My Myers-Briggs Type [MBTI] makes even more sense when combined with my personal hedgehog concept

Last week - some students I am coaching, as part of the HVA honours programme - did the MBTI test for the first time. This made me think [way] back to when I did that test a number of times during my late 20's and early 30's.

Regardless of how many times I have taken the test, I always came out as an INTJ. So I was not cheating the test. My type hasn't changed either, because when I was creating my "Hedgehog" concept, my MBTI type was confirmed 100% ... as I am passionate about "improving things".

An INTJ is a mastermind. They have original minds and great drive for implementing their ideas and achieving their goals. Quickly see patterns in external events and develop long-rang explanatory perspectives. Independent, individualistic, single-minded, and determined. They trust their vision of possibilities regardless of universal skeptisism. 

INTJ's devise strategy, give structure, establish complex plans and outline sequences of events in reaching distant goals dictated by a strong vision of the organization. They thrive on putting theories to work and are open to any and all ideas that can IMPROVE things.

My dominant function is intuition, which means, I:

1. Recognize new possibilities
2. Come up with novel solutions to problems
3. Delight in focusing on the future
4. Watch for additional ideas
5. Tackle new problems with zest

So if you want someone to do significant decision making, combine the big picture and applicable particulars - an INTJ is your [wo]man.


Of course there are implications to being an INTJ, they don't do red tape and bureaucracy very well. INTJ's can't handle inefficiencies well and have difficultly understanding people who can't work independently. It is painful for an INTJ to see problems in the organization and not be permitted to solve them or to contribute to their solution.

Thankfully in my role as a teacher/lecturer, I have also managed to work on the "less positive" side of an INTJ. I have learnt how to give positive feedback and show appreciation to others and show the less cool/rational side of myself. I also see the benefit of repetition and repeating myself, which of course is necessary for learning to take place!

MBTI type is even more interesting when compared with Hedgehog concept.
 

When I was re-creating my "Hedgehog concept" last week and filling in what I am passionate about and genetically encoded to do - the first thing I wrote down was "improve stuff".


It doesn't matter if what I want to improve is my own creation or someone elses. I like improving my own lessons/lecturers, or improving my own marketing strategy with input from employees, or improving my own marketing theoretical knowledge by going back to school or re-designing a livingroom for a friend. I am my own worst critic, and already know my errors and shortcomings, before anyone has to point them out to me. I have already started working on improving them before I can wallow too long in how something should be better.


In my experience, doing the MBTI test and creating your personal hedgehog concept independently and then looking at overlaps, is a good way to confirm and evaluate the findings of both. But I maybe alone in this observation, as an INTJ, I hunger for constant evaluation and re-evaluation.