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What's INTJ, and what has it got to do with IT?
As TR member AmericanVoter reminded me in a comment to a previous post, not everyone in the world knows about the Jung Typology and the derived MBTI personality tests.
Famed psychologist Carl Jung developed a theory of psychology types, known generally as Jung Typology. This begins with some general statements about how people's personalities can be described by classifying them according to categories of psychological characteristics. For instance, most of the rambling that goes on in common parlance about "introverts" and "extroverts" arises from Jung's uses of the terms, though most people misuse them terribly. Also important in Jung Typology are four modes of experience that bear the labels Thought, Feeling, Sensation, and Intuition. These have been grouped in opposed pairs, where Thought and Feeling are opposite sides of one coin, and where Sensation and Intuition are opposite sides of another. To these three (including Introversion/Extroversion) was another pairing added, consisting of Judging and Perceiving.
These four opposed pairs are assembled into a letter-code personality classification that makes up the basis of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is in turn used as the set of metrics on which many personality tests are designed. I've taken a few, and I tend to vary somewhat between two results: I'm always either an INTJ or an INTP, depending on the test and, I imagine, my mood and current personality traits. I score INTJ rather more often than INTP, and as such tend to occasionally refer to myself as an INTj, indicating a less strong attachment to the J than the other three letters in that label.
If you've been paying attention, you might by now have guessed that INTJ means I'm Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging, primarily (though the Judging might by some measures and at some times actually be replaced by Perceiving). The INT personality types are the analytical types, and among INTs the J-types are more the qualitative variety and P-types are more the quantitative variety. In other words, INTJs are big on analyzing for value, and INTPs are big on analyzing for details. I do quite a bit of each, but for me the details of a thing are (usually) primarily useful as a means to the end, that being evaluation.
Being an INTJ suits me well as a consultant. So, too, would INTP. While INTP is probably best suited to technology implementation once all the major decisions are made, INTJ is probably best suited to making those decisions, and in advising others on the making of such decisions. In addition to having the personality type suited to that kind of work, I'm also rather intelligent. No false modesty here: I know my limitations, and to some degree I also know my strengths, and don't feel like pretending they don't exist for humility's sake.
INTs tend to make the best programmers, and Js and Ps each have their own strengths within that. They're synthesists, good at taking a series of preexisting parts and assembling them into something new and useful. They're not, however, usually the best salesmen, and that failing is one that I suffer quite notably. This is one reason I work better for a consultancy than as a consultant on my own: I'm no extrovert, which is where real sales talent lies. I rather suspect that the best salesmen are ENTJs, and that the best chairmen of the board are ENTPs, but don't quote me on that (without including disclaimers that it's just wild speculation on my part).
There is some speculation about the actual validity of the MBTI tests, including the official MBTI test whose trademark is owned by a trust that exists for that purpose, if I'm not mistaken. There are a great many copy-cat tests out there, however, which seem to be able to get away with it by virtue of the fact that the MBTI itself is derived from the theories of Carl Jung. These copycat tests are of varying worth, and when I say that I've taken many MBTI-based tests, I don't know how many were copycats and how many were officially sanctioned derivatives of the MBTI itself (though I know that at least one was just a copycat, and am not at all sure that any were "official" MBTI tests).
Here's an MBTI-like test for you:
Human Metrics Jung Typology Test
Famed psychologist Carl Jung developed a theory of psychology types, known generally as Jung Typology. This begins with some general statements about how people's personalities can be described by classifying them according to categories of psychological characteristics. For instance, most of the rambling that goes on in common parlance about "introverts" and "extroverts" arises from Jung's uses of the terms, though most people misuse them terribly. Also important in Jung Typology are four modes of experience that bear the labels Thought, Feeling, Sensation, and Intuition. These have been grouped in opposed pairs, where Thought and Feeling are opposite sides of one coin, and where Sensation and Intuition are opposite sides of another. To these three (including Introversion/Extroversion) was another pairing added, consisting of Judging and Perceiving.
These four opposed pairs are assembled into a letter-code personality classification that makes up the basis of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, which is in turn used as the set of metrics on which many personality tests are designed. I've taken a few, and I tend to vary somewhat between two results: I'm always either an INTJ or an INTP, depending on the test and, I imagine, my mood and current personality traits. I score INTJ rather more often than INTP, and as such tend to occasionally refer to myself as an INTj, indicating a less strong attachment to the J than the other three letters in that label.
If you've been paying attention, you might by now have guessed that INTJ means I'm Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging, primarily (though the Judging might by some measures and at some times actually be replaced by Perceiving). The INT personality types are the analytical types, and among INTs the J-types are more the qualitative variety and P-types are more the quantitative variety. In other words, INTJs are big on analyzing for value, and INTPs are big on analyzing for details. I do quite a bit of each, but for me the details of a thing are (usually) primarily useful as a means to the end, that being evaluation.
Being an INTJ suits me well as a consultant. So, too, would INTP. While INTP is probably best suited to technology implementation once all the major decisions are made, INTJ is probably best suited to making those decisions, and in advising others on the making of such decisions. In addition to having the personality type suited to that kind of work, I'm also rather intelligent. No false modesty here: I know my limitations, and to some degree I also know my strengths, and don't feel like pretending they don't exist for humility's sake.
INTs tend to make the best programmers, and Js and Ps each have their own strengths within that. They're synthesists, good at taking a series of preexisting parts and assembling them into something new and useful. They're not, however, usually the best salesmen, and that failing is one that I suffer quite notably. This is one reason I work better for a consultancy than as a consultant on my own: I'm no extrovert, which is where real sales talent lies. I rather suspect that the best salesmen are ENTJs, and that the best chairmen of the board are ENTPs, but don't quote me on that (without including disclaimers that it's just wild speculation on my part).
There is some speculation about the actual validity of the MBTI tests, including the official MBTI test whose trademark is owned by a trust that exists for that purpose, if I'm not mistaken. There are a great many copy-cat tests out there, however, which seem to be able to get away with it by virtue of the fact that the MBTI itself is derived from the theories of Carl Jung. These copycat tests are of varying worth, and when I say that I've taken many MBTI-based tests, I don't know how many were copycats and how many were officially sanctioned derivatives of the MBTI itself (though I know that at least one was just a copycat, and am not at all sure that any were "official" MBTI tests).
Here's an MBTI-like test for you:
Human Metrics Jung Typology Test
Posted by apotheon
Updated - 24th May 2005
