Using Temperament Sorters to Improve Negotiations

People often find it hard to understand each other because of their differences. The Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator highlights each individual's valuable differences that result from the way people like to perceive and the way they like to judge. We all see and judge the world and each other through special glasses which have been adjusted by our personal life experiences or training. When people get together and marry, for example, they may be attracted to certain traits, attitudes and behaviors which are opposite their own. They may tend to idealize their mate's differences. Later, when things go sour they may discover those same traits which were originally attractive are now the cause of a divorce. However, their mate may not have changed at all during the marriage. It's the "glasses" which caused the original misunderstanding, but now the beholder has a different, perhaps more experienced viewpoint from which to observe the spouse's originally attractive traits and behaviors. What once was seen as a beautiful, original or ideal trait is now only marginally acceptable, frustrating or even disastrous.

It is possible to focus these "glasses" so that you can better understand yourself and your relationships with others. Much of what attracts or repels you about other persons in your life is the result of your personality preferences. Identifying and understanding how those preferences work, particularly when you are negotiating with a former lover, will improve your negotiating style immeasurably.

So, how do you start? First, you need to identify which of the four basic "attitudes" and "functions" are most dominant in your own life. Answer the questions which follow. By counting the number of statements with which you agree you will begin to see your own preferences beginning to emerge. Then, try to do the same for your mate. You will end up with four letters (E or I, S or F, N or T and J or P) Those constitute the basic Temperament Types. After evolving these four basic types for yourself and for your negotiating partner, look up the characteristics identified at the end of this appendix and see if you fit within the "type". Hopefully, you will have gathered greater understanding about your own style from this exercise.

You may need to take some time to be sure you have properly identified your type and that of your mate. The situation you find yourself in, the distress of separation and divorce, may throw you off a bit in how you self-assess your own temperament. People do change under stress and we do not always remain "true" to our type during periods of great transition. Nor should you make major negotiating decisions based on this sorter alone. The sorter is designed to simply be another powerful negotiating tool to make you aware of and compensate for biases in how you negotiate.

Back to Negotiations Menu
Return to Main INDEX
Lowell Halverson halvl@accessone.com

 

 

For Home Page Construction related E-Mail: toddj@accessone.com