What Psychological Type Can Do in the Organization

Introduction

The study of the Psychological type of the individual at the present stage is required in the social science sphere as a result of the rapid changes in the environment and the increasing expectations regarding the rapid discovery of new ways of functioning of the organizations and implicitly of the behavior of their members. However, there are other external pressures that contribute equally to the presence of internal factors in the development and understanding of the individual psychological aspects that allow us to strengthen and develop the strengths of the organization. Despite the problem of mass migration of people from the Republic of Moldova, as well as the globalization or even the merging of national and global markets, new requirements are imposed on the policies and practices and their members, focusing on the field of study of the organizational behavior that has won its own status among the research fields.

The specific analysis of the Psychological Type of the individual could be considered as a research modality composed of two fundamental elements: the people and the organizational variables. And since no organization could maintain a certain level of efficiency, independent of the consolidation of the types of motivations and satisfaction in the work of its members, the role and the responsibility of the management in integrating and harmonizing the human variables with the organizational ones are evident.

From the perspective of organizational behavior, three major themes or priority concerns for organizations can be highlighted:

People, both as individual persons, as well as in their actions and interactions that are associated with different psychological types;

Management, as organizer and coordinator of human resources;

Organizations, as integrating structures of human actions and interactions in order to achieve clear, well-defined goals (both individual, and organizational).

The study of the Psychological type of the individual is dedicated to the description of the characteristics of the members of the organizations as individual persons (personality, perceptions, attitudes, better study of the employees, compatibility with the job description, values, motivations) and relevant or less relevant to the organizational context.

Review of Literature

Multiple specialized theoretical researches all over the world show that the psychological profile of individuals and the work team plays a decisive role in boosting activism and production capacity. The authors (Tieger&Barron-Tieger, 2001) provide a systematic and effective way of assessing strengths and likely weaknesses of the Psychological Type approach. This research was conducted earlier (Bridges, 2000) that guided thousands of individuals and hundreds of organizations do deal more productively with personality differences.

MBTI proves understanding of the organizational dynamic (Bradley&Hebert, 1997); (Barr&Barr, 1989); (Kroeger&Thuesen, 2002). As shown on the basis of the consultancy practice majority of the organizations in western world are of the STJ type (Barr&Barr, 1989). Being a quite traditional way of organizational management it proves to be the most widespread despite popular management manuals and reviews acclamation for the lack of the efficiency and flexibility. Many organizations that have initially adopted a very innovative and flexible approach with time tend to turn into more traditional organizational structures as they reach a certain level of growth. The larger the organization, the more it tends to become bureaucratic. NF organizations and SP organizations are found very few. The characteristics for the NF and SP organizations can be found under NF and SP leader temperament. These types of the organizations rarely reach the large dimensions and survive in the crude and pragmatic environment.

MBTI and Building Teams

MBTI - provides developed systems and approaches in building effective teams. it has been used widely to help developing and streamlining the existing teams and organization. The Type system of personality assessment is based on four basic aspects of human personality:

Dimension of interaction with the world and direction of one’s energy;

Dimension of the kind and the way of the information collection;

Dimension of the way one’s makes decisions;

Dimension of the life style preference: structural or spontaneous;

a. Dimension of interaction with the world and direction of one’s energy E (extraversion) or I (Introversion). Dimension of interaction with the world: E (extraversion) or I (Introversion). Everyone’s personality falls onto one side – extraversion – or the other side – introversion – of this dimension, which is called preference. In reality one uses both sides in daily life, but a person has innate preference for one of the sides.

The concept of “extraversion” and “introversion” describes how we live in the world outside ourselves and in the world inside ourselves. Each of us has a natural preference for either the outer or inner world, although by necessity, we all function in both. Functioning in our preferred world energizes us; functioning in the opposite world is more difficult and can be tiring. Those who prefer the outer world are Extraverts and those who prefer the inner world are Introverts.

b. Dimension of the kind and the way of the information collection S (Sensation) or N (iNtuition). The second dimension concerns the kind of information one naturally notices. Some people focus on “what is” while others focus on “what could be”. These approaches are fundamentally different.

The perceiving functions: sensation and intuition. The letter S stands for sensations and the letter N stands for intuition. These two functions are in conflict with each other. That is, they cannot be used at the same time. Types who prefer sensation generally focus on direct sensory experience. This type is aware of appearances, facts and details and their surroundings have a direct impact on them. Types who prefer intuition generally ignore the material surface of things and consider the larger picture. This type is interested in meaning and future possibility, not facts and details. Intuitive maybe so focused on a situations potential that people of this type overlook present obstacles.

c. Dimension of the way one’s makes decisions F (Feeling) of T (Thinking). The judging functions are thinking and feeling. The third letter is T or F stands for thinking or feeling which is known as the judging functions. When one use Thinking he organizers his behavior in terms of general impersonal predictability: rules, laws, principles logical or numerical sequence, definition, hierarchy and so forth. When one uses Feeling he organizes his behavior in terms of specific personal criteria: the signs and rituals that convey shared beliefs, values, moral sensibilities, identification with others and social relationships.

d. Dimension of the life style preference: structural or spontaneous P (Perceiving) or J (Judging). The fourth dimension of the information perception: P (Perceiving) or J (Judging). They tell which of these two functions one uses in the relations to the external conditions. P-types like to live in a spontaneous way and are happiest when their lives are flexible. They have a perceiving attitude and like to stay open to all kinds of possibilities. Perceivers seek to understand live rather than control it. J-types are called judgers, tend to live in an orderly way and are happiest when their lives are structured and matters and settled. They have judging attitudes and like to make decisions. Judgers seek to regulate and control life. Judgers are not necessarily judgmental; they just like to have issues resolved.

None of the two organizational types could be considered ideal as no ideal personality type exist. One has to be are of the specific situation, organization scope and the specific environment organization operates to understand what would be the most efficient and specific type is the most appropriate for the organization. Below is a review of the strengths and weakness of the different types based on (Barr&Barr, 1989)

Research Methodology

There are several types of methodology used in this research. The collected data and information from several sources. It combined the qualitative research collection through interviews of the people in the organization, information collected from discussions with an organization’s leadership, program coordinator and the staff, collection of MBTI tests from all organization employees and persons in the recruitment process. Once the data has been collected, they have been interpreted against the organization effectiveness and efficiency. Below sample organization’s MBTI representation is shown based on the collected data from a sample organization with the Personality Type, frequency of its appearance, codified with capital letter A or B, depending on the team within the organization, and a number specifying number of team members.

Table 1. Sample organization’s MBTI Representation

Systematization of the collected data along the temperaments and extraversion-introversion duality is provided for the analysis of the results.

Table 2. Organization Introverts-extraverts proportion, Temperaments’ representation

Analysis of Results

Sample organization has 2 NTJ, 1NFP, 2 SFP, 3 STJ, 4 SFJ types. The team is outbalanced by ST(F)J type in both Team A and Team B. The team has strong delivery capacity and productivity. The team does not use efficiently NTJ type member A5. In conclusion the team tends to STJ style, however in practice the very active role of the sample organization’s leader with strong NTJ shapes the more active and innovative organization. As a recommendation, the team should better make use of existing NTJ of member A5 or when vacancy appear, a person with N preference is hired.

STJ organizations. The primary theme of the STJ organization is hierarchy. Authority, title and status delineate the structure around which other dynamics in the organization moves. The core values of the organizations are: respect your boss; observe the chain of command; follow standard operating procedures; control decisions and interactions by policy and procedure; pay your duties before moving up in the hierarchy; take only carefully calculated risks within the structure; make contributions clearly measurable in a competitive area.

The organization’s characteristics reveal many ill-suited facets to deal with the today’s volatile and rapidly changing environment. STJ organization is very traditional with strong values for the conservatism and stabilization. With change and unpredictability, the question of the survivability of the STJ organization and its productivity as well as cost-efficiency is always critical and hard to achieve. STJ organizations appeared work well in a more stable world that operated at a slower pace.

The STJ management role is usually the dominant controller of work. The work is merely emphasized rather than the worker, which is a part of the hierarchical scheme. The focus is on the work and the roles required completing. Individuals are valued as much as the role they play in work accomplishment. STJ organization favors employees for their loyalty, responsibility, preferring down-to-earth, economical solutions and fast turnaround. STJ organizations have many string points as the ability to uniformly and comprehensively implement the task until the job is finished. At the same time STJ organizations and STJ managers have a set of negative possibilities. The possibility to get stuck in a set of a preference without thorough development finds itself in a dysfunctional managerial form. The danger of a managerial style being reinforced by the same organizational structure is the false encouragement to the manager to be satisfied with the STJ style that is not enough for the challenge.

NTJ organizations. NTJ type organizations are another organization personality type. The experience shows that there are more NTJ leaders at the top of the organizations but the organizations are STJ-dominant organizations. NTJ type organizations are not that widespread. The larger the organization it is more likely to adopt STJ type like of personality as it requires rely on the procedures, chain of command, multiple policies and rules. The NTJ organization drives itself to grow and develop. It must be creative in its effort to maintain the leading edge in innovative programming; it does continuous planning for organizational change to meet future needs. This type organization is finding itself well suited to today’s ambiguous business climate.

NTJ organization is continuously innovating. The driving force of the organization is improvement. The type values originality, creativity and the new things of doing things. The mission is more important than anything else. The NTJ organization is driven by a vision of the ideal system and seeks continuously to develop prototypes, pilots and models throughout the organization that are conceptually harmonious with that vision. The NTJ organization uses creativity, uniqueness, applicability and status as their criteria. NTJ management style tend to be impatient to standard operating procedures, slow progress and failure to learn from errors, has great ability to stand alone and move forward a vision. Strengths could be easily become weaknesses when losing the ability to interpret objectively the data that challenges that vision. NTJ managers have to work hard to develop their sensing, feeling, perceiving skills and are to develop a more balanced approach. MBTI team theory suggests that sample organization should have the so called “NTJ” style of work. This style best suits the innovative and highly organized in delivery team focused on the opportunities. “NTJ” style is opposed to “STJ” style that suits best to the team with high execution ability focused on the present in a relatively stable environment.

The numeric dominance of the ST type is expressed by the fact that the organization has developed a whole system of bureaucracy and procedures that have not remained unfelt by the people in the organization as audit shows. At the same time, people express the general impression of the organization as a constantly moving entity that from time to time makes real changes.

Conclusions and Suggestion for Further Research

From the analysis and findings of the study on testing Psychological type of all members of the organization suggest that there is some important contribution that a Personality type can make to the field of organizational development. A general look from the individuals and teams, from the organization suggests that great success results in being aware of the strengths and weaknesses associated with the Psychological type, finding the right profession that is compatible with the individual allowing to do what they do best, and conferring an advantage in the recruitment and selection process. By using the Psychological Type of Personality, interpersonal communication can be more effective, conflict situations in the organization can be resolved more quickly, and work can be done more easily. The Personality type can help managers better understand who the people are, what they do well and what they do not do. It is a good useful tool, but it is not entirely responsible for the actions because there are many other factors involved.

One line of farther research is the comparative analysis of the Type distinguished organizations against the same or similar objectives are carried out.

Bibliography