Is your preference thinking, feeling, intuiting or sensing?

Some people find it really useful to be more aware about the ways they think or react, and there are a range of approaches and tools available that can help us do this. Carl Jung, in the 1920s, for instance, suggested that we process and react to inputs by thinking, feeling, intuiting, or sensing:

• Thinkers tend to collect and consciously analyse data.
• Feelers are open to emotions and their consequences.
• Intuitors don’t find detail useful, and act on on their decisions, although they may not be aware of how they reached the decision.
• Sensors tend to be kinaesthetic and rely on their senses to guide their reactions and actions.

Marchant (2014) identifies that everyone uses all four. However, many of us “favour one way over the other three, sometimes markedly so” (Para. 15), and it’s being cognisant of whether we favour one over another that can be helpful.

Given these factors, I will now focus on the intuitor-type of person In a coaching context; in particular I’ll identify aspects that might help me coach this person, and what I might need to keep an eye open for.

If I am working with a person who strongly identifies as an intuitor type I would expect that they are likely to:

• be focussed on potential and future possibilities (although these can seem unrealistic)
• look for patterns and relationships
• be (apparently) impulsive because they seem to react rather than taking time to consider ‘the facts’
• have a wide range of ideas
• not be keen on detail or data
• enjoy using their imagination
• enjoy being creative and inventive
• like to work with conceptual ideas and information
• be idealistic
• be focussed on bigger picture rather than processes and guidelines

I would try to shape coaching sessions to help ensure that there are plenty of opportunities for my coachee to talk through their ideas (including philosophic underpinnings and principles). During these descriptions I would gently encourage them to unpack a bit more detail, but in a way that signals I am curious about, and value, their insights. Supportive questions might be around encouraging the coachee to consider how other people in their context  respond positively to their ideas, and, if appropriate, I would also ask questions about other (online) communities and places the coachee could share, discuss, and develop ideas further.

One of the things I would need to keep an eye on is that the coachee doesn’t end up going through similar cycles and not recognising them as such - especially if they are making the same mistake each time. For example, a coachee might describe a series of situations where they receive the feedback ‘we don’t know what you are working on most of the time - or why’. It could even have led to misunderstandings to the point where they have been pulled in for a meeting and questioned about what they are spending their time doing. Usually, it’s a case that the coachee has been so completely focussed on a task or project that they haven’t taken the time to communicate their progress to anyone else, and have seen the feedback as a minor annoyance - until, to their surprise, serious questions start to be asked about their performance.

In situations like this one, I would encourage my coachee through a deductive process:

1. to consider the implications of their complete focus (i.e. the bigger picture),
2. and how the positive progress they are making (i.e. the details),
3. could be (creatively) communicated with any stakeholders who needed to know so that these stakeholders can / will continue to support and fund the piece of work on which the coachee is focussing,
4. and finally, encourage the coachee to identify ways they can share with co-workers, managers, family and friends their “preferred intuitive information gathering preference” (Edward, n.d., Para. 5).

The central thing here is to support my coachee to clearly identify the ‘why’, so that they have a clear reason and motivation to carry through with a necessary action (possibly in a creative way). In this example, it would be a strategy that could also ensure that they keep their role! In turn, by opening up awareness and lines of communication, ideally it would lead to increased support and recognition of the value of the work the coachee is doing.

References

Marchant, J. (2014). Thinker, feeler, knower, sensor? Retrieved from http://www.emotionalintelligenceatwork.com/resources/thinker-feeler-knower-sensor/.

Southern Institute of Technology (a). (n.d.) Transformational Coaching and its outcomes (Module C) [Lecture notes]. Retrieved from CBC106 (NET).