Jordan Salvit

Over the last few weeks I have had some very interesting conversations with people who rationalize situations very differently than I do.  These conversations were all theoretical and stirred a heated and loud debate.  It wasn’t till afterwards that I realized these debates were fueled by the T-F dichotomy.  

One of the conversations happened yesterday with a friend who said he thinks we should NEVER fire people.  I asked him if there was any situation when he thought someone should be let go and he responded NO.  I was in shock until I realized that he strongly prefers Feeling and is very empathetic.

I personally prefer Thinking and am clearly not as empathetic as my friend.  I generally approach a situation by assessing all the facts before I assess people’s emotions.  If my goal is to cut $100,000 from the budget, I look at my expenses and see what I don’t need.  This analysis is unrelated to the people that may be effected by the cuts.  

I tried very hard to explain my thought process to my friend and he wouldn’t even listen.  Granted, I also had a hard time listening to him.  The best part was when we both realized that we were much better off having had the conversation.  We were finally able to show the other person the value of extreme Feeling and extreme Thinking.  We agreed that starting from both extremes makes the middle so much more meaningful.  

Can you imagine what the world would be like if everyone preferred Thinking?  It would be a place where facts and figures would rule.  People would lose jobs regularly.  There would be no leniency for rule breakers or punishments.  

The world would be very different if everyone preferred Feeling.  It would be a place where empathy and camaraderie ruled.  No one would ever be let go and punishments and rules would differ for each person.  

As a T, I think the F-World would be chaos.  To an F, the T-World would be prison.

Next time you have a heated debate with someone, think if it is driven from the T-F dichotomy.  If it is, I hope you learn as much as I have from the other person’s perspective.

I have been an avid reader of FlowingData ever since I stumbled across it.  Every day, Nathan posts about some new visualization or data set that we should look at.  Today, Nathan launched your.flowingdata.com and I am really impressed with the amount of work he put into it.  The idea behind your.flowingdata is that you can track, trend and visualize your own habits.  The one catch is that you need to direct message these actions to @yfd.  

For all those out there that are interested in data visualizations, FlowingData is a great place to start.  If you have a twitter account and are trying to track how much you eat, when you sleep or whatever else you want to track give your.flowingdata a try.  

I’ll be honest, I am horrible at logging the minute details of my life, but I am debating doing it now!

Corporate America is often criticized as being bureaucratic and stodgy.  The complaint is that every decision takes much longer to be made and execute.  On the flip side, it is often said that small businesses make decisions quickly because there are only a handful of decision makers and the decisions can be executed swiftly.  Over the last few months, I have come to realize that this dichotomy has nothing to do with the size of an organization.  It is completely based on management’s leadership capabilities and style.

My boss at the consulting company I work for is an example of a good leader.  He is straightforward in his approach and always sets expectations very clearly.  He gives both positive and negative feedback regularly, reenforcing good habits and hoping to expunge bad ones.  He entrusts decisions to his team and supports their work.  At the same time, he makes sure he is not hypocritical at all and leads by example.  The combination of these traits are admirable and highlight what it means to be a good leader.  Under his leadership the organization moves forward quickly and nimbly as if we were a five person company.

On the other hand, I also work with a small five person company and their lack of similar leadership perpetuates a sense of stodginess thought of in thousand person companies.  Decisions are made slowly and followed through even slower.  This is in part because the head of the organization is indecisive, inconsistent and rarely follows through.  These traits reenforce bad work habits that are very hard to get rid of.

I find myself asking, is the success of any organization tied to its management’s ability to lead?  Although I wish it weren’t true, I am beginning to think the answer is YES.