When only the glib win, we all lose

Creating Passionate Users: When only the glib win, we all lose is well written and illustrated (in the great style that Kathy Sierra always uses.

As with some of the commentors I think this matches personality types with Myers Briggs pretty well.

In particular I suspect that the key factor is Extraverts vs Introverts. According to the research we were told when I last took this there is a much higher % of Extraverts in the US than there is in the UK.

In the US something over 60% are extravert which puts the intoverts in a minority situation.  If you also have a business culture dominated by the need for early closure (J in Myers Briggs) then you can easily see the glib being very powerful.

One area where I do disagree slightly is on the emphasis, particularly in some of the comments on improving the communication skills of the non glib. To me this sounds like the Extraverts telling the Introverts that to be heard you need to become like us. That does not seem like a good idea as then you get even more glib people, many of whom are struggling to be glib and therefore are not bringing out their best thinking. However, there are some useful strategies in there for increasing thinking time in there and for interjecting in slightly more introvert friendly ways.

Interesting to see this just after Sally wrote Eternal Echoes: Embracing what God does- living as a member of the Body of Christ which is addressing similar issues in Church life.

Comments

[Sally]

Interesting post Dave, I am deffinetly one of lifes introverts, I am not a quick responder and need time to take stuff away and think it through before I comment, If I don't do this I tend to make flipant comments and am labeled as an idiot, or shallow. It took me a while to learn that it was OK not to respond quickly and that I could raise a concern over an issue and ask for time think on it and make a response...it is something that may well work in church circles where it would not be acceptable in most buisness environments...however in our mad world the oposite has been known!!!

[Pam]

Interesting article. Maybe you are more au fait with Myers Briggs than I am, but are you sure this is an extravert/intravert problem? Isn't that about whether one gets one's energy by being with people or by being alone?

It sounds to me like a sensing/intuitive difference and then possibly a judging/perceiving thing. I recognise 'I have a gut feeling that something's wrong' and I'm fairly certain that's an 'intuitive' function. If one is a P on top of that and can't make decisions quickly, then one will be in a soup.

I reckon that ESTJs rule in the business world. I was lucky to work in an environment where intuition was valued and where a person's intuition was respected when they'd built up a good track-record of smelling the sh*t. I reckon that female INFPs (that's not me, by the way) probably don't get heard much at all.

[DaveW]

Look at all these people who are supposed to be writing essays and instead are writing comments or extra posts on their blogs! :-)

Pam, Yes Extravert/Intravert is about energy but also about "preferred focus is on other people and things" compared to "preferred focus is on one's own thoughts and ideas" (from the wikipedia page linked to above).

ESTJ is also my best guess of the glib sterotype, but at only 8.7% of the population there must be other combinations too. The Extravert/Introvert axis seemed to fit the comments being made better than most.

Sally, Intention is all in these things. Within the Church and elsewhere we need to be intentional about the way we involve people, it does not reliably happen by accident. However, the majority of Clergy are introverted so maybe they should understand this issue - if we were not all taken over by the power of our positions that is.

As someone who is also flippant and shallow I am grateful that my role is not to point to self but to Christ who is neither flippant nor shallow (but does have a "wicked" sense of humour).