Personality Blog

There’s a (very) old saying: “When we meet someone we form an impression in the first few seconds,” I guess we’ve all heard that and it’s pretty scary. However when we hear the full quote it is even scarier:

When we meet someone we form an impression in the first few seconds, then we spend the rest of the time justifying it.

How scary is that, and how does it work? Well our brains want us to be right and so when we make that initial connections and form an opinion, our brain searches out evidence to prove that we were indeed correct in our assumption.

So for example if I am interviewing someone for a job and they walk into the room and I (totally subconsciously) believe they are aggressive then I will, (again totally subconsciously) phrase my questions in such a way that the other person will give aggressive responses thereby proving I’m right.

Because their best work usually occurs more behind the scenes as they don’t really like the limelight, ISFJs are often the unsung heroes. They work systematically and assiduously a rare combination of caring and detailed and they are often the protectors making sure the routine is taken care of and that what has been agreed is delivered, on time, exactly as agreed and without fuss. Once they have ‘bought in’ ISFJs will work incredibly hard in the background, often unnoticed by the rest of the team, to make sure that things work and hang together for everyone.

Caring and sensitive to how other people are feeling, ISFJs are superb at remembering names and faces and specific facts, (including those who have offended them), which they store in the pristine filing cabinets inside their heads. They can then draw all these strands together into a plan, which they will quietly carry out to completion ensuring every ‘i’ is dotted and ‘t’ crossed. 

The most misunderstood element of personality is the Thinking vs Feeling scale. The traditional view is that Thinkers are logical and Feelers are emotional. OK this may be true, but it does not begin to even scratch the surface of the real differences.

Even Jung, who coined the term conceded:

…I freely admit that this problem of feeling has been one that has caused me much brain racking.

So if Jung struggled what chance do the rest of us have? Well we think that Feeling types often get a bad press, as they are more tactful, more in tune and more concerned about the impact on people than their Thinking opposites. So the view is often expressed that Feelers are ‘soft.’ One HR Director I know well always fakes his assessments so that he records as ENTP because he truly believes that being seen as an ENFP may well be career limiting! 

I met with my friend Gary last Thursday for a coffee and catch up. We were really pleased to see each other. We caught up on what’s happening, had a really warm chat about things and then something strange happened as we got down to work. He got out a notepad which had a list of items and said: “OK this is what I’d like to get out of this meeting, what do you want to cover.” Me: “I don’t know, I hadn’t thought about it!” And do you know what the difference was? Yep, Judging vs Perceiving. He needed a list and a plan, and I wanted to just see where it would go.

In the workplace there is often a misalignment between Js and Ps. Unlike Extraversion vs Introversion, which now gets a lot of airtime, has heaps of books and articles written about it and which is probably easier to ‘get,’ the J-P scale can cause friction between those who need to create a plan and stick to it, and those who prefer to see how it all unfolds.