|
Sgt. Damian, a Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® (MBTI ®) Step II Certified facilitator, is a
Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officer who facilitates training at the Canadian
Police College in Ottawa, delivering workshops for senior executive officers and noncommissioned
officers in charge (NCO i/c) with the RCMP and other police services
across the country.
Whether she’s doing a three-day leadership workshop for police senior executives or a
single session with NCO i/c’s, there’s something she looks for in all participants: “I want
to know if they know themselves.”
She has devised some unique ways of finding out. For her “executive” weekend
workshops, she has participants do a hands-on activity that is so far out of the law enforcement
context (and out of their four-letter personality type preference), that
participants at the end of the day get in the grip.
She won’t give away what the activity is—she wants officers to come in with no advance
knowledge or preconceived notions—but there is method to her mischief. By helping
police officers realize how they feel and act in the grip, Damian helps them handle the
real-world stress they face, whether on the street or in the boardroom.
“People get in the grip when they have to do something that is least in line with their
personality type preferences,” she explains. The unexpected situation, the sudden change
that derails weeks of careful planning, even the coveted promotion, can all lead to
overwhelming stress and anxiety if people don’t know themselves well enough to cope.
Damian says the simulated stress she creates gives participants a chance to learn how
their preferences can help them handle the real thing. For example, she offers this advice
to those in the grip: “When you reach that stage, do something within your preferences
that calms you down. If you’re an extrovert, go interact with people and talk it over; if
you’re an introvert, take a walk, go to a quiet room and read, do a Sudoku. Fifteen
minutes is all it takes.”
Damian’s approach seems to be working. “I get callbacks to do group MBTI exercises,”
she says, adding that only one or two out of hundreds of people she has worked with
didn’t feel they got something significant from their experience with the MBTI tool.
People’s expectations are a big reason Damian likes to keep them unaware of what will
happen during her workshops. In her initial sessions with NCO i/c’s, she noticed that
some police officers were trying to match their questionnaire responses to a perceived
“best type” for police senior executive promotion.
“There is no best type. Anyone can do the job,” she emphasizes. In fact, she says she has
noticed a wider variety of personality types are being drawn to police service. “I’m
seeing more diversity, more openness to difference.”
That diversity in “personality type” is encouraging because, as she puts it, “The idea of
the MBTI tool is not to select who has the right ‘four-letter personality type’ to be a
police officer or be promoted at the executive rank. Imagine a house with 16 rooms. You
might prefer one room—the bathroom, the bedroom, maybe the kitchen—but you still
live in the house. And at one time or another you need them all.”
The home is a fitting analogy, because once police officers understand their own four letter
personality type or that of others, the benefits go beyond their workplace. “It’s a
wake-up call,” says Damian. “I often hear people saying, ‘Now I understand why some
officers on my team are the way they are, why my wife does this, why my son does that.’
“It’s about team dynamics, mutual respect and mutual support, at work or at home. Get to
know and discover who you are, and you’ll contribute more to your team, your family or
your friends.”
To read additional articles and learn more about Psychometrics Canada, please visit
http://www.psychometrics.com.
|