Your Favorite People - The Party Exercise
One of the things "What Color is Your Parachute?" analyzes is what sort of people you like to surround yourself with. In this scenario, there are 6 groups of people (explained below). Pretend you are at a party with each of the 6 types of individuals clustered together in different parts of the room. So, this exercise asks who you'd most like to hang out with (leaving aside any question of shyness or you needing to contribute to the conversation).
According to Dr. John Holland's theory, you should prefer three types of people-environments over the other three.
Realistic - People who have athletic or mechanical ability, prefer to work with objects, machines, tools, plants, or animals, or to be outdoors.
Investigative - People who like to observe, learn, investigate, analyze, evaluate, or solve problems.
Conventional - People who like to work with data, have clerical or numerical ability, carry things out in detail or follow through on others' instructions.
Artistic - People who have artistic, innovating, or intuitional abilities, and like to work in unstructured situations, using their imagination or creativity.
Enterprising - People who like to work with people - influencing, persuading or performing or leading or managing for organizational goals or for economic gain.
Social - People who like to work with people - to inform, enlighten, help, train, develop, or cure them, or are skilled with words
I basically prefer the right hand side of the equation - Artistic, Investigative, and Social.
But I was studying the types and seeing what they had in common with Myers-Briggs, specifically the 4 temperaments: NT, NF, SJ, and SP.
Realistic - SP
Investigative - NT
Conventional - SJ
Artistic - NF
Enterprising
Social
I'm trying to remember what the Enterprising versus Social difference is. I know I've read about that differentiation with respect to type-watching, but even skimming my books I can't find it. I think it may be an Thinking vs Feeling thing, but I'm not sure.
Anyway, back to the exercise. After making your three choices. You're supposed to turn it into a statement. Here's mine.
I would like a job or career best if I could work with people who
(A - NF) use intuition, imagination, and creativity
(I - NT) to observe, learn, and solve problems
(S) in order to inform, enlighten, or inspire people.
Then they turn around and tell you that you tend to like the categories you fall into. In other words...
I like to use intuition, imagination, and creativity
to observe, learn, and solve problems
in order to inform, enlighten, or inspire people.
Light-bulb time. Remember the "stuck in the rut" exercise?
In short form:
I have a talent for analyzing group dynamics.
I have a talent for analyzing individuals and relationships between individuals within a group dynamic.
( Source)
Or in long form:
- I encounter a novel situation, world, or group dynamic that is unpredictable, THEN
- I find an existing perspective within that situation to use as a doorway into that world, THEN
- I immerse myself in the details surrounding that group dynamic and start seeing the world through the eyes of my chosen point of view character, THEN
- I focus on and analyze relationships, THEN
- I define the character of each person by how they relate to others inside or outside the group, THEN
- I connect to the individuals in the group through those relationships, THEN
- I play things forward through my understanding of their character, WHICH
- Enables me to better predict the unpredictable.
( Source)
Or, in plain English.
I have a talent for exploring group dynamics. I like observing a group and picking out a point of view character in that group, often a natural leader, who I come understand the best. Then I use my knowledge of that person to draw conclusions about other members of the group.
Actually, that's probably the best I've done with the "natural talent". But, my point was that observing, learning, and coming to conclusions part is the NT or Investigative aspect. The "novel situation" and my creative ways of looking at the group are the NF or Artistic aspect. And the fact that the source of my observation is people, and that I want to use my knowledge to enlighten people, is the social aspect. It all fits together. The two disparate measures match up. Well, actually three. Myers-Briggs. Stuck-in-a-Rut. And this - the Holland code. Very cool.
Well, you know me. I had to try this on someone else. And who better than one of the sources of my "my given talent" observations - Jared.
I think Jared is an AES - artistic, enterprising, and social.
He likes to surround himself with
artistic and innovating people,
who like to perform and influence people,
in order to inform, inspire, and enlighten them.
Which easily translates to him.
Jared is an artistic and innovating individual
who likes to perform and influence people
in order to inform, inspire, and enlighten them.
Agreed? The Artistic part is obvious. The Enterprising aspect is the fact that he has his hands in all aspects of 30STM. Those 500 hats of Mr. Cubbins. And the Social aspect is the fact that the band treats its fans like family. It's the values they pass on. That sort of thing.
And, hey, while we're at it. Using Jared's values, one could expand that to interpret Shannon and Tomo. They are both less Enterprising in the 500 hats way, but performing is also a key part of Enterprising.
So that's a bit of an insight into why I love them. We share two aspects. The third aspect is what puts them in front of an audience, which is obviously not something for me. My third aspect is the engineering side of me.
Didn't know you'd get here from a job search exercise, did you? Did I mention I love posts like this? I love drawing conclusions like that.