CATEGORIZING PERSONALITIES into types—an activity called “typology”—has been embraced by major civilizations since ancient times. For more than twenty centuries, scientists and scholars have recognized that, while individual people are unique, there are predictable patterns of human behavior. Around 400 B.C. the Greeks, most notably Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen, believed human behaviors fell into four groups, or “humors”—sanguine, melancholic, phlegmatic, and choleric.1
In the 1920s the pioneering Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung, who had been a favorite student of Freud’s,2 split away and developed his own typology. According to Jung, human beings’ four ways of intersecting with reality were thinking, feeling, sensation, and intuition, which he outlined in his book Psychological Types, published in 1921. He called these the four “functions.”
Jung spent most of his life studying how people are similar and different. He concluded that certain inborn or early-emerging preferences become the steadfast core of our likes and dislikes about other humans and the physical world. He further described each of these functions as being used in either the outer or inner world and hence in different ways, concluding that each person has one of eight mental processes as the most preferred or dominant.
Jung’s theories were very abstract. Fortunately, in the 1940s, a mother and daughter team would begin to provide a practical key to unlocking his work. These two U.S. women, Isabel Myers and her mother Katharine Briggs, individually and together would spend the next forty years testing Jung’s ideas by observing the people around them. They quantified their observations, then rigorously tested and validated them. They created the most extensively tested personality typing system ever developed, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® Inventory (MBTI® assessment)3, which to date has been administered to more than 50 million people worldwide.
In the 1950s, another typology enthusiast, David Keirsey, did work that overlaid the Greek humors onto the Jungian/Myers-Briggs types. In his book Please Understand Me, he outlined four temperament groups, which serve as the basis of the Color Q model in this book. Since then his work has been expanded by his longtime student Linda Berens, president of Inter-strength™ Associates, who continues to provide a rich array of new insights.
Today, work on the MBTI is continued by the next generation, Peter and Katharine Myers, co-trustees of the MBTI Trust. Katharine D. Myers, whose work with the instrument began in 1942, became the first President of APT, the Association for Psychological Type, the leading membership organization of the “type” community. Twenty years later the Myers’ strong sense of stewardship remains in evidence. They are mentors to those seeking new insights and applications. The aspirations of young people and their career satisfaction is an area of ongoing interest. Peter Myers is Chairman of the Myers-Briggs Foundation and continues to develop the work of his mother Isabel Myers by promoting new research and keeping the assessment on the cutting edge. He believes the most important contribution of the Myers-Briggs model is the insight that “successful human endeavor results from the development of effective perception and decision-making,” emphasizing once again that understanding and working with one’s own natural preferences, regardless of what they are, creates success.
“The Jungian model is an excellent nonthreatening tool for developing career goals,” said Katharine Myers in a recent interview. “Extensive research shows that certain types more than others are drawn to each career. However, since every type is found in every field, no one should be told not to go into any specific career. If an individual is strongly drawn to a profession, he or she needs to be clear on the tasks inherent in the job and then evaluate what their skills will contribute.” It is not uncommon for people to create special niches in areas dominated by other types.
Myers is a Green, as defined Chapter 5. And like many in her group she excels at fostering the growth of others. “My passion for what I do is so great that I’m still working at 80, which I never planned to do,” she says.
Meanwhile, modern brain imaging technology has validated many of MBTI’s theories by showing how chemicals and activity in different parts of the brain impact behavior. Most importantly, it has been demonstrated that Jung was indeed correct. While each person is unique, there is a part of them—a core, if you will—that is solid and steady. It is that core that the MBTI, and the Color Q system, define and apply to a multitude of life issues.
I developed Color Q as a quick introduction to the concepts of “personality typing” and the more complex Myers-Briggs model. When running team-building and leadership seminars for my corporate clients like ABN AMBO, Northern Trust, Merrill Lynch, The U.S. Treasury, and Prudential Insurance, I also began to ask participants to fill out an investment questionnaire. From this pool of knowledge emerged the Money Q profiles, which explain how different personality types approach money and compensation. Several results of this proprietary research are presented in Chapter 27, which sheds light on how different individuals approach the financial negotiation aspects of their job search.
1www.ancienthistory.about.com/cs/hippocrates/a/hippocraticmeds.htm?rd=1
2Norman Winski, Understanding Jung (Los Angeles: Sherbourne Press, 1971), p. 10.
3Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and MBTI® are trademarks of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Trust in the United States and other countries.