Category Archives: Emotional Intelligence

Using the Wind

29 Tuesday Dec 2020

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I talk a LOT about the power of choice in the leadership series that I create and facilitate. You can read about the Magic Wand of Destiny here if you aren’t already familiar with the concept.

When discussing how to effectively wield the Magic Wand of Destiny, I draw pictures of a leaf, a boulder, and a sailboat. You can see above that my drawing talents are limited!

We can choose to be like a leaf that is blown about in the wind. We are in a constant state of reaction to the events around us. I visualize leaf people as running about saying, “Oh no! The wind is blowing me this way. Oh no! The wind is blowing me that way.” You could characterize this as a victim mentality.

We can choose to be like a boulder on a mountain that is not moved by any of the circumstances around it. I visualize boulder people as refusing to adapt or change to any circumstance or situation. They are going to sit in the same place, thinking the same thoughts, and doing the same things no matter how much change swirls around them.

Lastly, we can choose to be a sailboat that uses the wind and water to get where it wants to go. Sailboat people adapt and change along with changing circumstances. They are aware of what’s going on and use it to their advantage.

I grew up on sailboats, but let me give some context for those with less nautical knowledge. A few years ago, I went to Mexico with a friend. We hired a guide to take us on a sailboat out to a reef to do some snorkeling.

On the way out, the wind was behind us, and we sailed quickly to the reef in a pretty straight line. In case you are wondering, it was amazing! We saw so many interesting and beautiful sea creatures.

The trip back was not as quick or easy. The wind was blowing straight at us if we faced our destination. The only way back was to zig-zag. In sailing lingo that’s called tacking.

First, you go to the right of where you want to go. Then you tack and head to the left of where you want to go. Actually, it was exhilarating. We clambered from one side of the boat to the other at each turn, ducking to miss the boom, and the sail moved from one side of the boat to the other.

We used this maneuver to get a little past our destination and then headed in to the dock with the magnificent tail wind.

2020 has given us a lot of changing wind to deal with. Mostly, I’ve been a sailboat person, with brief periods of leaf flailing. My biggest change was moving my workshops from in-person to virtual. The beginning was fast and bumpy, but I have to say that I’m very pleased with how things are going now.

I’ve adapted many of the engaging exercises that I did in person. I send out welcome boxes with all the things we need to interact, have fun, and learn. I didn’t think I’d like it all that much, but I really do!

Now 2020 is coming to a close. I feel myself letting out a sigh of relief. Despite its challenges, 2020 has been a good year for me personally.

I had two grandchildren born in 2020, both now healthy and strong. My business stalled, pivoted, and thrived. The family and friends who have had COVID-19 have all gotten through it.

I realize that not everyone is so lucky, and my relief is tinged with sadness for those who have suffered terrible loss and insurmountable challenges in 2020.

And now we face 2021. I saw a funny meme on Facebook that warned against getting too hopeful about the new year because 2021 could just turn out to be 2020 old enough to drink. Ha! That one made me snort-laugh – and it could be true. This wild ride could just get wilder.

And that’s okay if we are sailboat people! As long as we pay attention to which way the wind is blowing and use it to get where we want to go, we will be fine.

I will be focusing more on my online presence in 2021. Putting more time and energy on one thing means letting go of others. One of the things that I am letting go of is writing this weekly blog.

I have enjoyed writing about the leadership topics I discuss and teach in workshops. It’s helped me to clarify my thinking and given me quite an encyclopedia of leadership topics.

The blog has not significantly widened my reach or helped me increase my influence and income. Since my goal for 2021 is to help more people and make more money, the weekly blog is going away.

I will still write here when I am struck with an idea. If you are interested in hearing about it, please subscribe to the blog on my website. The blog will live on for a while.

I will be writing a monthly blog of a completely different style at some point in 2021. It will still have great info, but it will be tied more directly to my online products.

Thanks to all of you who have stuck with me through the last three years. Your comments and encouragement have helped me keep going – and will help me fill my sails in 2021.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

Feedback Is a Gift

15 Tuesday Dec 2020

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It is common to feel defensive when we get feedback about our performance or decisions. Once when I was listening to a presentation, I pointed out that it was sexist to include a picture of a company founder with a Victoria’s Secret model when talking about a company’s achievements.

The person giving the presentation got flustered and defensive. He responded with a comment about wanting to include interesting factoids. Hmmm. Maybe.

But rather than getting huffy, the presenter could have responded to my observation this way: “Thank you for pointing that out. I can see how it could be viewed as sexist.”

He didn’t have to agree with me; he could’ve just acknowledged that my view was valid and thanked me for speaking up. In that way, he would have encouraged others to share their views.

Feedback is a gift. Someone is broadening your perspective and giving you something to think about. It is important to say “thank you” even if you don’t agree with what the person is saying.

We want to encourage dialogue! We do that by creating a safe place to give and accept feedback. When we do that, we are creating psychological safety.

As leaders, we want to say “thank you!” in response to every bit of feedback that we receive. Remember that feedback is a gift!

People make themselves vulnerable when they give feedback. It’s important to validate their views and show gratitude for the time they took to share a different perspective.

Yes, some people are mean when they give feedback – sometimes aggressive. It doesn’t matter. It’s still a gift. Thanking them for sharing their perspective is a great way to diffuse a tense situation and start a dialogue. It also helps to create and maintain the positivity of the relationship.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

What CAN I Do?

01 Tuesday Dec 2020

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Back in 2009, I had a brain abnormality corrected. The doctor threaded a tube up through an artery in my groin area, past my heart, through my carotid artery, past the jugular vein, and into my brain. There he deposited five tiny platinum coils to create a wall between arterial and venous blood that was mixing in a fistula.

For reasons I’ve never fully understood, that abnormality that I’d had all my life began to cause problems when I was about 48 years old. At first, I heard a whooshing noise in my right ear. Then I began a gradual decline. I didn’t have energy to do the things I’d once been able to do. Then it got worse.

I would put five dishes in the dishwasher and then have to sit down. I got the clothes out of the dryer a few at a time because I couldn’t carry a laundry basket that was full.

In the end, my right eye started moving in and out with each heartbeat. I got double vision and was unable to stand up. I went in for a brain angiogram on May 5, 2009, and they decided to do the procedure immediately.

After the surgery, there was a blessed quiet in my head. The noise that had plagued me for five months was gone. I was ecstatic! Elated! However, it was the only symptom that went away immediately.

The double vision faded in a couple of weeks. I could sit up, stand and walk short distances soon after. But then I didn’t get a lot better anymore.

I kept hoping that I would get back to “normal” for more than a year. Eventually I accepted the fact that I’d improved as much as I was going to and that I would never regain the stamina that I once had.

Then I had a grand, ol’ pity party! I kept repeating over and over the things that I could no longer do. I couldn’t exercise. I was having trouble making it through a day of training. I couldn’t stay on my feet for long periods of time. There was a super long list of things that I couldn’t do.

Eventually, I got tired of the pity party. I got tired of focusing on all the things that I was unable to do. It was time for a change.

I decided to focus on the things that I could do. I could still think and read. I could still create courses. I could learn new things. All the leadership knowledge I had collected was still in my head.

In the end, I decided to create an online course. Boot Camp for New (and Lightly-Trained) Supervisors was born. I learned a lot during that process – and I eventually saw some more physical improvement.

It seems that COVID-19 has put us in a place of focusing on all the things that we can’t do. We can’t get together for the holidays. We can’t go out without a mask. Some of us can’t pay bills because we’ve lost our jobs or livelihood. There are a million things, both big and small, that the pandemic has taken from us.

Just as I couldn’t do anything about my physical condition, we can’t avoid the societal and personal consequences of COVID-19. We can, however, take stock of the things that we can do.

We can work to maintain a positive attitude. It is work – and worthwhile work. Our immune systems function better when we are positive. We are more creative, broad-minded, and better at problem-solving.

There are several ways to improve our moods and outlooks. It’s important to find the one that helps us. Meditation is helping me quite a bit right now.

Counting my blessings when I get into bed at night is another technique that I use. Reaching out to talk to others with a positive attitude can also help during isolating times. Finding something that brings us joy and indulging in it can also make life feel more bearable.

We can still celebrate the holidays, although the celebrations may look different this year. Different isn’t always worse. We can accept this time as an invitation to slow down and embrace the spirit of the holidays more than the actions that we associate with them.

We can stop fighting what is and comparing it to what we feel life should be like. We waste a lot of time and energy railing against circumstances that we cannot change. Acceptance brings peace and more energy for other things.

Finally, we can still offer help and ask for help. Each of us has been impacted in a different way. Some of us monetarily. Some of us emotionally. Some of us physically. Catching COVID-19 can leave a person weak and tired for weeks, if not more. It’s important that we ask for the help that we need and give the help that we can offer.

Ultimately, no matter the times that we live in, creating our best life includes helping others create their best lives. If we all do that, we improve the world for ourselves and our children – even in a pandemic.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

Thanksgiving 2020

24 Tuesday Nov 2020

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So. Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving celebrations this year are going to be different for many of us. The bigger the celebration in the past, the more different it is going to be.

The pandemic has forced us to do many things differently. For example, I no longer facilitate leadership workshops in person. I am now fluent in Zoom.

I am grateful that many of my clients have decided to move to a virtual format because I like working, eating, and paying my electric bill. However, I resisted the idea at first. How could I possibly recreate the in-person experience?

News flash! I can’t. I cannot make it the same. However, I did make it good. Different isn’t always bad.

We still start with an ice breaker exercise to get everyone communicating and in a positive mood. Now we answer questions using markers and blank paper. We hold up our answers for everyone to see. It’s fun! I love reading everyone’s responses and learning more about each person.

The group doesn’t get to visit at breaks the way that they did when we met in person, but they still get lots of opportunities to talk with one another. I talk less and let them talk in breakout rooms a lot more.

One of my most brilliant ideas was to send each participant a welcome box that contains the handouts and other items they need for the exercises that we do. They get Play-Doh and kazoos because there is no reason why we can’t continue to learn and have fun.

Some things I do the same. Others, I adjust. Some are newly created. The change in format motivated me to evaluate things I’ve done for more than a decade. It was a gift that got me to be more creative than I’ve been in years.

We can look at Thanksgiving in the same way. It’s not going to be the same, but it can still be good! With a little creativity and the wonders of modern technology, we can still celebrate and be grateful.

College kids and grandparents can read stories via Zoom, Skype or FaceTime to children whose parents are busy fixing a meal.

Taking turns sharing stories on various topics would be fun. I’d like to hear stories from my sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren about the time that they had the most fun in water, what skills they are proud of, and the most memorable trip they ever took.

If memorable doesn’t have to mean fun, I’m pretty sure my sons would tell about the time they went to sleep on a sofa bed that was covered with hundreds of ticks. That was memorable – and funny now that enough time has passed.

A family show-and-tell or art show would also be fun!

I’d also like the chance to tell people what I appreciate about them. I’d like to hear what they appreciate about me. Deeper conversations can happen with a little prompting. It’s an easier thing to manage when it’s done in a virtual format.

We just have to let go of insisting that Thanksgiving must be the same in order to be good. In fact, it can be different – and wonderful.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

Kindness Matters

17 Tuesday Nov 2020

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November 13 was World Kindness Day. The various posts about kindness reminded me that kindness is an essential leadership quality.

Leaders often push back at the idea that kindness matters. They say, “I don’t have to be kind. I’m not their best friend!” True, we definitely should not be an employee’s best friend.

However, we don’t have to be someone’s friend to be kind to them. Holding high standards for someone while being respectful is expecting excellence while showing kindness.

Parenting is a good example. As children grow up, parents maintain high expectations and standards for them. There are consequences if the children don’t live up to those standards. The parents aren’t helping the children by letting them get away with less than their best. Parents deeply want their children to be successful.

That’s the same perspective we want to have with employees. We care about them and their success, so we set clear expectations and standards. Then we hold them to those standards. Being kind doesn’t make us a pushover.

Sometimes it helps to imagine how we would want someone to talk to us about one of our mistakes or less-than-perfect performance. Would we respond best to someone intent on making us feel bad about our poor performance?

We would not. Shaming can be an effective short-term motivator, but it doesn’t inspire ongoing excellence. We want our employees to be successful. Our success as leaders depends on the success of the people who work with us.

One of our primary goals as leaders is to create positive relationships and create personal influence. Both of those things are really impossible to create unless we are kind to people.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

Remember the Feeling

03 Tuesday Nov 2020

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It seems that motivation is pretty thin on the ground for a lot of people right now – myself included! It’s time to pull out a trick from the leadership bag.

One of my goals is to clean the kitchen each evening before I go to bed. Lately, I haven’t been doing such a great job.

I just can’t find the motivation to get myself up off the sofa and do the dinner dishes. It really doesn’t take very long, but it’s the starting that seems beyond me.

When I do get the kitchen sink shiny in the evening, it’s great to walk into the kitchen in the morning. It’s all clean, and everything is ready to go. I don’t have to clear the sink or move things around. I can hit the ground running.

Walking into a clean and orderly kitchen is wonderful. I feel like I’m already winning the day. I am proud of myself for doing the hard task the night before, and I save a lot of time. The first task of the day isn’t an uphill climb to the coffee maker.

It’s important to fully embody the fabulous feeling of being greeted by a sparkling kitchen – really pay attention to where I feel it in my body. The goal is to be able to recreate it on command.

The trick is to call up the feeling when I’m sitting on the sofa in the evening and inertia has me in its grip. I close my eyes and remember the feeling I get when I walk into a clean and shiny kitchen in the morning.

That feeling of accomplishment is very strong. I want to recreate it. It’s such a great way to start the day. Remembering the feeling is a great motivator.

Running can create a runner’s high that the runner wants to experience again and again. In the same way, the positive feeling that Future Kathy gets when Past Kathy does the dishes can be a little addictive – and something we can use to our advantage.

Waking to a clean kitchen is just one example. It could be the great feeling of getting a report in on time or being fully prepared for a negotiation. It could be the awesome freedom during the weekend if you get your blog written early.

The trick is to remember the feeling of success and focus on it fully. If the feeling is strong enough, motivation to do the task will follow.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

Absolute Candor

27 Tuesday Oct 2020

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I’ve been rewatching the new Picard series – which will come as no surprise to anyone who knows me. I am a Star Trek: The Next Generation fan, and I love Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

In this new series, I am particularly taken by a group of Romulan warrior nuns called the Qowat Milat. Don’t worry! You don’t have to understand anything in the last sentence to get value from the rest of the blog. (But how awesome is a group of Romulan warrior nuns who only bind their sword to lost causes?!)

What I really like about the Qowat Milat is that they live “The Way of Absolute Candor.” They believe in “total communication of emotion without filter between thought and word.” Wow! Can you imagine what life would be like if we all practiced absolute candor?

We wouldn’t have to guess any more about whether or not someone was angry with us. If they were upset, they’d just say, “I’m upset about this.” We’d know immediately if it was something that we said or the fact that we are out of orange juice.

If we were hurt by someone’s comment, we’d just tell them. I recently had someone that I pay money to for consulting say to me, “I don’t know why you’d ask that question.” I did not tell this person that they had pissed me off, were not fostering psychological safety, and needed a refresher course in delivering customer service that delights.

I swallowed my anger and went on with the discussion. In truth, I didn’t do either of us any favors in the long run. We continue to work together, and I do not like this person. I did not give them a chance to see how their behavior was perceived. I never opened the door to the opportunity of repairing the relationship because the other person had no idea that there was a problem.

How one practices absolute candor would be key. In Picard, two members of a small crew hook up one night. There is some awkward tension between them the next morning. The character who practices absolute candor said, “The obvious tension between you makes me uneasy.” It was said in a calm and nonjudgmental way. Brilliant!

In systems coaching, we call that “naming the emotional field.” As a coach, we name the emotions that we sense are present during a discussion or workshop.

I had a difficult time with this technique in the beginning because I had never paid attention to the emotional field before – or my own feelings. I just kind of kept going a step at a time, relying on logic alone.

Naming the emotional field is a powerful tool. During a discussion, it gets everyone to pause and check in with how they are feeling about what is going on.

The feeling part of a discussion is just as critical as the fact part. When we all start to ask why we feel a certain way, we generally open the vault on a bunch of new and relevant facts.

When first hearing about the Qowat Milat, one of the characters says, “Anyone else think the Way of Absolute Candor sounds potentially annoying?” I agree.

If we all ran around commenting on every feeling, the world could become an annoying place. I’m not sure I want to hear everyone’s emotions about the food they eat, the clothes someone is wearing, or my love of Star Trek: The Next Generation characters.

However, the world would be a less tentative and tension-filled place if we calmy shared how we feel in situations that are important and with people who matter.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

Find the Bright Spots

19 Monday Oct 2020

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“Finding the Bright Spots” is one of my favorite concepts, and it comes from the book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard by Dan and Chip Heath. In one chapter, the authors tell the story of a young man charged with reducing the number of malnourished children in Vietnam.

The young man had little money and no power to deal with things like poor sanitation and poverty. Instead, he looked for the Bright Spots; he looked for children who weren’t malnourished.

He found some! Those children’s mothers served the children’s daily allotment of rice in smaller portions. When a person is malnourished, they digest smaller amounts of food better than larger servings. They also added a bit of protein by seining for brine shrimp in the rice paddies. Finally, they included the leaves of sweet potatoes in their children’s diet.

These were easy things that most parents could do. He then had the moms teach each other these techniques. At the end of six months, 65% of the children were better nourished.

We don’t need to start from scratch very often to solve a problem. Most of the time, someone has already solved it for us.

Is one team having a problem keeping up with reporting requirements? Find the team that isn’t struggling, and see how they do it. Are you having trouble motivating your employees? Locate someone who has an enthusiastic team, and find out why.

Bright Spots are proven methods. We know that they work and that they can be done.

If you think about it, hunting for a recipe online is looking for a Bright Spot! Someone else has already figured out how to cook spaghetti squash, and you benefit from his or her experience. Parenting, communication, conflict, and motivating others have all been figured out by someone else.

Heck! There are YouTube videos that will show you how to put on tights and trim your beard, although not at the same time.

There is usually a variety of solutions to choose from. We can pick and choose which appeals to us the most and give it a shot. Even if the Bright Spot isn’t exactly what we need, it gives us a good place to start.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

Behavior Is a Form of Communication

06 Tuesday Oct 2020

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In leadership seminars, I talk about the three types of communication – verbal, nonverbal, and symbolic. You can read about these three types here. I am ready to add another category.

My daughter-in-law and I are both working from home and hear snippets of each other’s Zoom meetings as we both care for my grandson. She works with special needs kids and talks to their parents regularly. One day she explained to a parent of a nonverbal child that behavior is communication.

Of course, it makes total sense. If any child is unhappy, they have a myriad of ways to let us know. My grandson is about seven months old. Although he doesn’t talk yet, we get clear indicators of how he feels about things.

He can’t tell us exactly what is bothering him, but we know something is! And we are pretty good at figuring out what that is.

I started thinking about how the concept applies to adults and leadership. Adults also communicate with their behavior. Nonverbal signals like eye-rolling and heavy sighs tell us how someone feels. However, I’m talking about actions – things that we do.

I’ve never been one to trust the words that someone says right off the bat. I learned as a young woman talking to hormone-ravaged males that some of them could talk a really good game in an effort to reach their end goals. I recognized them for what they were – words. They were saying things that they didn’t really mean.

It’s hard to know if someone means what they say. The only way I’ve figured out is to watch their actions. And not just what they do in the short term. I like to pay attention to what someone does for a significant period of time.

In my youth, I had a six-month watching period. If a suitor publicly announced his undying devotion and stuck with it for six months, he was due serious consideration. Not many passed the test.

Consciously or not, we put leaders through the same sort of scrutiny. We watch to see if they walk the talk. If they say something is important, do their actions back that up?

Unfortunately, many leaders and cultures say one thing is important, but they reward a different behavior. For example, many organizations talk about teamwork and the importance of being truthful with customers about expectations. In truth, they reward money-making efforts – even if they damage team morale or include undoable promises to customers.

As leaders, we must be aware that our behavior is communicating information to others. If I am chronically late to meetings, I am telling you that my time is more valuable than yours. If I say that employees are our most important resource but don’t listen to them when they try to share an idea, I am negating the verbal message.

When a nonverbal and verbal message do not match, we go with the nonverbal message. For example, if I sigh heavily and look bored while saying, “This is so much fun,” you are going to ignore the words and know that I’m not really enjoying myself.

It’s similar with behaviors, although it might not happen as quickly. We immediately know when a verbal and nonverbal message don’t match. Figuring out that someone is not behaving in alignment with their words can take longer because we normally give people the benefit of the doubt for a bit.

However, there comes a point when we have to ask ourselves if the words are just a smokescreen for behavior that sends an entirely different message. If a leader says that values are important, but they cut corners or lie, we must question how serious they truly are about the values thing.

As leaders, in order to build the trust necessary for psychological safety (which is a necessary ingredient for exceptional team performance) we must ensure that what we do consistently lines up with what we say.

For a little bit of fun leadership development, join 53 Leadership Challenges at KathyStoddardTorrey.com.

Want to go further with your professional development? Check out the courses offered at PositiveEffectLeadership.com.

If you are interested in taking your career to the next level quickly, contact me for a sample coaching session at KSTorrey@tapferconsulting.com.

 

Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) Judging-Perceiving Scale

29 Tuesday Sep 2020

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We’ve been discussing the MBTI. We talked about the history and overview of the instrument and then the important considerations of the Extrovert-Introvert scale, which describes how we get our energy. We talked about the Sensing-Intuitive scale, which describes how we perceive the world. Last week, we discussed the Thinking-Feeling scale, which describes the values that we use to judge the world. Now let’s talk about the Judging-Perceiving scale, which is the final defining dichotomy of the MBTI. The J-P scale describes how we deal with the outside world.

Perceiving Types (P’s) like to keep their options open. Appointment times are windows of opportunity. Flexibility and spontaneity are the watchwords of the Perceiving types. They like to start projects and explore options but aren’t fired up about making a final decision. They like to go with the flow and change plans as the situation changes. Time is a fluid concept, and deadlines are elastic.

Unless P’s are careful, they can find themselves trapped under piles of unfinished projects. One can only research and explore options for so long before they have to move forward and make a decision. P’s don’t like to finish because then they’ve lost all their options. The hallmark of a P is continuing to think about other ways a thing could be done after they have submitted their final answer.

P’s have a tendency to procrastinate. Procrastination is a form of last-minute motivation that doesn’t always allow P’s time to put their best foot forward. However, it’s just a preference, not a label for all eternity. P’s can adopt behavior outside their preference and use it when it is appropriate. Society expects a lot of Judging Type behavior – especially at work.

J’s like order and are punctual. Predictability and order are the Judging type’s code. They like to finish projects. J’s like lists and like to check things off of their lists. If a J does something that is not on their list, they will write it on the list so they can then check it off. J’s get a sense of relief when a project is complete, and once it is complete they don’t think about it anymore.

J’s sock drawers are often organized in some way. J’s plan ahead so that they don’t have to experience the stress of accomplishing something at the last minute.

P’s and J’s can drive each other crazy. P’s feel tension as their options become more limited and they have to make a decision. J’s feel tension until the decision is made. So, in effect, the two types fight against each other. The Judging types want the decision over and done with. The Perceiving types don’t want to decide because then they are out of options.

Actually, the two styles can complement each other in the same way that S-N and T-F do. When the two types work together, they make better and/or quicker decisions than they would make on their own. P’s ensure that all options are explored, and J’s ensure that a decision is made in a reasonable amount of time. Of course, there is a certain amount of tension, but we all just have to keep reminding ourselves of the value of two perspectives.

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