Customer Reviews

The Character of Organizations: Using Jungian Type in Organizational Development

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Bridges argues that organizations differ in character just as much as individuals do. He groups organizations into 16 personality types - which had originally been developed by Carl Jung and then further developed by the Myers-Briggs team for their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®. He calls his version the Organizational Character Index. According to his sixteen point matrix, the organization that I am in right now would be considered an ISTJ organization - one that takes cues and draws power from within, concerns itself with actualities, depends upon impersonal procedures, likes things spelled out and seeks closure. Pretty darned close to reality.

Its a great book if you want to understand a new culture. If you are changing roles, or getting promoted to a new part of the organization.

I turned to this book because I became a CIO, which put me in a different category than I had ever been in before. I needed to quickly assess the situation within the organization and learn how to address me new peers.

I would couple this book with Seth Godin's Permission marketing and Geoffrey Moore's Inside the Tornado as the definitive "big three" for CIOs if they want to learn how to market their services in a corporation.

When I first started reading this book I thought, "Ok, here we go - another MBTI book." After I got past the first pages I realized that there was much more. For example, it talks about the organizational life cycle and change in the context of the jungian preferences. I also found the Organizational Character Index in the book a useful tool to have at my fingertips. I use it to analyze organizations during acquisition phase and to have deeper, more meaningful discussions with clients.