Practical ideas for facilitating workshops & people development

Posts tagged ‘MBTI’

Personality Types again

This blog brings us back to the discussion about personality types in facilitation and workshops. We are up to discussing the Feeling/Thinking dichotomy in Myers Briggs which is how we make decisions.

Thinking (T) types make decisions more logically and analytical, focusing on facts – they can appear critical. Feeling (F) types take into consideration their values and beliefs and the impacts on people in their decisions.

As a T, it wasn’t until I co-facilitated with an F several years ago that I realised I didn’t do a very good job of catering for F types. This wonderful woman looked after the comforts in the workshop, she focused on lollies, food, water on the tables, making the environment as comfortable as possible – all common sense I know but what I noticed was the way she went about it.

She also was fantastic at hosting people as they arrived, ensuring they were introduced to someone and felt welcomed into the training room. I watched and learnt from her warm friendly approach.Years later we were complimented by a workshop attendee about how comfortable she felt when arriving at one of our training events, something she told us, wasn’t wasn’t common for her.

The theory of MBTI refers to F children who don’t like the teacher having trouble learning and how T types look for competence in the teacher. In adult education this reminds us of the importance of establishing competence with our group as well as making them feel comfortable.

T’s like to know the person in front has the skills, qualifications, experience and credibility to be facilitating or delivering on a topic. Once you have established competence they are more open to learning and enjoy debating and analysing information.

Finally I have found F types are very good at “picking up on” emotions in others including myself as the facilitator.  Be careful about your own projections – leave your emotional baggage at the door and be there 100% for the participants.

Next week I will focus on the final dichotomy – Judging and Perceiving.

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Workshops with Wow

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Personality type and facilitation

This post follows the theme of my last post “Facilitation begins with you” understanding yourself and your style when facilitating.

In the last blog I focused on VARK as a model this time I start personality types. I like to use the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI). It is more complicated than many other simple types with only four quadrants however it provides a more in-depth understanding – particularly if like me you don’t fit easily into one of the quadrants.

I am an INTJ – in simple terms an introvert, big picture, logical and organised person. What do I need to consider as a facilitator when working with different types?

As an introvert I need some time out to rebuild my energy levels. Lots of interaction can be tiring to an introvert as compared to an extravert who gains energy from other people. When I’m facilitating I see this as an opportunity to practice being my opposite and many people in the group are often surprised to find out my type.

To manage this I need to give myself time out if possible in the breaks and especially at the end of the day if the workshop is for two days. I don’t facilitate for more than 2 days in a row and I make sure I get plenty of rest between workshops.

Co-facilitating works well for me as it gives some break time during the workshop to build up my energy.

Introverts also like to think before they speak – this can be challenging when you are the deliverer and another reason while I prefer a facilitative approach compared to deliverer. As the facilitator I draw on the experiences of the individuals in the group to answer questions from the floor – “What do members of the group think about that?” is a great way to deflect the question, buy some thinking time and draw on all of the vast experiences of the adults in the room.

Keep in mind the “think before speak” and provide time for the introverts to think about answers before group input  – they prefer not to be put on the spot unless it’s a topic they are knowledgable about.

My next blog will focus on the S/N (detail vs big picture) dichotomy in MBTI.

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