For several decades now, career counselors and those working in what is often called Human Resources have used a particular tool, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, or the MBTI. I encountered this inventory about 20 years ago, when I made my obligatory visit to the career counseling center at Cal. (Incidentally, after using this and a couple of other inventories, the two strongest career possibilities were Minister and Forest Service Ranger. Maybe this sabbatical has been in the works for awhile.)
Using a scale to determine natural personal tendencies, the MBTI then correlates these tendencies into sixteen different personality types. The undergirding for these types was conceived by the Swiss psychologist Carl Jung in the first half of the 20th century, but it was a mother, Katharine Cook Briggs, and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, who refined them and came up with an inventory that could effectively help people to understand their natural tendencies and the personality that emerges from those tendencies.
They grouped these types according to four polarities: (I)ntroverted & (E)xtraverted, I(n)tuitive & (S)ensing, (T)hinking & (F)eeling, (P)erceiving and (J)udging. When you fill out an inventory, you answer the statements given your tendencies and at the end your type emerges through these four polarities. For instance, though it is likely that Jesus never took the MBTI, some have estimated that he was an INFJ.
Introverted (he really liked to go away alone to pray and seemed to draw his way forward from within)
Intuitive (rather than work with increments, he was into transformational change)
Feeling (the parables are amazing, but he put great value in people and was able to understand people in ways they weren’t even aware of)
Judging (he loved them all, but certainly was decisive, with clear standards)
The organizational consultant William Bridges, author of the very influential book, Transitions (and professor at Mills College for some time), started using the MBTI as a tool for understanding organizations as part of his organizational development work. When approached by the MBTI folks about this use, he was asked to consolidate his learning into a book, which became The Character of Organizations. It is one of the books that the College of Congregational Development has asked us to read and it is an interesting lens into the workings of any organization, including All Souls.
What Bridges posits is that the character of an organization is formed at its origins, and that it is relatively set over time. In his book, the majority of his examples come from the business world, so I do wonder if more long-standing organizations, like thousand year old churches, maintain the same character, or personality, over that time or not. In our case, now being over 100 years old, I am curious to know if the character of All Souls has remained the same. Has era or outside event changed the way we live? Has the character shifted over time, especially if there has been a gradual (or at times sudden) change in leadership? Or, are we in a sense replicating ourselves over the generations?
One clear element that Bridges points to as having both original and ongoing effect on the character of the organization are its leaders. Given our structure and way of being in the Episcopal Church, the Rector or priest in charge of the parish has an outsized influence on the organization and emphases of a congregation. Their imprint on what is deemed important, where resources are expended, where to draw energy and focus, all of this are factors in the leadership that a priest provides, consciously or not. And at the start, the tendencies of these early ordained leaders served to set the imprint of All Souls. But in my estimation, given the unique organization of a congregation, I wonder if this identity is even more shaped by the core groups of lay leaders that often far outlive the priests in any congregation. I still remember an older parishioner at the first parish I served saying, “The priests come and go, the people stay.” And that staying power has remarkable strength and inlfuence.
What Bridges points to, though, near the end of his book is what I have found to be most interesting, which is how organizations respond to transitions and change, given their natural tendencies. It’s not that these tendencies in and of themselves are better or worse––the analogy he draws are types of wood. In order to build a model airplane, balsa is the best choice of wood, whereas in building a sturdy table, oak would be a good choice. In either case, and in the case of organizations over time, you have to understand and accept the material you are working with. Each tendency reacts or responds to certain stresses of change in relatively predictable ways. Being aware of what change might elicit in individuals and groups can go a long way working together and positively in a time of transition.
Just as individuals who deny some aspect of their own makeup tend to project that quality onto someone else, organizations need to be aware of their own makeup for fear of simply projecting their fears, shortcomings or anxieties onto others (leaders, congregants, other parishes, etc). In Jungian terms, the denied and projected aspect of the individual or organization is the shadow, created by the light cast upon the other side. That other side, or as Bridges puts it, that “dark side of the moon” isn’t evil or wrong, simply underdeveloped. But we can only change, or round out the other side, by studying it, and learning from it.
This is part of why I am so eager to join seven other All Soulsians next week at the College for Congregational Development in the Seattle area. I am very interested to know how they see the tendencies of All Souls. Where do we naturally draw our energy? How do we seek to change? What are our tendencies in times of change? And I am particularly interested in learning what we might do in response to our shadow sides. What can we learn about those ways of being? How might we integrate them into how we live going forward? In all, I am excited to live towards what Bridges calls organizational health, “the capacity to maintain a tension between both of these apparently opposite characteristics.” More to come in the months ahead.
Peace,
Phil+
