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Imagining Things

Judging vs. Perceiving: The Closed Dishwasher

April 27, 2023 by Klugmeister

10 minute read

Back in 2001 my employer sent me off to a group training session designed to hone my consulting skills. The session lasted two days (if I remember correctly) and was constructed upon the foundation of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

While it's a challenge to boil down a two-day training session to its essence, the gist of the session was to help make my then employer's consultants more savvy about identifying the personality types of the key decision-making personnel at their clients. At least in theory, this information would enable me (then a nascent consultant) to consult more effectively with my clients on high-profile consulting projects.

This image of a "photograph of a woman making a presentation at a business committee meeting" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image does not depict real people. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

The concept is best illustrated with an example. Let's suppose I'm working with a client to design and implement significant changes to one or more of the benefit plans that the organization sponsors on behalf of its employees. A client decision-maker with a preference toward the "thinking" side of the Myers-Briggs "thinking-feeling" scale would typically be most persuaded by the reasons that the proposed changes are logical. For example, the changes may make sense from a cost perspective, or the pros outweigh the cons, or the new design may better align with the organization's strategic objectives for the types of employees it's trying to attract and retain. Like that.

In contrast, a client leader with a preference toward "feeling" will generally be more concerned about the impact of the proposed changes on the organization's employees. As a result, this person will likely want to see illustrations of the impact of the proposed changes on a variety of sample employees in order to reach a comfort level with the changes being considered.

During these projects, a committee of client leaders is typically tasked to make the decision regarding what type of benefit plan changes to implement for the organization (if any), and the consultant is tasked with guiding the committee through the process. Since the committee members typically will have a smorgasbord of personality types, the savvy consultant will tailor separate messaging that resonates with stakeholders from various personality categories.

As noted above, for example, the consultant might point out the reasons the changes are logical to help get buy in from the "thinking" person, and might present illustrations of the impact of the proposed changes on sample employees to get buy in from the person with a "feeling" perspective. This multi-pronged approach may seem a bit contrived, but both types of analysis are natural parts of a plan design project, so the consultant can engage in this type of personality-targeted messaging without seeming awkward, inappropriate, or condescending.

This sample nugget from the training involved the "thinking-feeling" continuum, but if you multiply by four different indicators, you have the makings of a multi-day deep dive into the consulting implications of the MBTI. While this session was targeting toward consulting skills, there are MBTI implications for all sorts of corporate activities, including the challenges of working on teams within an organization (either in the ordinary course of business or for a special project). Thus, the reader may find that a multitude of corporate training sessions based on MBTI are available. Anyway, let's get back to the other continuums.

The four preference scales of Myers-Briggs are:

The above categories are scored on a continuum. For example, the clarity of someone's preference for extraversion over introversion (for example) may be slight, moderate, clear, or very clear, and so on for the other three categories.

To help the participants in the training session assess our MBTI types, the trainers asked us to fill out a questionnaire, and then provided each of us with a custom interpretive report of our type. My results showed that I am the ISTJ personality type, meaning that I lean toward Introversion, Sensing, Thinking, and Judging. This is not surprising, as I am a quintessential math nerd. However, rather than using this blog entry to drill down into all four of these categories, I'd like to focus on the oft-ignored fourth category: Judging vs. Perceiving.

While I'll be focusing attention on one category, readers who'd like to see a description of each of these categories may want to take a look at simplypsychology.org's Myers-Briggs Type Indicator page which contains an interesting and concise overview of the 16 different personality types that are possible when you classify yourself into one or the other option from each of these four categories. Note the simplypsychology web page refers to my ISTJ personality type as "The Logistician," which is somewhat geeky but does have a cool sound to it—almost like "The Rifleman." Anyway, back to the fourth category.

Since the fourth category often doesn't receive as much focus as the first three, a few comments may be in order. "Judging" refers to a preference to have things decided. (It doesn't relate to being judgmental.) Those with a judging preference like things to be planned and orderly. "Perceiving" refers to a preference for being spontaneous and flexible.

Thinking back to the consulting focus of the session, you may be able to picture the tension that could arise if a committee is tasked with making an important decision on the go-forward design of the organization's benefit plans. The committee will want to consider all of the various alternatives—Perceivers enjoy this part—then consider the pros and cons of each option, and then of course make a final decision. Note to readers: Perceivers don't like this part at all! This can lead to tension.

This image of a "a photograph of a man brushing his hands together at the end of a project" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image does not depict a real person. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

"Excuse me," the Perceiver might say. "Wouldn't it be great if we could think about the possibilities forever and not be nailed down to a decision? That just seems so...final."

Well, yeah, maybe in Pandora or Wakanda they don't have to make final decisions, but here on earth decisions are a fact of life. And yes, dear reader, I already foreshadowed that I'm on the judging side of the "judging-perceiving" scale, but the reader probably didn't realize until just now that I can get pretty agitated when dealing with the perceiving mindset.

"Umm, yeah," you may be thinking, "Does this Klugmeister fella have a screw loose? What happened to the savvy consultant who wrote the beginning of this blog entry? I prefer him over this new combustible wackadoodle guy." In fact, folks, this is where the theme of this blog entry transforms from "Klugmeister's nifty and totally professional training class on consulting skills" to "Klugmeister's complete aversion to being spontaneous and flexible in real life." Welcome to my world—can I get you a shaken-up two liter bottle of soda?

It's true, I'm afraid. I'm wound up like a spring that is set to go bust whenever I encounter a Perceiver who is reluctant to make final decisions or agree to a deadline. Sure, my little Introvert-Sensing-Thinking-Judging type may make it seem like I'm a perfectly rational math nerd, but when it comes to the fourth dimension, I can be pretty emotional! It seems odd that my MBTI test results show me as "moderate" towards "judging" on the "judging-perceiving" scale (only 7 on a scale of 0 to 30), whereas I feel like I'm off the charts toward judging.

Anyway, deep breaths, deep breaths...so, where were we?

Ah, yes. During the training session, the facilitators described the Judger's mindset as "joy of closure" and the Perceiver's mindset as "joy of processing." These descriptions are a keen insight. Being a Judger, for example, I'm well aware that I get joy from closure. What better feeling than talking through the options, hashing out the pros and cons, and then making a decision? I even get joy from everyday activities like discussing the options of where to go out to eat, and then making a final decision on which restaurant. Then, after I get to the restaurant, I get joy from knowing I just placed my order. Picture me brushing my hands together (as if dusting them off) at the end of a project or after a decision has been made (though that's not me in the accompanying photo)—that's when my feeling of judging-perceiving wellbeing is at its highest. Selah.

Perceivers are on the other end of the spectrum. That's because the joy they get from processing comes to an unfortunate end if there's a deadline or they have to make a decision, so of course they tend to resist deadlines and final decisions. They'd rather just keep processing forever. In fact, if they see someone brushing his or her hands together after a decision has been made, it's a sad, sad day for them. The Perceiver's joy comes during the project—not at the end. From the Perceiver's perspective, it's really too bad the annoyingly rigid committee chair won't sign off on letting the project go on forever!

Perceivers do have a skill set that often is not present in Judgers. Perceivers tend to excel at multi-tasking, while folks with a Judging mindset find it difficult to multi-task. For example, after a day of work where I touched multiple projects but didn't make as much headway on any of them as I wanted, I tend to have the feeling that I haven't accomplished much. But for the Perceiver, that's a great day! They got to work on a bunch of different stuff, and didn't have to close the books on any of it. Hallelujah!

This image of "an automatic dishwasher being loaded" was created by Klugmeister using artificial intelligence software. The image was reviewed by Klugmeister before posting on this web page.

Note there are probably also some other accelerants at work here, since the ability to multi-task is also a characteristic of extroverts. So a garden variety Judger may be even more at odds with a Perceiver if the Judger is an introvert and the Perceiver is an extrovert.

While I pointed out previously that Judging doesn't refer to being judgmental, that type of thing can sometimes occur when Judgers and Perceivers are collaborating on a committee. For example, the Judger may view the Perceiver's style (such as resistance to deadlines) as a character flaw (i.e., a bug rather than a feature). But criticism can go back the other way too—the Perceiver may view the Judger as being overly rigid or obsessive and unwilling to leave the discussion open long enough for the Perceiver to get comfortable with a decision. Tomato, tomahto.

In these situations, a willingness to compromise may help. For example, the Judger may be willing to allow the Perceiver some extra time to gather information needed to make a decision, but just not the Perceiver's preferred timeline (i.e., forever). Similarly, the Judger may be willing to squelch the natural tendency to push to make a decision quickly.

If I had to pick one everyday object that encapsulates the tension between the Judger and the Perceiver, I'd have to pick the automatic dishwasher. When a Judger loads the dishwasher, he or she may ask around whether there are any other items that needs to go in before he or she starts the cycle. That's an attempt by Mr. or Ms. Tightasz to tell the world that if you don't bring it now, you'll have to wait until the next dishwasher cycle.

Why is that, you ask? Why is it that nothing else can go in once the cycle has started? Is that a law of the Medes and Persians that can't be changed, hmm? No, no—it's just that the Judger will get vewy, vewy agitated if a Perceiver tries to put more items in the dishwasher after (1) the whistle has blown, (2) the train conductor has said "all aboard," and (3) the cycle has started.

Why oh why do Judgers feel like they need to adorn themselves in gladiator gear in order to protect the dishwasher from intruders until the wash cycle is over? We're just strange that way!

Klugmeister, signing off.