In one well known personality test there are 16 major types all of which are regarded as normal and useful in research.
I recall a seminar in which the group activity was to answer a question and take a place in line depending on the answer. One question was this. If a piece of work is due in 3 weeks, and normally takes 2 days to complete when would you start the work? I took my place in line with a colleague near the end that preferred to start as soon as possible and finish early. Then I looked down the line and saw associates including my manager and my assistant at the far end of the line.
With several seminars of different types I came to the opinion that organizations waste most of their resources trying to standardize a personality type that is thought to be appropriate for the work, succeeding by high turnover in selecting personality profiles while failing in research objectives.
The seminars changed my approach to management practice of deciding what needed to be assigned, changed, scheduled, and prioritized.
How Many Personality Types Can A Research Group Use Productively?
My research shows that thinking in terms of personality types makes no sense, it doesn't matter 16 or any other number. I approach personality as a cognitive structure and it's easy to imagine that our cognitive functioning is to complex to derive any personality types. On the top of this, we shouldn't mix personality with other psychological characteristics such as temperament (CNS) or emotions. In managing people we need to consider the fit between psychological characteristics and the job requirements. For example, (in plain language) lazy people (personality) perform better on some jobs than those those on the opposite side of the dimension.
Hi Jerry,
I've researched, taught and practised in the area of psychological/personality types for 30 years. There's been much discussion about types in teams or working groups, but not really about how many different types are viable for an effective group. Partly this has to do with other considerations about the number of people in an effective working group and also the knowledge and expertise of the people in the group.
In any case, the idea is that diversity is better than uniformity, as the latter can lead to group think.
The example you give is one aspect of the different types and deals with different learning and working methods, as well as how to meet deadlines, or complete a task. I'd be at the other end of the line to you for instance, but I meet writing and other deadlines.
It would be very unusual to have the 16 types you mention represented in a particular group: 16 might be a little large on its own, depending on the task. I found that groups of around 8 were easier to teach, but that may not be viable. What you do need is the facilitation skills to manage different perspectives and group members who understand that there can be different ways to complete a task or project, or even parts of them.
I don't know what information you got from your seminars, but I have a couple of papers on this site that can provide a general context if you want to look at those. I can be contacted as well. Hopefully I haven't been too vague, but there is no direct answer to your question.
Hello Peter,
For about 50 years I have studied and practiced group dynamics in management situations, with a large number of examples about normal people. The experience is that groups struggle with differences rather than valuing the unique abilities even when there are no issues of gender, race, or ethnicity.
Most organizations fail in their purposes because of wasted resources attempting to change things that don't need to be changed, and can't be changed. Some groups succeed by focusing on the goals and ignoring other concerns.
Much is said now about focusing on goals to succeed. It is an acceptable way to ignore differences without deployment to maximize results based on understanding of people.
Organizations need exceptional people, but most organizations don't want them because they can't be easily replaced or converted to commodities. Commodities are all alike and interchangeable. People are not like this.
Some organizations have excelled for many years and continue to excel with styles and cultures that do maximize results.
group researh should responsible for all people engage in research that divide works to per person and researchers practice to itself task .if group trust to together better can work and publish good article .
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