Palliative care takes a special kind of person. Imagine stepping into this role with someone in your social circle.

Recently I spoke with a woman who commented that she had just come from the last visit with a woman who she had been caring for for the last 6 months. That wasn’t her career and she hadn’t even started out as a best friend, but here she was saying goodbye to someone important in her life.

Granted she had skills that allowed her to do this work as a caregiver. She had been a nurse and is a trained coach working in the education system with families. However what was amazing to me was the combination of practicality and compassion that went hand in hand in her approach.

Understandably the family of the woman who was dying were in a state of confusion and denial. Part of what this ESFJ offered to them was being able to see through the overwhelm to know what needed to be done not only in the moment but for the next steps. The suggestions she made provided organized, well thought through information with concrete steps that were easily achievable. The family came to trust her open and compassionate guidance. Plus it gave them something to do to feel somewhat in control.

ESFJ’s supply warmth and are a steadying influence. They work well in systems and/or teams as they create collaborative environments where the practical needs of all concerned are top of mind.

What was most evident to me was the value in the simple act of daily conversation. These two women talked from the heart about what was wanting to be said…no holding back…no being afraid to go to all of the scary places.

Perhaps other types can also bring this level of heart and hand but this ESFJ has my vote for getting her angel wings.

My house is as close to picture perfect as I am going to get it in preparation for listing it for sale. It has been close to this state many times when I have hosted art shows as part of the local art tour. However for all those years, chotchkies, clutter, all extraneous items were shoved into boxes and stashed in rooms behind closed doors. The thing is when you sell your house people look in all those favourite hiding places, and they see if you have organized and aesthetically pleasing inner spaces.

It has taken me a month to purge and tidy. My whole art studio got shipped to the garage at the cottage, the potters wheel and massage table from various past lives were sold on Craigslist, an account was opened at the Elegant Garage Sale to move the “good” stuff and the Goodwill graciously took the ordinary stuff. Every nook and cranny has been emptied, sorted, purged, cleaned and returned to shelves straightened and colour co-ordinated.

This is soooooo not me. The biggest consequence of working on this month’s never-ending “to do” list is the huge energy drain. Details are not in any description of my ENFP type except to say “AVOIDS them.” I prefer keeping things open and fluid with just enough order to get things accomplished. A little chaos feels creative and a lot of order feels restrictive to me if truth be told.

While being focused on creating order (perfection) for these last 30 days I have created an neat-freak monster as I now go around measuring the bottoms of the towels hanging in the bathrooms, smoothing the linen on the bed to Architectural Digest standards, and adjusting the louvers on all 9 windows so they line up with military precision.

How about you? Can you think of areas at home or at work where you feel drained? Could any of this energy depletion result from operating against your natural preferred way of being? I will be thrilled to see the SOLD sign go up relieving me from this tidy hell.

The best negotiations occur when the goal is a WIN for both parties. Nevertheless when you arrange to speak second you understand the territory better and can make a more strategic offer. No use giving away the farm (or castle).

Do you think negotiating is easier for some types than others? What is your best advice?

Sometimes people find other people too loud, too enthusiastic, too assertive or conversely too quiet, too dull or too timid.

“So what?” you may ask.

If you are trying to influence another to accept your ideas or buy your services too much of anything can become a “deal breaker.” The unfortunate part is that these opinions about your “worthiness” are arrived at in a split second.

But what can we do with feedback that says we are “too” of anything?

My take is that we are who we are for the most part so transformation from one end of the spectrum to the other is something that has a one in a million chance of happening and sticking. Polishing the stone, enhancing what we have, tweaking what needs tweaking is something to aspire to and is a sign of our maturity and attainment of a modicum of grace.

A personal example… In earlier days when I was studying NLP it came to my attention that I often used “distractor” patterns in my communication. In my case this meant hand gestures that were closer to flailing than firm decisive gestures and hemming and hawing patterns in my speech. Think of the kinds of things you might see and hear from a young teenager. What may be cute and disarming in 14 year old loses more and more of its charm with each decade.

What changes did I make?

These patterns may still surface from time to time but I learned to focus on others in order to stop this behaviour that was fueled by self-consciousness. When I shift my energy and attention to watching the sensory cues of others all of my attention and intention is about them getting the results they want and need. The net result was that I automatically slowed down and calmed down my speech and movements. It was more about turning down the volume on what wasn’t working and turning up the volume on what would work better.

Do you have a focus on improvement? Are you trying to “fix” or “polish”?

Question:

I was wondering if you could give any advice on the best way to become a Personality Type professional?

An answer that is 100% opinion:

Hmmmm… this question brings even more questions to mind.

• Why? What is important to you about this?
• Is a singular focus such as type professional even a viable option in this day of shrinking training dollars?
• If the MBTI, for example,  is a tool, what is the ideal context for someone to invest in developing themselves in this area through training?

My thinking on this is that the MBTI or DISC or Enneagram or Social Styles or Insights  are all wonderful tools that are adjunct to other areas of expertise. In an organizational setting for example these tools can be of value for team building and / or for leadership development. The question I have is what else do you need to bring to the table in order to facilitate this kind of experience so that the corporate sponsor gets the benefit from their investment. It seems to me that it is a challenge to rely on knowledge of a tool alone. These tools are best used in context. If you have experience working in an HR capacity or as a consultant or coach with additional experience working in organizational settings and in training design, then you begin to have something to bring to the table. It is a hard “go” to come armed only with an assessment tool and have someone recognize that or you as a solution to a current problem.

Having laid out my cautionary message, if you are truly interested in any of these tools, I would recommend immersion until you have ownership of the theory combined with a long list of experiences using the tool with others. It takes time and experience to see that how something may appear to be in written form often takes on a different flavour in the nuanced world of real life. Once you have ownership of one tool you may see that there is another assessment that will compliment the work that you are doing and the needs of your clients: for instance, I  found that using the MBTI together with the Hay Group’s Emotional Competency Inventory provides a solid platform to support leadership development.

For every type tool there will be a training that suits your needs best. Some things to consider are reputation, location, advanced training and support as well as cost of the training organization you are considering..  Since I am a Canadian, I often make decisions based on what is offered in Canada and whether I prefer what is available  in the US.  (e.g. this would be Psychometrics for the MBTI and a trip to an Enneagram teacher of choice to the US.) This is partially personal preference as well as what fits the needs of your clients. If you collaborate with other professionals who LOVE and use DISC with their clients, you might want to consider how much work you will be doing together and the value of having a common language.  Research your options by talking to the people you wish to collaborate with, by researching what is already in place in the organizations you work for or hope to work with. Finally investigate the trainings offered by the publishers of the tool that interests you, find out about other specialized training organizations that may offer training (I am thinking here of  the great work done by Otto Kroeger Associates) and type specific associations such as the Association for Psychological Type International.

Do you describe yourself as a Personality Type Professional? What is your experience and recommendation?