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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent Idea,
By
This review is from: The Character of Organisations: Using Personality Type in Organization Development (Paperback)
This is a really useful application of the MBTI to organisational analysis. Bridges uses the analogy of personality at the organisational level to illustrate how companies can see where they are and where they want to be.
It's a shame he doesn't include more tangible exercises for companies to balance their typological preferences to help them, eg, for the first dichotomy he suggests introverted orgs tend to focus on core competence and extraverted orgs on the market and customers - a simple SWOT analysis would be an obvious familiar tool for orgs to use to help this - translates as IWET (!), keeping the Weaknesses and Threats part - so they could assess how to move forward and build their vision and structure change realistically with competence and context in mind.
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4.4 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews) 12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Myers-Briggs for companies - surprisingly effective.,
By Nigel Seel - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Character of Organisations: Using Personality Type in Organization Development (Paperback)
Criticisms that this book merely recycles standard Myers-Briggs ideas are misplaced. Most people familiar with ideas of psychological type might agree there was *some* case for an analogous approach to organisational character, perhaps at the level of the four categories of temperament. However, William Bridges succeeds in showing how applying the sixteen types of Myers-Briggs type theory can highlight essential and distinctive organisational characteristics. Most of his examples, although dated, seem compelling. There are a few issues: I suspect that most people would consider Hewlett-Packard to be SF, rather than ST, as Dr. Bridges has it (p. 25). And even for a book first published in 1990, the omission of Microsoft is a little surprising (INTJ?).The other dimension of organisational analysis covered in this book is that of organisational development and lifecycle. Again, Dr. Bridges leverages type theory to develop some interesting ideas as to the different type-characteristics exhibited from organisation conception ("the Dream"), through maturity ("Becoming an Institution"), to organisational death. Given the extent of merger and acquisition activity in recent years, I was surprised to see how little attention Dr. Bridges gave to managing the cultural and developmental issues which surface when different company characteristics collide in M&A, (about half a page). Finally, there is a deeper theoretical issue as to why Jungian/Myers-Briggs type theory - developed from Jung's theories of the human psyche, should be expected to apply to organisations at all. Do organisations assemble themselves around the type of their founders, does the type emerge as a side-effect of the types of employees who are best at tackling the company's problems, or is there a supra-human theory of "organisational psychology" trying to get out here? The book alludes to the existence of these kinds of problems, but does not really add much to our understanding. All in all, this book will add value to anyone who already has a feel for the Myers-Briggs approach to personality types, and who is interested in effectively dealing with organisations. 11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Character of Organizations,
By Ruth Morton, Ph.D. - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Character of Organisations: Using Personality Type in Organization Development (Paperback)
If a deeper understanding of a company or organization is important to you, this book could help! Conceptual in nature, Bridges' book outlines a framework for understanding different types of organization personalities, or character. He provides a quick assessment instrument, succinct descriptions of the 16 types in his framework, and poignant organizational examples for each. He relates this framework to stages of organizational life cycle, the three phases of organizational transition (about which he has written prolifically), and individual type and leadership. This book does not provide "how to" or checklists for action, but it leads me to important questions and possible implications about: what character the organization is and why, the transition process required to help the organization develop different character, movement from one stage of the life cycle to another, the role of leadership in doing so, and how one's individual personality relates to the character of the organization. With each reading I uncover something more or different in this gem of a book. Although the framework and assessment instrument have not been subjected to statistical analysis, The Character of Organizations is an enormously thought provoking and helpful resource.
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Genuine Classic,
By Chris Edgelow - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: The Character of Organisations: Using Personality Type in Organization Development (Paperback)
I am thrilled this book has been published again, with the new forward as well as new insights from Bridges, without a word from the original work being changed. It was a classic as soon as it first came out, and it remains one still. Over the past several years, there has been an insurgence of writing on the topic of organizational character and/or culture. While some of them have had a few interesting things to say, none have even come close to the clarity, familiarity and usefulness of The Character of Organizations. When this book first came out in 1992, I, a long time Myers Briggs junkie, became a man possessed. I tried to understand all of my organizational clients using this methodology and found it exceptionally useful in helping me to change my approach in the various different systems I was working at the time. During the past 8 years, I have come to understand this simple, familiar approach to be the most helpful methodology in making sense of the complexity of organizational systems. Whenever I introduce it with either managers/leaders, or consultants working with organizations, the reactions are always the same. The "no wonder...", "a-ha's", or "so that's why..." indicate a breakthrough to another level of insight and understanding. If managers and leaders read this book and made use of these concepts, they would find their ability to work more effectively with their departments, divisions, teams etc. increase dramatically and their frustrations dramatically reduce. If consultants, either internal or external, read this book and used the concepts as they both planned and implemented their interventions, the success of their interventions would significantly increase. The specific chapter on Character and Organization Development should be 'must reading' for all consultants working with organizations today. |
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