Systems Thinking and Personality Types LO22586

Chuck Saur (csaur@remc8.k12.mi.us)
Wed, 08 Sep 1999 13:56:09 -0400

Replying to LO22555 --

Hello List!

This is a very important topic to me. I have a son who has some
"technical difficulties" from severe cerebral palsy. He has appeared on
this list previously. The web, and particularly this list is a wonderful
vehicle...

Our efforts to continuously resist efforts to categorize and treat
accordingly this category called cerebral palsy has led to observation of
other instances where classification for convenience seems inappropriate.
I believe these efforts simply permeate everywhere. And we make alot of
money from creating new ones...

I had a chance to work in a corporate setting where personality type
testing attained a cult-ish level of not only categorical separation; but
in-category affiliation. The best example is when a new CEO came on board
and the management group spent a great amount of time trying to assess
whether or not this person was an "ENTJ or a INTJ...whattya think?"

When it was finally revealed that this new CEO was of "some stereotypic
CEO intuitive- type", the affiliate group rejoiced and the non-affiliated
group hunkered down to resist a series of perceived problematic changes
and shifts.

Is this the intent of such a categorization? (grin)

My greatest fear lies in the intent of any intentional categorization
first, and then even more importantly, the unintended, human tendancy to
think and judge people solely on abstractions and the abstraction-based
criteria that happens in a millisecond (whether we like to face that fact
or not).

The testing and questioning of our assumptions becomes something that can
be learned, and seems antithetical to the creation of personality
typography. But for many, stopping short of understanding our underlying
mechanisms through the utilization of that oversimplification (personality
typing) seems to suffice. Too bad. We're missing the point...

Thanks for allowing my ire to show...

Best wishes.

-- 

Chuck Saur <csaur@remc8.k12.mi.us>

Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>