Talk:Board Meeting Notes 2014-03-25

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V&G Prep

Since this is a working meeting, if you haven't already done so, please see Noony's email of 03/20/2014 (pasted below) and take the two assessments and send her the results.


On Thu, Mar 20, 2014 at 7:28 AM, A. Catherine Noon <[email protected]> wrote: Hey, guys. I have two things I'd like you to do before our meeting thing on Sunday the 30th ("meeting" sounds so corporate, but it's not exactly a "party," either - gathering? get-together? shin-dig?).

The first is a shorter, Myers-Briggs-ish tool (I say "ish" because it's not the full MBTI tool, if you're familiar with the lingo; if not, just take the test and we'll talk at the meeting). TypeFocus

The second is an Interest Profiler, based on the Holland Code. O'Net Profiler


If you're busy, don't read past here, this is just explanation.

(But please do both assessments above.)

Please let me know your code results; we'll use them on the 30th in the mee... party.

Why am I asking for these?

The first one gives you a four letter code. The sixteen resulting "types" tell you some things about how you like to take in information and make decisions. While there is debate among psychological researchers (I have a friend in the field who says the MBTI is not accurate), there are others (myself included) who find it useful for group interaction because it provides a common language and a basis for understanding each other, which can facilitate communication. This particular test was given out, for example, when I took the JVS Chicago career counseling workshops last August (if you're interested, there's more info on those here; they're the sister organization to the Duman Center, the small business incubator that I've mentioned in the past and with whom we'll be working once we're ready to launch our own 501c3).

While there's info on how the assessment works on the site, and lots of books, I suspect some of you aren't even going to read this far in this email and if you have, are still not as interested as I am in it - grin. So here's the short story:

  • Four binary codes:
    • Introvert | Extrovert
    • Intuitive | Sensing
    • Feeling | Thinking
    • Judging | Perceiving
  • The outer two have to do with how we interact with the outside world and deal with others.
  • The inner two have to do with how we take in information and make decisions.
  • More on the basics of MBTI here.

What will it do for us?

It will give us a common understand about each other, which will help us be more effective as a team (again, sorry, corporate language), which we need in order to produce an excellent business plan (ha! got in some PS1-specific lingo there, so there).

The second looks very job search-specific, but here's why I want it: the Holland Code is a very interesting (to me, at least) way of shorthanding the kinds of roles we like to fill, i.e. what jobs we like.

Why's that useful?

It will help us understand each other better - and help override assumptions we may be making about each other based on imperfect/incomplete information. That helps facilitate communication and, more importantly, avoid conflict. There are six matrices on the Holland Code:

  • Realistic
  • Investigative
  • Artistic
  • Social
  • Enterprising
  • Conventional

More here.

If you're in career transition, which is where these are used a lot, I highly recommend contacting JVS (and no, you don't have to be Jewish to use their services). Another good resource is a great book - gasp, did she say book? - called What Color Is Your Parachute; you can get it electronically if old-school isn't how you roll. There's even a website, though, to be frank, it's not nearly as useful as the book itself; but it's here.

I will share that when I read about the Holland Code, I thought I was one set (you get a 3-letter code of your top choices, which is "your code"). When I took the assessment in August (and understand, I've been using the Parachute since 1995, so I really assumed I knew it, though I didn't really use the Holland all that deeply); I got a different result on one of the indices. When I told my counselor at JVS about my results, she laughed and said, "Well, of course!" I was kind of bent out of shape because I had been working under the assumption of a different code. When I started to accept the code, things started to shift for me and poom!, my career direction changed and here we are today. So don't assume you know the answer going in to the assessment - while you may, allow yourself to be surprised. You'll get a lot more out of it if you let the test tell you the results rather than assume you know it because you're just that smart, damn it, and it's a stupid test. :) --Acatherinenoon (talk) 07:50, 20 March 2014 (CDT)

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