and gas are just the same. Well, I don’t know. You can light a match near an electrical outlet and be fine, but if you light a match near your gas outlet, you could be in a lot of trouble if there’s too much gas coming out. So the same thing is true here. And in fact, somebody who was much more comfortable with Myers-Briggs decided to run the WHO-DO method with Myers-Briggs typology instead of movers, shakers, provers, and makers, the core natures of work. And so while on paper I would say, “Well, sure. Why not? You could do that. Of course. You’re just substituting strawberry flavoring for raspberry flavoring.” And it fell flat. And that’s the problem.

Karla Nelson:  Well, I just even think about how confusing that … Myers-Briggs, there’s a reason you have to get a dang PhD in it. And then the WHO-DO, which that’s not even a personality, it’s your core nature of work, you dump all that into a pot, it’s a recipe for disaster just in my brain, and I know both of them decently well. But it was like, how would you keep people in their own lane? It would be so confusing.

Allen Fahden:  Yeah, exactly. Well, even in Myers-Briggs it’s a little tougher, because you generally have a four letter designation, so people don’t remember it. And I don’t remember mine, so I always say that I’m an ESPN.

Karla Nelson:  I’m so not surprised.

Allen Fahden:  Yes. And that gets me by, anyway, plus I get to watch a lot of sports, too. So it’s an all around good deal. It’s a win-win for everybody.

Karla Nelson:  Well, and I think the thing here, too, in the validation study … Because Myers-Briggs and DiSC are personality, and WHO-DO is core nature of work, there really is this magic in finding the 15% of a population that will say yes to an idea. And there was no-

Allen Fahden:  Right. And by the way, that’s why that experiment when they substituted Myers-Briggs type for core natures of work failed, because they couldn’t even find the mover. And when you run the process, at least in the opening part when you’re dealing with ideas, the mover is the poin person. You got the wrong point person in any process it starts going downhill. And this went downhill fast.

Karla Nelson:  Absolutely. And the other piece, statistically, having no correlation with the core nature of work and with the personality profiles, I think that the other thing is that there’s no have the work fit the people part. So for instance, I’m an ENTJ. And you can be a mover. You can be an ENTJ, and you could be a prover. You could be a shaker. You could be any … probably not a maker. It’s probably a little bit less likely, because an ENTJ is typically somebody that is … The largest majority of people that get their MBA, they’re ENTJs. And so they tend to have the personality that would fit a CEO. But you’ve got CEOs that are movers, shakers, provers.

Allen Fahden:  Oh, yeah.

Karla Nelson:  We haven’t worked with a lot of maker CEOs.

Allen Fahden:  No, but there are a few. And an interesting thing is, in this thousand person study, while you’re going through it, one of the things we all do is say, “Oh, wait a minute. Let me look closer at an ENTJ or whatever.” And we’ll find out a lot more about them, and there’s always some aspects of them that fit mover, shaker, prover, maker. But in a thousand person study, when we had the people take our assessment, and we had them take Myers-Briggs, and they took DiSC, there was a high correlation between DiSC and Myers-Briggs, as you can see just from face value. But there was no correlation between them. So what you’re saying is you can also be a mover and be an NF, an NT, an SJ, or an SP. It works both ways, that there was nothing that indexed, for you statistic geeks, nothing that indexed over 120 and indexed under 180, meaning they were not correlated. There was no statistically significant relationship.

Karla Nelson:  Interesting.

Allen Fahden:  And that’s as much stats speak as I’m capable of.

Karla Nelson:  Yeah. That’s why we have a wonderful … What’s the title? Psycho-

Allen Fahden:  Psychometrician.

Karla Nelson:  Yeah, that sounds like fun.

Allen Fahden:  Yes, and the funniest part is that she is a shaker. Now, how do you explain that? So that kind of proves the point by what you would think would be the exception. All the Delphi sorts and all the statistical stuff, and she is a shaker. She’s an idea person.

Karla Nelson:  I know, I know. I was just as surprised. You would think you would have a prover, or at least a prover-shaker combination in a role like that. But I think what’s important, also, is to understand, personality profiles got created so that we would be nice to others. Stop hurting others. And I think that looking at that juxtaposed with the core nature of work is really critical.

Allen Fahden:  Absolutely. Again, we can be nice to people in a lot of ways. And one of the nicest things you can do for somebody, is help them get into a position where they’re doing what they love, and you know that they’re going to be successful, and that everybody is going to honor their results.

Karla Nelson:  Yeah. So the point here is, using the WHO-DO method removes the personality part, and it focuses on the process in order to get things done. And I like what you said on the last podcast, Allen, in regards to, when people feel hurt, when their critiqued, every core nature of work is different in different ways in how they feel that way as well as personality. But really, let’s turn the critique into a challenge.

Allen Fahden:  There you go. There you go.

Karla Nelson:  And a part of that really is-

Allen Fahden:  Different, isn’t it?

Karla Nelson:  …having people leave the room and not hearing the part of the work when it’s not their turn. Right? So you go through the process, ideation. What are we going to do? You run the process, and then implementation. Your point guard changes. And you use the process. And a lot of times you have to juggle this back and forth, but because not everyone is there all in the same room, they’re not feeling hurt, and they’re not canceling each other’s work out.

Allen Fahden:  Right. And they’re not, yeah, fighting. They’re not all … Their adrenal glands are screaming at them fight or flight. You get rid of a lot of that. The other thing I like about what you said, too, is that somebody, when you say a challenge, what’s the difference between a critique and a challenge? Critique, basically, whether it’s said in nice words or not so nice words, usually says, “Well, your idea sucks.” And I remember they even gave training for this, how you could say this more nicely, and they say, “Well, I have a concern about your idea.” And one day, a friend of mine had somebody come into his office who was parroting that latest thing, “I have a concern,” that sort of thing. And so before he could even say anything, as he sticks his head in the door, my friend says, “Hey, come on in. Pull up a concern and sit down.”

Karla Nelson:  And then it becomes just a joke. It’s like, “Come on, guys.”

Allen Fahden:  Really.

Karla Nelson:  And for everybody else, it’s different. So you could go to a shaker, “I’ve got a concern.” They’re hearing, “My idea sucks.” You go to a mover, “I’ve got a concern.” They’re like, “Okay. What is it? We’ve got to remove the obstacle to figure out how to get things done here.” With a prover, you have a concern, and you go, “Well, I have five more concerns.” And a maker, they’re like, “Please, just leave the room, because I’ve got real work to do over here. We don’t have time for concerns. We just cleaned up the last batch.”

Allen Fahden:  Yeah, so the interesting thing is that, now, contrast that with a challenge, where you’re not in the room, one of your ideas is up there, and that’s the idea that we’re going with. And so, A, you’re a shaker, you come back into the room and you say, “Oh, my idea. Great.” And then you say, “Now, here are three obstacles, three challenges we need ideas to overcome. It’s illegal in 18 states. The CEO’s not going to like it. Blah, blah, blah, blah.” So help come up with ideas to overcome these concerns or these obstacles. See, I said the C word again. So a different-

Karla Nelson:  But at least it-

Allen Fahden:  …different thing. It’s much more empowering.

Karla Nelson:  Exactly.

Allen Fahden:  And you’re back doing what you love, as opposed to the critique, which puts a single thought in your head, like my idea sucks, therefore I suck. And the mind can only hold one thought at a time. What’s that going to do to your physical being, your emotional being? And this is why, when people get down in the mouth like that, we need to bring in all of the personality profiles. Oh, don’t worry, he’s just being an ID. Oh, okay.

Karla Nelson:  And there you go. It’s one extra layer, right, that you can utilize to get work done as well. However, if you don’t get the first part done, when the object of the exercise is to get something done, what is the difference of personality going to make. Even if you do get along better, again, the object of the exercise is to get something done. Everybody likes being a part of a winning team. Everybody. Right?

Allen Fahden:  Yup, that’s for sure.

Karla Nelson:  So that’s the bigger aspect of it is how do you get your team functioning on high gear doing the part of the work that they do. Now, all of the sudden, they’re going to high-five the person that they don’t necessarily want to go out and have lunch with on Friday. But it doesn’t matter, because like you said, they’re high-fiving them for a whole different reason. And it’s what, positively, they bring to the table, versus what we typically do, and we have seen this all across the world, where we make jokes and talk about all the name that have been given to mover, shaker, prover, maker. And people laugh. And guess what? We’ve probably 10 times the amount of the negative word and haven’t been able to encapsulate the positive part of the work that they do, because it’s easier to complain about what somebody isn’t instead of really shining a light on what they are. But when you don’t have the context wrapped around it, it’s just, “Oh, how do I feal today.” Right?

Allen Fahden:  Right.

Karla Nelson:  Look, we can see we’re moving the forward. Great. I’m loving the part of the work that I’m doing, thanks so much for doing the part of the work that you do well. And so I think that that really is … And again, we should talk about, then, why don’t people do it? Obviously, sometimes it might not be as well known, but we’ll have to do something about that on our goal to revolutionize the way work is done, because it doesn’t have to be like that.

Allen Fahden:  It doesn’t have to be like that. And you know, the beautiful thing is that once you start getting the work done, thinking it through, and then following through, and you get it done on time and on-budget, and it’s beautifully done, you have a win that you can celebrate. And I’m going to pollute this whole thing with a sports metaphor and say it’s a lot easier to be in the locker room when your team just won than when your team just lost. And then you don’t need any personality profiles, because everybody’s happy with everybody else.

Karla Nelson:  Love that. That’s awesome. Well, we’ll just have to wrap it up with that, Allen. And we are doing our beta test for the WHO-DO assessment. And so for the next, I don’t know how long it’s going to take us, maybe a couple weeks or so. To finish our validation study, we are making this beta round open to everyone, until we get to, I don’t know … We’ll probably cut it off at a thousand or so, so we can start doing some analytics around this. And it’s free. So, you can go to thepeoplecatalysts, and that is plural, dot com. And you can go ahead and see if you are a mover, shaker, prover, maker, or a combination of the two. On that thank you page, there is an hour-long free training that it’ll take you to after you do the assessment. And then when the validation study is complete, we are going to email it out to anybody who helped us during the beta round. So, we welcome your help and hope that the WHO-DO method can help revolutionize the way that you do work.