Creating Peak Performance Strategies for Individuals, Teams and Organisations

 Click here to visit

businessdecisions.png 




MBTI verses LIFOŽ

Less Typecasting and More Behavioural Change


Styles-based instruments are popular training tools because they reduce the complexities of human behaviour down to a manageable number of "types" or "styles." They give people a feeling of quick insight into themselves and others. They provide a common language for talking about similarities and differences.  Yet some of the best learning possibilities inherent in these instruments are often overlooked. And sometimes these instruments actually reinforce stereotypes that limit our understanding of people.


Personality Types versus Strategies for Change

Most styles-based instruments are based on the assumption that differences in behaviour arise from different personality types.  This belief can be a barrier to behavioural change because a personality "type" is fixed -- it is not subject to choice or change. People say to themselves, "If that is the way that I am, if that's me, why should I change?" They may even wonder, "How can I change?" Typing people provides them with information about who they are, but it does not offer them guidelines about how to improve their performance.

LIFOŽ Training takes a fundamentally different approach from typing or labelling. It holds that you are not one type or another: it demonstrates that people prefer some behavioural styles more than others. Though it begins with a styles-based instrument, it does not typecast people. The LIFOŽ Survey describes differences in behaviour, rather than perception and judgment as does the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI). People are willing and able to change what they do. Perception and judgment are much less amenable to change.

Changing what people dobeats telling them who they are. 

To support the emphasis on behavioural change, the LIFOŽ style labels end with the suffix, i-n-g. This suggests a process, not a fixed "product." For example, people are described as "preferring the Supporting Giving Style," or "acting in a Supporting Giving way."
 

Preference not Competence

The LIFOŽ styles also describe behavioural preferences, not competencies. Participants are not labelled, judged, or limited by their survey results. Labelling someone with a personality type can become an excuse for substandard performance. ("I'm no good at that -- I'm just not that type of person.")


Freedom from Categorical Judgments

In LIFOŽ training, differences in behaviour are described quantitatively, not qualitatively. There is no reference to good or bad, right or wrong, strong or weak. Qualitative or categorical judgments often lead to oppositional thinking -- "my way" vs. "your way" -- which can promote conflict, impede teamwork, and make people less willing to change their behaviour.

The LIFOŽ survey identifies a person's relative preference for four basic behavioural styles or patterns. Everyone uses all four basic behavioural patterns. They just use them to varying degrees. Of the people taking the LIFOŽ survey, 55% prefer using two styles regularly, while 31% use three styles and 5% use all four styles with about the same frequency. That leaves only 9% preferring to use just one style most of the time.

We are not one style or another - we prefer some styles more than others.  

The MBTI yields a single, four-word "personality type" label, which is a constructed by selecting one word from each of four word pairings—for example, "Extroverted Sensing Thinking Judging." These labels are determined by a process of "semantic differential," in which one rates oneself on a scale with one word at one end of the scale and another word at the other end. MBTI results are represented in terms of the words at the extreme end of the scales, which form either/or categories (such as "introvert vs. extrovert"). The resulting "personality types" do not adequately express the wide range of behaviours in between the two extremes. This approach transforms quantitative differences into categorical differences. With enough training, labels such as these may help people understand themselves better. However, these labels still encourage people to think, "That's just how I am"—reinforcing attitudes that can block real behavioural change. As a result, it can increase communication gaps between people instead of bridging them.


A Quantitative View of Strength Leads to Greater Behavioural Change

In contrast to the categorical labels of the MBTI approach, LIFOŽ theory views behaviour along a continuum, from "too little" at one end to "too much" on the other. The notion is that we all tend to underuse some strengths, and overuse others. Either extreme can make us less effective and can be perceived by others as an irritating weakness.

LIFOŽ training eliminates the concept of personal "weakness," which creates a defensive learning climate. What other people call weaknesses are seen simply as excesses, or strengths carried too far. These excessive behaviours may be unproductive, but they are not "bad" -- they are just "too much of a good thing."

So-called "weaknesses" are simply strengths pushed to excess -

too much of a good thing.

For example, a person may overuse the strength of acting quickly and become impulsive. Another person may overdo the search for excellence and become perfectionistic. The LIFOŽ approach to describing behaviour in strength-based terms allows people to accept developmental goals and receive feedback with a minimum of defensiveness.

LIFOŽ developmental strategies help people identify which strengths they need to use less frequently and which to use more frequently. Workshop participants develop action plans for gradually changing their behavioural patterns so they display just the right amount of the appropriate strengths to accomplish what they want effectively and efficiently. Since almost everyone needs repeated practice to change established habits, this incremental approach makes it easier for participants to progressively master new ways of viewing and responding to people, problems, and situations.

Any approach that is based on categories -- especially personality types -- makes it much harder for people to change their behaviour. Personality theories propose that the way one behaves springs from who one "is." As a consequence, people are likely to feel that in order to change what they do, they have to change who they are. This is of course a recipe for failure.


Strength-Based Feedback Is Easier to Accept

A quantitative view of strength also makes it easier for people to give and to receive constructive feedback. When people are frustrated or irritated by others, they typically use pejorative terms to describe what bothers them: "Bill is domineering," "Sally is stubborn," or "Jeff is aimless." If these kinds of words are used when giving feedback, they trigger defensive reactions and create resistance to change.

In LIFOŽ workshops, participants learn to view unproductive behaviours as the excessive use of productive strengths. A person who comes across as domineering is simply being overly directing, someone who is acting stubbornly is being too steadfast, and someone who appears aimless is too experimental. With this understanding, people learn to give strength-based feedback, in which they recommend that others use a little bit less of some strengths and a little bit more of other strengths. This strength-based feedback is much more likely to be perceived as helpful and supportive. People are therefore more likely to accept and act upon it.

People learn to use a little bit more of some strengths
and a little bit less of other strengths.  

Sixteen Types versus Four Styles

There are sixteen different MBTI personality types. It can be difficult for workshop participants to remember the meaning of each type, let alone understand the differences between them. The complexity of the categories makes it hard for people to learn how to recognize other people's "types" and therefore determine the most effective communication strategies for influencing them. In contrast, there are just four basic LIFOŽ behaviour styles, or orientations to life, which are much easier to remember. This conceptual simplicity follows the psychologist George Kelly's "mini-max" principle: any behavioural construct should include the minimum number of concepts required to explain the maximum range of behaviours.

The simplicity of LIFOŽ theory does not oversimplify the diversity of human behaviour. In fact, it does a far better job of explaining the extraordinary variety of ways that people behave. It does this by identifying a person's relative preference for the four basic LIFOŽ categories under both favourable and unfavourable conditions. Yet the smaller number of concepts makes it easier for participants to learn, remember, and apply the information in practical ways that improve their performance.

The simplicity of LIFOŽ theory encompasses the extraordinarydiversity of human behaviour.

 

LIFOŽ Style Preferences are Situational

The word pairs that form the MBTI semantic differentials are not presented in any context. You simply rate yourself in the abstract. In contrast, the LIFOŽ survey is highly contextual. When taking the survey, you are asked to think of yourself in a particular setting: at work, with your family, or as part of a specific group. The survey itself consists of a series of statements that describe different situations. After reading each statement, you rank four possible reactions according to how likely you are to act that way in that particular situation. The choices that you make are therefore much more concrete -- much more connected to how you actually see yourself responding to people, problems, and situations.

 

People Behave Differently in Different Situations

In contrast to the fixed labels of the MBTI approach, LIFOŽ style preferences are not set in stone. They are dynamic. People use different styles in different contexts and in different relationships. For example, research shows that approximately 50% of the population changes their behavioural patterns in stressful situations. People may also use different styles at home and at work, or with their supervisors and with their co-workers. Any instrument that yields a single "personality type" is therefore inaccurate predictor of how most people will actually behave in the real world.


Half the population behaves differently under stress.


Beyond Diagnosis to Improving Performance

LIFOŽ workbooks, training materials, and performance support tools enable participants to link their LIFOŽ survey results to six performance improvement strategies to attain clearly defined development goals. These materials focus on applying information to improve performance, rather than on information for information's sake or, even worse, labelling people so that their behaviour can be predicted. Predictions tend to be self-fulfilling, and once a person has been labelled, his or her options for behavioural change may actually be reduced instead of expanded.

LIFOŽ training focuses on improving performance, not just diagnosing patterns.


Everyday Language, Practical Focus, and Ease of Administration

LIFOŽ training uses everyday language, free of psychological terms and jargon, making the concepts easy to understand and to discuss. Contrast the LIFOŽ style label "Supporting Giving" with the MBTI label "Introverted Sensing Feeling Judging."

In LIFOŽ workshops participants practice new skills that enhance productivity, communication, and teamwork, and they work together to develop practical action plans to use these skills to attack immediate, real-world problems.


The LIFOŽ instrument can be administered in just 15 to 20 minutes. Workshop participants can tabulate their results in about five minutes. The LIFOŽ survey can also be completed online in advance of a workshop and automatically tabulated, saving valuable classroom time.

Because of its systematic structure and practical focus, LIFOŽ training is easily grasped and immediately useful. It provides a cognitive map for getting through, getting agreement, and getting action from others. Participants learn to give strength-based feedback about behavioural choices and their impact. They learn a language for discussing individual, interpersonal, and team performance issues while respecting diverse values, goals, strengths, and styles.
 

Proven Results with Worldwide Acceptance

LIFOŽ training has benefited over eight million people in more than 20,000 organisations worldwide. It has proved itself to be a valuable part of management and supervisory development with target populations varying widely in educational background, work experience, and organisational position.

 
Multiple Applications

LIFOŽ training is used in numerous applications, including team building, management and supervisory development, leadership training, interpersonal communication, selling styles, and conflict resolution.