Podcast: All About Extraversion

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Intro: Welcome to The Myers-Briggs Company Podcast, where we bring together thought leaders, psychologists, and personality experts from around the world to talk about work life, home life, and how to get the best from life.

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Melissa Summer (MS): In this episode of The Myers-Briggs Company Podcast, we’re talking all things Extraversion. Last year for World Introvert Day, we recorded a podcast episode all about Introversion, so it’s only fitting that we cover the other side of this preference: Extraversion. Chartered Psychologist Catherine Ellwood joins us to talk about how not all those who prefer Extraversion preferences are the same, how one Extravert can look different from another, and so much more. We’ll also talk about what the most common Extraverted personality types are, what people usually get wrong about Extraversion, and share practical tips for those with preferences for Extraversion – or anyone who has someone close to them with these preferences.

Catherine Ellwood is an Occupational Psychologist with over 18 years of experience in people development. She’s skilled in the design, delivery, and management of large complex assessment and development projects, and is experienced in team development, leadership development, and executive coaching. She holds a BS in psychology and a master’s in occupational psychology, and is Level A and Level B accredited with the British Psychological Society. Welcome Catherine!

Catheine Ellwood (CE): Thank you very much Melissa. It’s lovely to be here.

MS: Lovely to have you. I’m excited today to talk all about Extraversion when it comes to Myers -Briggs personality preferences. Let’s just start with, first off, easiest question. We had had a previous episode where we had John Hackston on and he told us all about Introversion. In your definition, what is Extraversion versus Introversion?

CE: I think that’s a great place to start to make sure that we’re talking about the same thing to begin with. I think both Extraversion and Introversion have meaning in everyday life, don’t they? We perhaps use those words to describe people, particularly the label ‘Extravert’ and ‘Introvert.’ And we often think about those when we’re talking about personality. They might be words that people would use to describe people.

And in fact, not all models of personality describe them in the same way, let alone how we might describe it in terms of everyday language. But in essence, the way that MBTI thinks about both Extraversion and Introversion together is that it’s about where we get our energy from, what it is that energizes us. Whether that’s – particularly for Extraversion as we’re talking about here – is receiving that energy from the outside world, from things and people around us, as opposed to Introversion where that energy is coming from our own kind of internal reflections, thoughts, our own inner world.

In terms of what that might look like behaviorally with somebody with a preference for Extraversion: we will often hear them talking their ideas out loud. We’re hearing their thought process. So that often involves more words. It probably doesn’t come as any surprise to people that you might hear more from a person an Extraversion preference, but often it is because they are working through their thinking and they’re doing that out loud. They may have a tendency to jump into action. So given a task or a project to do, probably jump into doing something and then may stop and reflect on that afterwards. And often perhaps more expressive in both the way they speak and perhaps their body language.

I’m very aware of this microphone right next to my face and I have a tendency to wave my hands around, which may give an indication to my preference. And I am sure at some point, and while we’re talking, I’m going to knock into it, but you will often see that.

MS: [laughter] So if our listeners hear a big sonic boom, everything is fine. We just accidentally hit the mic.

CE: [laughter] Yeah, I’ve knocked the microphone or something off the desk. But you often see that as one way to identify people with an Extraversion preference. They may use their body language more to emphasize points. And often breadth is a word that we might think about with Extraversion. So breadth of interests, breadth of activities, breadth of friends potentially. People that – perhaps those with Introversion preferences – may not necessarily call friends.

You may see less segmentation, I suppose, of those groups of people, from people with Extraversion preferences. Their friends, their colleagues, their acquaintances may blend more into one another. As I’m sure John talked about in his podcast, in those with Introversion preferences, there are often clearer groupings. And I might have a smaller group of people that I would really call my deep close friends if I have an Introversion preference.

MS: Wt are your personality preferences, if you don’t mind me asking?

CE: No, not at all. My preference is for E as I’ve probably already given away. E, S, F and P. Extraversion, Sensing, Feeling, and Perceiving. And yours are?

MS: I have preferences for INFJ. [Introversion, Intuition, Feeling, and Judging]

CE: Ah so we just have our Feeling preference in common.

MS: It’s interesting what you said about the friends thing. My sister just got married last weekend. And when I first got MBTI certified, of course the first thing I did was give it to my entire family, right? And I did a mini team building session. My sister has preferences for ENFP – and she’s okay with me sharing that. I have asked if it’s okay. But at her wedding, one of the speeches said there are two types of people in the world. People who are friends with my sister and people who my sister hasn’t met yet. I know that’s what I think of when I think of Extraversion: people who just connect with other people so easily. But you’re saying it’s more energy-related, that people are actually energized by connecting with people.

CE: I suppose the broader range of people we surround ourselves with or things that we engage in, the more opportunity there is for that energy to come in from different places, isn’t it? And we often see it with hobbies and interests. You may find that people with Extraversion preferences have a broader range of things that they’re interested in. They can always dip in and out of them. Perhaps – and I know this word may sound negative, but I don’t mean it in a negative way – perhaps almost at a superficial level.

Whereas people with Introversion preferences often have smaller numbers of interests, but they may explore them in a lot more depth. So almost might be seen as an expert in, I don’t know, astronomy or stamp collecting or whatever it is it might be. So that kind of breadth versus depth is often quite a useful way of thinking about distinguishing between the two and really capitalizing, I suppose, on where that energy can come from.

MS: What do people usually get, or most often get, wrong about Extraversion? Both in a general public sense, but then also in- I know you’re an MBTI expert, so I’d love to hear the general public sense of what people get wrong, but also what maybe some MBTI practitioners or people who have a little bit more knowledge about Myers -Briggs. But maybe there’s a couple things that they might get wrong or something they’re missing.

CE: Yeah and I think, as we mentioned, thinking about the last question. Just the word Extraversion means lots of different things to lots of different people. And we perhaps have our stereotypical versions of what that means. And those are going to differ by the country that we live in, the culture that we were brought up in, our individual family upbringing and what was valued or what was maybe dismissed in ters of acceptable ways to behave.

There are lots of different ways that those stereotypes can come in. And I think one of the key ones that we often see – actually both in the street and perhaps sometimes from people actually using the tool in a work context – is this idea that in MBTI terms, Extraversion isn’t about self or social confidence. So, I may have an Extraversion preference and might want to be with other people and be energized by being with other people, but I may not want everybody to be looking at me and for me to be the center of attention.

MS: Oh interesting.

CE: I may not find that as enjoyable or I may not be confident in my own ability to do something. Just because I want to be with people doesn’t mean that I necessarily think that I am the best manager or speaker or whatever that might be. It doesn’t necessarily mean that I have confidence in my own abilities. Equally, you can meet people with Introversion preferences who may prefer to energize and recharge internally in their own thoughts and reflections, but they are very self-confident in their own ability to do things. They may be perfectly happy to stand on a stage in front of 200 people and deliver a lecture or a conference session. They may not find it so enjoyable to then go and spend time in the bar afterwards, doing the kind of small talk networking that might be more draining for them, but they are still perfectly confident and capable of doing it.

I think that distinction is often something that I find, when working teams. There’s often a- actually it probably happens more that people are surprised when people say they have an Introversion preference rather than being surprised when people say they have an Extraversion preference in terms of, ‘my goodness, you seem so confident and sure of yourself.’ There’s therefore an expectation from that, that that would lead to an Extraversion preference. And obviously in some cases it does, but it doesn’t necessarily. That link is not a guarantee. Just because somebody decides that they’re energized by the outside world, that doesn’t necessarily equate to confidence.

In terms of other misconceptions, I suppose, we can get those with all eight of the MBTI preferences. There are assumptions that we make about people based on a little snapshot of what we see from them. But I think often what we hear around Extraversion, or what I’m very aware of around Extraversion, is that there could be a perception around a lack of – and I use the word depth and I won’t use the word depth in the answer to every question – a lack of perhaps depth or substance.

I think often because you are hearing that train of thought from people with an Extraversion preference. They are thinking out loud. They might jump around a little bit, so what they say initially might change over the course of that conversation. And I think that there is the perception that that means, have they thought about this in advance? The answer may well be no, but you know, do they know what they’re talking about? Are they certain of things?

And I think sometimes that kind of flow of thought process can be misleading for some people in terms of it doesn’t imply a lack of depth. You might get exactly the same thought process for somebody with an Introversion preference, but for them it’s all happened in their head and you hear the final answer. Whereas you’ve heard it all out loud, which I guess could lead to perceptions of indecisiveness as that conversation moves and shifts around.

MS: I hadn’t thought about that as far as stereotype or misperception in teams. I know you do a lot of work with teams – especially workplace teams I assume, right?

CE: Yeah, definitely. And we all make assumptions based on the behavior we see, don’t we? And we don’t necessarily think about what sits behind them. And I think interruptions is also another possible one for those people with Extraversion preferences in that they may have more of a tendency to interrupt than people with Introversion preferences, who often will take their turn and appear quite polite in a conversation. They may interrupt more, which obviously could be perceived as rude. In some cases, it may be that they are rude. But in lots of cases, it isn’t that. It is that they have a thought that comes to mind and it almost doesn’t become real until it’s said out loud. So there’s something about making it – I was going to use the word solid, which I don’t think is a word I’ve ever used in that context before, but I’m gonna go with that because it feels like it works.

MS: Let’s go with it.

CE: Yeah, let’s go with it. There’s something about making it solid, making it real, by saying it out loud, because otherwise it may get lost. So the intention is not rudeness, but obviously that is very definitely the way it could appear. And certainly sometimes when I’m delivering team development work, we sometimes intentionally split people into a group of people who have a preference for Extraversion and a group of people who identify as having a preference for Introversion and get them to do some kind of exercise. And it’s often very marked, the difference between the two – in that you watch the Introversion group and they will all tend to take turns. It feels polite. It often feels like there’s quite a lot of space, probably thinking time. Not surprisingly, these are all things we might expect.

MS: Long, long silences in between talking. [laughter]

CE: [laughter] They perhaps feel longer for those people with Extraversion preferences watching than they do for people with Introversion preferences in them. Whereas the Extraversion group, there’s often a lot of talking. They’re kind of bouncing – almost kind of building ideas, bouncing ideas around. There’s maybe more than one conversation going on at once. And it’s not about being rude. It is just about the idea of ‘I need to say it out loud.’ But as I said before, we all form perceptions based on things we see of people. And that is a possible misconception that could be formed of somebody with Extraversion preferences.

MS: This is very interesting because as we’re talking, I’m thinking about my team and the people I interact with. Ironically, everyone on my team has preferences – my direct team – has preferences for Introversion. But I’m thinking of meetings I have with some of the larger team, especially when it comes to brainstorming. Sometimes it’s just that the people who have Extraversion, it seems almost like a building of excitement – like ‘I have this idea and I have to share it because I’m really excited about it.’

CE: Yeah. And I know that the team that you work in is split in the UK and the US as well. And I think the implications of having to use whatever platform it might be, that meetings are happening on, whether it’s MS Teams or Zoom, brings different dynamics into some of these conversations. And if we were sat in a room together, it’s much harder to have conversations where we all talk over the top of each other virtually because then no one can hear anything that’s going on.

So in some ways, I think using virtual platforms has probably- well, I’ll say ‘leveled’ the playing field, but I’m not implying that one preference was above or below the other. But I think perhaps our meeting culture generally is probably set up more to suit those people with Extraversion preferences. We’re expected to be in meetings a lot. People often want immediate answers to things. We often devalue the time that we might want to spend thinking and reflecting on things.

But I wonder whether using virtual platforms has perhaps helped with some of that because we do naturally have to take turns a little bit more. It forces us into having a bit more space, which is obviously a good thing for those people with Extraversion preferences to do too. There are always things that both preferences can learn from having to work in opposite ways. And I think if virtual meetings lend some of that, so we may not see some of the interruptions in quite the same way virtually as we would do if we were all sat around a table together.

MS: That makes sense. I’m thinking about too when I worked remotely prior to the pandemic. And I’m thinking of when we would have meetings and most people would be sitting in a room and there would be a laptop on so that I could join. But how the meeting was so different in the room of the people talking. And as the person who’s working remotely and trying to listen, you can’t say anything unless you’re either waving your hands in the air to get someone’s attention or there’s at least three seconds of silence because basically when you’re remote, the microphone shuts off. But I could see what you’re saying with the quote unquote ‘leveling the playing field’ as far as you have to take turns because you can’t interrupt as easily.

CE: Yes. And that’s a really good point. I think when I’m talking about leveling it, I’m meaning everybody being remote, rather than, as you say, when you’re the one person dialing into a face-to-face meeting. That’s a very different dynamic again, isn’t it? In terms of being able to interject into the conversation, that becomes much more difficult.

MS: And you mentioned too, the difference . . . I mean, I know in our company, we have people in different countries. Like right now, I’m in the US and you’re in the UK. So when it comes to that kind of cultural difference, you mentioned there’s cultural differences that affect when you say ‘I have a preference for Extraversion,’ and what that behavior looks like. And you also said something about family dynamics, like being raised differently. Can you explain that a little bit as far as how that might look different?

CE: Yeah. We find MBTI preferences – well, in every culture that we’ve looked for them in so far. It appears to be quite consistent. Wherever we look culturally, you’ll get a group of people that will identify as being energized by the outside world and people and things around them. And we’ll get a group of people who are energized by their own internal thoughts and reflections. So Extraversion, Introversion, and all of the other six preferences too. But given we’re focusing on Extraversion today, we’ll stick at the first two.

Extraversion and Introversion do appear to be two constructs that are valid in different cultures, but what that looks like in terms of behavior seems to vary. So obviously without being stereotypical – and there are huge amounts of individual difference within any of this – but for example, Extraversion within the US may look different. I don’t think this will be a shock to many people as I say it out loud, [Extraversion in the US] may look different to the way the Extraversion in the UK might look. It may be louder, it may be bigger.

MS: I was going to say louder.

CE: [laughter] Yeah, because that’s what’s culturally- the cultural norms are different. And actually, you may find that somebody in the UK who says they have an Extraversion preference may actually, in behavioral terms, look quite similar to somebody who in the US might say they have an Introversion preference.

There is something about getting underneath the behavior to what’s actually driving that. And then equally perhaps, Scandinavian countries where there may be a tendency more towards being reserved and more centered and calm. Again, that may look even further towards those with Extraversion preferences, not looking quite as loud and as ‘out there,’ for want of a better label. It’s maybe useful to distinguish between this idea of preference and how do I prefer to do things versus actually what does that look like in terms of the way that I behave?

And I think equally you can find that- you mentioned family upbringing. If you are brought up in a family who are quite different to you, which I was – I won’t share all my family’s types because I haven’t asked their permission – but they do all have Introversion preferences, I’ll go that far because they would be absolutely fine with me saying that.

MS: Ah so you are the sole Extraverted preference person?

CE: In my immediate family that I grew up with as a child, yes.

MS: What was that like? Was it really difficult? Did you just feel like you were – I don’t want to say ‘screaming into the void’ – but like ‘why is nobody talking?’

CE: I think it was probably more difficult for them than for me because I just used to talk at them all the time – and still do to a large extent. So I kind of grew up with the label of being the chatterbox and the talker and the one that could never shut up. And actually I have to admit, I was reflecting on that running into this podcast. Actually it didn’t bother me as a child, but I could understand for some people how that could.

So when I say family upbringing might impact – and perhaps it doesn’t happen so much now, but certainly perhaps 20, 30 years ago – the whole ‘children are seen and not heard’ labels and ‘you don’t speak up and you don’t ask questions.’ So if you were a child who naturally had Extraversion preferences growing up in that kind of family environment, I can imagine that may well impact how you then express those behaviors in later life. For me, I don’t think in any way it dampened down my Extraversion preference. I may have gone slightly the other way and took it on as a bit of a, ‘well, I’m the talkative one’ role. And I’m still labeled as the chatterbox of the family.

Equally, I guess if it was the other way and if you have an Introversion preference in a family surrounded by those with Extraversion preferences actually being forced into social situations or having to go and talk to people that you perhaps didn’t feel so comfortable with. That may also have been challenging and can then impact the way that those preferences display themselves in later life. Because if I’ve learned over time that those are the behaviors that are valued, then I’m more likely to continue into my adult life, in terms of displaying them.

Sometimes when we’re going through MBTI feedback with people, they may say, ‘actually, I’m really finding it difficult to decide which one of these sounds more like me. I can see both of me in there.’ And that might be part of that. They will have a natural preference for one, but they may have spent so much time using the other preference actually that it almost becomes difficult to distinguish what of that is learned behavior that I’ve adapted to because of my surroundings versus which is my natural inbuilt way to be.

MS: Yeah, and I know that’s one of the important things, if I remember from MBTI certification. Before you take the actual MBTI assessment – not talking about all the free online knockoffs that give you a four-letter type that have no validity behind them because that is not the same – but that there’s this whole mind setting thing that you go through before you take the actual assessment. Michael Segovia, if I remember, refers to it as ‘shoes-off self.’ It’s not what your family expectations are, not what your work expectations are, but if you had complete freedom to just do what you want to do versus what you’re expected to do or what you flex to.

CE: Yes, so I’m not filling it in as ‘the good daughter’ or ‘the good sister’ in the family. I’m not filling it in as ‘what should a manager do’ or ‘what should a marketing executive do’ or a finance assistant or whatever my role is. I’m taking all those hats off and just thinking about when I think about me and my ‘shoes off’ natural state, what is that like? And for some people that’s really difficult to unpick and to get to that. And that’s why you talked about the importance of filling in the proper MBTI assessment, but also why a feedback session is so important too – because that then gives you an opportunity to explore some of those things and think about trying to come to which of these preferences fits me best.

But just as important as that is trying to understand when I’m using both of them and in what situations and what impact does that have? Am I always behaving in a certain way just because at some point in the past I’ve learned that, and it may not necessarily be serving me as well in my current context now? We form patterns of behavior out of habit. Am I still relying on past habits that, at the time, were absolutely the right thing for me to be doing, but I’m in a different context now with different people or a different role? And maybe I need to think about how I adapt my behavior to suit me best now in this moment.

MS: I’m curious to dive in deeper. I know we’ve been talking about Extraversion as one solid block term, but there are a lot of differences between different types. There’s actually eight different MBTI types who prefer Extraversion. So my first question along that line is, when it comes to the most common Extraverted types of the eight versus the most rare Extraverted types, where do those numbers fall?

CE: Yeah, that’s a good question. And it varies by country as well. So I have pulled out the European stats and the US stats. In Europe – and my notes are just above the screen, so that is what I’m looking at, reading them because I don’t know the numbers off by heart.

MS: I assumed you had it on the wall, just all the MBTI statistics on the wall behind you. Giant type tables . . .  [laughter]

CE: I can’t remember all of them. They’re on a second screen. [laughter] The most common in Europe is ESTJ – so Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking, and Judging. About 21 percent of people. I’ll finish what I was gonna say and then I’ll make the point I was about to because it applies to all of these numbers. So about one in five people in our European sample were reporting with ESTJ preferences. Least common: ESFP, which is me. So only 2.1 perent of the sample within Europe for ESFP. So quite a big range from kind of 20-plus percent down to 2 percent.

What I will say about Europe is that that is combined for Europe. I think it may be slightly overwhelming for the listeners to go through country by country – and I also don’t have that written down. But we do have a European data supplement, which I’ve checked today on our EU website is open access. So people can get in there to see it without having to be certified. If people are interested, there are breakdowns in lots of different European languages and cultures in there. If people want to look.

MS: I’ll make sure to add that to the show notes, the link to that.

CE: So for Europe, we had ESTJ. For the US, ESFJ at 12.3 percent. It’s the most represented. Not as big a skew, I suppose, as we’ve seen in Europe. And least represented: 1.8 percent for ENTJ. The one thing I was going to say earlier, which I’ll say about all of them, is these numbers are – as far as I’m aware – are based on people’s reported type. So the type that comes out when they fill out the questionnaire, which we know in about 70 to 80 percent of times people completely agree with it feels exactly like them. But that does mean for 20 to 30 perent of the time, we get people who read the results and think exactly as we’ve just talked about: ‘I filled it in as I am at work,’ or ‘I filled it in how I would like to be or how I think I ought to be.’

And as part of the feedback conversation, they may realize that perhaps one, perhaps two of those letters aren’t quite exactly where they would expect them to have been. And the reason for me saying that is often culturally, we see a pull towards E, S, T and J. So Extraversion, Sensing in terms of facts and specifics, Thinking around logic and objectivity to make decisions, and Judging around being planned and organized. And the scoring with an MBTI is set up in a way to counterbalance some of that cultural bias that particularly we see in Western societies towards ESTJ.

I suppose what I was reflecting on as I was looking at those numbers is I wonder how many of those, particularly in Europe, how many of that 21 percent of ESTJs actually decided on a different best fit type when they went through a feedback process. Now that information is much more difficult, as you can imagine, for us to gather. But it would be interesting. And also that sample has nearly a quarter of a million people in it. So obviously we couldn’t be following up on all of those people.

MS: A quarter of a million people? Is my math right – 250,000 people? That’s much bigger than I thought it was.

CE: Yeah, it’s a huge sample size from across probably nine or ten years. Yes, 250 ,000. I was really surprised at that as well because obviously the individual country breakdowns within that are much smaller. But yeah, as a whole, a very big group in there. I would imagine that perhaps once you got to the point of people having been through a feedback session and they’ve reflected on this themselves and they’ve thought, ‘actually, when I think about myself with my shoes off, and coming to the four-letter type that feels right for me – which may or may not be what the assessment supports – we kind of use those two pieces of information together to help somebody make that decision. I wonder whether that 21 percent of ESTJs may drop slightly. Equally, it might go up slightly. I suppose I have no evidence that it would drop, but I would suspect, given – as I’ve said – there’s more of a social desirability pull to some of those letters, to some of those preferences. We might see that total number is slightly lower. But even so, there are very definite differences between the eight different preferences that have Extraversion at the beginning of them.

And I know you said, how are they different from one another? And given that approximately 50 percent of the world has an Extraversion preference, but they’re obviously not all the same. And even for those – if I take the lowest of those percentages I quoted – 1.8 percent of people in the US with ENTJ preferences, those people are not all going to be the same. They’re not all clones of each other. I think that probably goes without saying.

They will have characteristics in common, but they’re not the same. How that preference is expressed in terms of behavior is shaped by lots of different things. And we’ve talked about upbringing and family, but one way we have to classify that would be thinking about Step II and the MBTI Step II facets and the level of variability that those bring into the mix.

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MS: So for people who don’t know, what are the MBTI Step II facets? Because I think a lot of MBTI practitioners know – people who are certified to use and give the assessment. But just for the general audience who may have never heard of the MBTI Step II, what is that?

CE: That’s a great question. Up until now, we’ve been talking at what we would refer to as the MBTI Step I level. That would be your four letters. So INFJ for yourself, ESFP for me. What Step II does is it takes each of those preferences – so in this instance we’ll carry on thinking about Extraversion—Introversion, and it breaks them down into five facets within the Step II language, but subscales effectively. Five eleven-point scales. I did try and work out – I think John might’ve also tried to work out the maths on his podcast – I also tried to work out the maths today and then decided it wasn’t the best use of my time and stopped. But an awful lot of different combinations, thousands and thousands of combinations.

MS: That’s what I tell myself anytime there’s a math question. I’m like, this is not the best use of my time. [laughter]

CE: [laughter] It’s not the best use of my time to be working this out now. But yes, if we think about Extraversion and Introversion, we end up with five facets, each one of which somebody could score – we have zero as the midpoint, so they could actually score bang in the middle between Extraversion and Introversion. And we have five out to one side and five out to the other, so an eleven-point scale. That brings in a huge amount more detail, huge amount of variability, but also allows for all those individual differences, which we know exist.

Having said that, there will be even more individual differences, which I’ll say this bit quietly, which even Step II can’t – it doesn’t answer every question. There will be other things that happen outside of that as well. And obviously once we add in the other three preferences, we’ve then got 20 facets that we’re talking about across the whole profile because each preference pair breaks down into five. In terms of Extraversion—Introversion, I’ll just quickly whiz through what they are.

MS: I’ll make sure I have it right . . . so MBTI Step I, there are four preference pairs, so eight letters you could get total. But what you’re saying is that with MBTI Step II, which is much more detailed, each of those four pairs has five subscales underneath. So you’re looking at 20 different scales essentially. That’s so interesting because I’ve heard so many – well also because I do a lot in PR – but I’ve heard so many people who are like, ‘oh the MBTI is so simplified, it’s not useful because of that.’ But I don’t think a lot of people who say that are aware that even just Extraversion and Introversion have these five subscales or facets within Extraversion and Introversion.

CE: Yes. And I think for me, that’s the real power of MBTI is we can look at it at just the individual letter level and it’s still incredibly useful and impactful. And actually often when working with teams, particularly quite large teams or perhaps teams that are new to this way of thinking, actually just sticking at the Extraversion, Introversion, Sensing and Intuition level for them to start to appreciate difference, understand more about themselves, understand more about other people – it’s a simpler, and I mean simpler in the absolutely most positive sense of the word, framework for people to use and to conceptualize.

I think where the power lies is that we have that, but equally, as you say, then Step II can bring much more depth in underneath that for individual. Where I find it particularly impactful is individual leaders, perhaps in a coaching context where they really want to dig into the impact of some of these preferences and understand. For individuals who maybe are struggling to decide, so actually if I can’t pull apart, do I have an Extraversion or Introversion preference – actually looking at those five facet scores, there may well be a mixture of things in there and that might explain it. And it might be that I’m displaying Extraversion behaviors in one context and behaving in ways that you might more likely expect someone with Introversion preferences to act in different contexts, but it’s useful for me to understand what those are.

Also perhaps with senior teams, particularly smaller senior teams, because as you can imagine, we’ve already got twenty subscales with eleven data points on each. And if we then do that for eighteen people in a team, we’ve suddenly got so much information, it may become overwhelming.

MS: That’s a lot of data.

CE: Yeah. But if there’s four, five, six people in a team who have to work really closely together, they’re already familiar with their Step I results and they understand that – particularly if they’re all quite similar – because it might look on the Step I level that they have an awful lot of similarity within the team, which in some ways can be a bonus, but in other ways may mean that there are gaps in their thinking. What Step II can help them see is where are the gaps in a more detailed level, because actually they may find that there’s more of a mixture of behaviors in there than they were perhaps expecting.

So Initiating–Receiving is the first one of the five [facets], which is probably the broadest version of Extraversion and Introversion in terms of it accounts for a lot of the preference pair. Initiating and Receiving is about how we want to make contact with other people and open interactions. Initiating, which would be more linked to Extraversion generally, people are happy to introduce other people, go and make that first opening conversation, bring people together, perhaps connect people.

Whereas people on the Receiving side of that facet pair, which we might more likely link to Introversion, are probably more likely to hold back a little bit from doing that. They might want other people to approach them first. They can do it if they have to, because as with all of these things, it’s not about skill or ability. They obviously have the ability to go up and introduce themselves to somebody or bring people together, but it might not be a role that feels quite so comfortable or quite so natural.

We can get people – obviously typically we would expect people with Extraversion preferences to fall on the Initiating side and people with Introversion preferences to fall on the Receiving side. Most of the time that is what happens, but we can get people who fall what we label as ‘out of preference’ in either direction, but we’ll talk about those people with Extraversion being out of preference because that’s what we’re focusing on today.

I think if you have somebody who overall would recognize they have an Extraversion preference, but they fall on that Receiving side, it may be that they actually might initially be seen as Introverted by other people. They may sometimes be the people who other people on their team will go, ‘I hadn’t even realized [or] it wouldn’t have occurred to me that that was your preference’ because perhaps they see them holding back a little bit more to begin with. They may be slightly more reluctant to invite others in or perhaps make that first move, but still want to be with people. So they still want to be part of that group and are still energized by being in there. But that kind of opening up of interactions may be something that, for whatever reason, they’re not so comfortable with.

The second facet pair is Expressive—Contained. Again, Expressive being more likely to be an Extraversion behavior and Contained an Introversion behavior. And this is how open, perhaps how forthright, people are with expressing how they feel and what they think. Those on the Expressive side might say things about being an open book or ‘what you see is what you get.’ I’m never quite sure how well these kinds of phrases translate to people in all the different countries who may listen to this podcast, but hopefully that makes sense.

MS: Does using your hands a lot count as Expressive?

CE: [laughter] Yes it might, although it may come in further down too. But yes, it may well do. They may well be the one to talk things through on the Expressive side. Might be more likely to regret things they’ve said, to [think] ‘oh my goodness, why on earth did I say that?’ Because there hasn’t necessarily been that filter between the thought popping out of their mouth before they’ve had time to perhaps rein it in and contain it a little bit more.

That’s a good use of language because on the Contained side, the opposite is likely to happen. So they may be more private. They may take more time to open up and share their thoughts or share particularly about personal things about themselves. It’s not to say that they never would, but it might be with a much smaller group of people and prefer to think things through. And they’re more likely to regret what they’ve not said, so ‘why did I not say that? But now the conversation’s moved on and I can’t raise that point now because it will be dragging everybody back to the thing that we’ve just talked about.’ Whereas we’ve got the Expressive people without that filter, there’s perhaps too much of that happening on the Contained side.

We can get people with Extraversion preferences that recognize themselves in that Contained way of being. And it may be that they are quite happy to focus conversations on others. They may ask lots of questions about other people and are genuinely interested in other people, but often that is used as a way to divert from talking about themselves. For whatever reason, it’s uncomfortable to share private things or personal things or to be too forthright. I suppose we can quite easily imagine that there may be situations for people in the past where that has been harmful to them or those things have been misinterpreted or misconstrued or used against them in some way. And then it’s almost a defense against that potentially happening again.

That’s not to say everybody that recognizes themselves as a Contained Extravert may have that going on, but that could be a reason for it. And often this is where it’s really useful in the Step II feedback to explore what benefit does that behavior give you? Because it probably will, at least in the past, have given some benefit. But equally, where may it be useful to experiment with different approaches? What would it be like if you opened up with certain people or told certain people certain things about yourself? What would that feel like? What could be the disadvantages, but perhaps even more importantly, what could be the advantages of doing that?

Often, some of these out-of-preference scores are really – I mean, obviously it’s all interesting – but they’re particularly interesting to explore with people where their facet or subscale scores perhaps don’t go in the direction you’d necessarily expect them to.

Gregarious and Intimate is the third one. And I mentioned breadth versus depth at the very beginning. And that probably sums up what these two are about. Is it about breadth of relationships – lots of people, lots of things going on – on the Gregarious side? Or is it more about depth of interaction on the Intimate side? People with Extraversion preferences who might favor that Intimate side will tend to prefer smaller groups. Probably still not as small groups as people who were also scoring on that Intimate side and had an overall Introversion preference. Sometimes we see a – I don’t want to use the word extreme, but I can’t think of a different one, so we’ll go with it – a slightly less extreme version of the behavior when it’s an out-of-preference score than if it was my natural- if I was a person with a preference for Introversion and Intimate. That would look like a more distinct behavior for me than having an Extraversion preference and scoring in that Intimate side. Does that make sense?

Then fourth, there is Active—Reflective, which links to how we want to interact when we’re learning. So is that on the Active side, learning best by doing, getting into action, talking things through? Or is it on the Reflective side – reading, writing, thinking, reflecting as the title would suggest? When I’m learning, do I absorb information and take things in best through those mediums? We can get people with Extraversion preferences who prefer that Reflective side, and they will want to take information in through reading and writing. They may then want to discuss what they’ve read. Book clubs might suit people who are Reflective Extraverts perhaps.

MS: Love me a book club. I was going to say – what is it, Active and Reflective? I am not an Active Introvert, but I love me a book club.

CE: Yeah. Love a book club.

MS: That makes me think because I know that generally, a lot of especially Western cultures do tend to value, society-wise, tend to value Extraversion more. But what you just said about learning and Active—Reflective makes me immediately think maybe this is where, aside from brainstorming, some of the Introverts have the advantage. Because I feel like in our school systems, or maybe it’s more in Western school systems, that the Reflective type of learning is definitely what is valued.

CE: Yeah.

MS: I’m just thinking about it too, because I know some people who are definitely ‘learn by doing’ active people. And a lot of times it’s, ‘ stop talking in class.’ It’s the reading and the writing and absorbing information in that way. But I never thought about that before.

CE: Yeah, that’s a really good point. No, I’d never thought about that before either, but it’s a really good point, particularly as we progress through school life. I can see that elementary school or primary school, as we call it in the UK, they are more likely to do a mixture of more hands-on learning versus reading and writing.

MS: Yeah, a little more active. Yeah, and then as you get- higher in the education, then it’s almost more and more reflective.

CE: Absolutely. And the emphasis on, yes, both in class and exam learning is almost-

MS: Yeah, there’s not really many- oh, would Extraverts have done so much better – or people who prefer Extraversion – in school if everything was oral exams?

CE: Maybe. Although, who knows?

MS: We can change the world with this information Catherine. [laughter]

CE: [laughter] We could take on both the UK and the US education systems. I don’t envisage that job, but yeah. It’s a really good point. There is definitely something in schools, not just about Extraversion—Introversion. It probably links into multiple MBTI preferences, but about that adaptation of style to be able to suit different pupils’ needs.

I also recognize I’m saying this from a position of not having to be a teacher and deal with 30 pupils in a class who will require something different from me. And I have a curriculum that I have to get through in a certain amount of time, so I appreciate that I’m making this sound far easier than it us, But it’s something I’ve been aware of, even with my own children, that how they best learn isn’t necessarily always what a classroom environment is set up to provide. Or it is certainly not a traditional classroom environment. I know that that will be probably echoed by other parents listening as well, that they can relate to that.

MS: Even in the workplace. Obviously there’s a lot of learning that goes on in school, but in the workplace you have to learn things – learn new software, teach people who join your team. And I’m sure most of us default to teaching in the way that we learn.

CE: Absolutely. Yes.

MS: So I can see where that could be helpful for preferences too, even if you’re on a team and saying, ‘someone likes to learn this way’ or ‘I’m teaching in this way because I prefer Introversion.’ And so for me, I’m probably the more Reflective side – reading, writing, like ‘here, go read this in your own time and come back and we’ll talk about it’ versus someone who might say, ‘this would be better for me if I read it out loud or we talk through these points.’

CE: Yeah, that’s a really good point. We tend as human beings to assume that everybody else wants the same things we do, at least initially anyway. So it’s a really useful thing to be thinking about as – particularly in the example you were just giving there – as a manager, but actually anybody in an organization that’s working with other people in terms of having conversations around, ‘well actually this is my preferred way of doing things. Does that work for you?’

It doesn’t have to be a conversation of, ‘do you have an Extraversion or an Introversion preference?’ Because it may well be that the other person may know, but equally they may not know. But [it could be] ‘would you rather I gave you this to take away and have a read through? Would you prefer we just talked it out loud?’ Some people may want a bit of both, but they may well want the one first that is their natural preference. So actually ‘let me go away and reflect and then I want to come back and engage with you.’ Or ‘just talk me through the key points and then I’ll go away and read it afterwards.’ Some of those conversations can save us so much time in terms of delivering things in the medium that works for the person receiving it from the beginning.

MS: Sorry, don’t mean to derail. So we were Active—Reflective as the [fourth] one.

CE: No, that’s okay. It’s really good. It always amazes me that even after twenty-something years, we can have conversations about things we haven’t thought of before, so it’s great. The last one of the five, Enthusiastic and Quiet. Active—Reflective was the fourth and Enthusiastic—Quiet was the fifth. We had Initiating—Receiving first, Expressive—Contained second, Gregarious—Intimate as the third one, Active—Reflective as the fourth. And then Enthusiastic—Quiet as the fifth, which is around general energy levels and whether people prefer to be in a busy versus calm environment.

Those on the Enthusiastic side, which, not surprisingly, perhaps we’d link more towards Extraversion, maybe enjoying being in a more energetic, exciting, lively environment – wanting quite a lot of kind of bustle and energy going on around them. Maybe the people that found it quite difficult when they had to switch to work from home in 2020. Whereas people on the Quiet side being seen as more calm, perhaps more serene, more patient, and wanting more of that kind of quiet time and space may have found the pandemic as a wonderful relief if they were having to go into an office every day.

We can get people who recognize themselves as having an overall Extraversion preference, but would score on that Quiet side. They may be seen as more balanced, perhaps more calm and centered than we might expect from somebody with an Extraversion preference who wants some more time alone. Perhaps not as much time alone as somebody who has an Introversion preference and also scored Quiet.

Again, that could be a reaction to the environment. If I work in a very fast paced, chaotic environment for eight or nine hours a day in my working life, I may well seek out some of that calm tranquility elsewhere. And that may have become something that I’ve adopted as a behavior because I almost kind of have to, to counterbalance the potential craziness in some other part of my life. Whilst we wouldn’t expect that if somebody filled in Step II one day and then filled it in a month later, we wouldn’t expect it would change hugely. They may score one or two points different, but we wouldn’t expect it to change massively. But if they filled it in and then changed roles or changed family situation, their personal circumstances change and they filled it in ten years later, we might see some difference because it does pick up on this kind of behavior element – what is it that I’m actually doing. That is more likely to shift, whereas as we know, the fact that I have an Extraversion preference is – well, the underlying theory would say once I’ve decided I have an Extraversion preference, I have an Extraversion preference. But how I express that might be quite different in terms of those more behaviorally based subscale scores.

MS: That’s fascinating. There’s so much depth to Extraversion and Introversion, I feel like – more than what’s talked about generally in the discussion.

CE: Yeah. And I think even if we’ve got people listening who are Step I practitioners, just being aware of the Step II facets, even if they’re only giving somebody Step I feedback and sticking at the Extraversion—Introversion level, actually being aware of all five of those things is really helpful to make sure that you’re asking questions as part of the feedback session that cover the whole of the preference pair. Because if I was to just zoom in on, I don’t know, ‘do you enjoy being in large groups?’ somebody might say yes to that, but that’s the only part of Extraversion they may relate to. So I think it’s really useful to think about. We can still use the breadth of Step II, even within the simplicity of Step I when we’re thinking about giving people feedback.

MS: I think too, it also speaks to one of the misconceptions that comes up a lot when people are talking about ambiversion or is someone an ambivert? Where they’re like, ‘well, I can go to a party and talk to people for six hours, but eventually I want to go home.’ And that idea or that misconception that Extraverts never get burned out or they never need alone time because they’re Extraverted, so why would they ever need alone time?

CE: Yeah, absolutely. We can think about that in a couple of different ways. Yes, you would be, you would be a strange individual if you never use both of them. If you were constantly extraverting everything, you would probably drive yourself and everyone else around you crazy because it would be so ‘out there.’ Equally, if you spend all your time displaying Introversion behaviors, no one would ever know what you were thinking. It needs a way to come out. So we will naturally have to have a balance of both of those things. We can do both of them.

And what this doesn’t tell us, or the MBTI never says that it would tell us, is how someone is going to behave all of the time. What it tells us is how they might prefer to do things, almost kind of like their default setting – how they might prefer to do things, how they might prefer to work, how to get the best out of one another. And perhaps what we’re likely to fall back on when we’re under stress and pressure. Because often when we are under stress, we have less cognitive capability to think, ‘what’s the best behavior or the best way to respond in this situation?’ So we often see more of those kind of habitual patterns of using our natural preferences when we are under those kind of situations.

We sometimes use the analogy, particularly when we’re certifying people in MBTI, around this idea of being solar-powered versus battery-powered. And if I’m solar powered, I can – we often have little pictures of robots on slides. If I’m a solar-powered robot who would have an Extraversion preference, I am energized by the outside world and the sun charging up my batteries. I can go back inside again. Even if I’m solar powered, I can spend time inside, which would be the analogy of in my own internal world of thoughts and reflections. But the longer I’m there, the more draining that’s going to be. I need to go back out in the sun with other people to recharge again.

If our Introversion robot is battery-powered, they are charged up by being inside and plugged in into their own internal world. They can go outside in the sunshine and hang out with the other robots. [laughter] I’ve created some kind of alternative world. But the longer they spend out there, the more draining that is. And they need to come back and plug themselves in. It is a really useful analogy in terms of that sense of balance that we can do both.

What is also really useful, which I don’t think we’ve talked about yet today, is this idea that – particularly with Extraversion—Introversion, it can be difficult to identify from just looking at somebody and the way that they’re behaving, what their preference is on these two. Because actually those two robots could look exactly the same when they’re in the same environment. What you can’t see is the fact that it’s energizing one internally and for the other one it’s draining them.

You may get somebody who is – obviously I spend quite a lot of my time facilitating things at the front of a room – but you may get myself standing next to a colleague who has Introversion preferences. And outwardly, we might look very similar because we’re at the front of the room playing the kind of facilitator role almost. What you can’t see is that for me, that’s incredibly engaging and energizing. And at five o’ clock, I’m more than happy to carry on some of those conversations, hang around and get a coffee, if we’re all staying in the venue or whatever, and engage.

Whereas my colleague who has an Introversion preference may look exactly the same standing at the front of the room, but when it gets to five o ‘clock – not saying that they’ll run away – but it might be that actually they think, ‘could we just take half an hour and then let’s meet up again? Just need a bit of time to go away and kind of recharge my batteries and have a little bit of time by myself.’ But you can’t necessarily tell from looking at people immediately. Which to your point earlier, we tend to, we’re perhaps training and developing people in a way that suits us. We may not actually be able to tell immediately what would suit somebody else because you can’t always. You can’t see what is happening internally in terms of energy levels for everybody.

MS: So ask. Don’t assume.

CE: Ask, yes.

MS: That was funny, talking about the robots. My mind immediately went to, well, all the AI robots of the future will appreciate this episode because they’ll understand humans better. Because we have related our human behaviors to robots charging and AI will be like, ‘ah, got it.’ [laughter]

CE: [laughter] Yeah, there we go. We’ve put it in a language they can understand.

MS: I know we’re getting towards the end of our time, but I just had a few questions around tips for people who prefer Extraversion. What would be – and I know we’ve talked about some of the differences as far as how Extraverts look different from each other, some of those things versus feeling charged and energized, maybe the Expressive and Contained, saying too much versus wishing you had said something. But what’s one tip you would give to anyone who knows that they have an Extraversion preference? What’s something that our Extraverted listeners can take away?

CE: I’m going to answer this question in terms of what they can do in relation to working with people who are different to them. I think it might end up being more than one tip, but we’ll see.

MS: We will take all the tips. I’m not limiting your tip giving.

CE: We’ll take all of them, yeah. I’m not very good at sticking to one thing. I think there is something about the power of silence, which I’ve been reflecting on a little bit recently. And that it is really interesting how people deal with silence. We mentioned it earlier when we were talking about those people with Introversion preferences in a group together.

I think a tip for those people with Extraversion preferences is not to be afraid of silence. It’s not empty. It feels like it’s empty when you have an Extraversion preference. You ask somebody a question and they don’t answer. And it feels like there’s nothing happening. But if you ask somebody with an Introversion preference, that silence is not empty. There is a huge amount of work going on in that silence and it’s allowing them to work in the way that best suits them because it’s allowing them to think and process. I suppose, particularly if you are a manager or a colleague with an Extraverted preference, leaving the silence you think is comfortable and then counting to 10 after that. Push that further than you might normally do and see what happens. Because often there is huge power in leaving that going.

And you asked for a tip about what people should do. I suppose a tip of what not to do is don’t ask another question to fill the silence. Because we very often see people doing that. And I know I’m definitely guilty of that at times, or rephrasing things in another way just in case they haven’t understood it the first time. But if they have, what they’re doing is thinking about what I’ve just said.

You often will hear people with Extraversion preferences asking a question and when they don’t get an immediate response, asking a second question. But then all you’ve given the person that you’re asking the questions to is two things to think about. And now they don’t know which one to answer. And they may well just answer the easiest one, which isn’t necessarily the one you want them to answer. There is something about leaving that pause.

MS: Oh that’s a good one.

CE: Yeah, if I ask you a really big question and then follow it up with a much more straightforward question, it might be the big question that I really need the answer to, but it’s much easier to answer the second one, so I’ll just go for that. I think that for me feels like this idea of just being willing to sit with that and that it’s okay for there not to constantly be noise or talking.

MS: What about the other way around? What about a tip for someone like myself who prefers Introversion, but is close with, works with, is in a relationship with someone who prefers Extraversion? What’s something that those of us who prefer Introversion can do better?

CE: I think there’s something about letting the other person know what you need. And that probably could apply to people with Introversion preferences also working with other people with Introversion preferences too. Because as we’ve already said, they’re not all going to be the same. There is something about letting people know what – well I was going to say what you’re thinking – but I don’t mean all the detail of what you’re thinking. But if asked to do something, [say] ‘actually, can you just give me 30 minutes? I’m going to go away and think about that and then I’ll come back to you.’

You can probably attest to this better than me, Melissa, because obviously I don’t have an Introversion preference, but you will get the best out of somebody with an Introversion preference if they have that time to stop and reflect. They will give you their best work or you will give them your best work if you allow yourself to do that. So I think there is something about letting other people know that that is helpful and that that’s what you need.

We sometimes talk with teams about this idea of rights and responsibilities. This could actually apply to any one of the eight preferences, but I think it’s particularly helpful with Extraversion—Introversion in that we all have a right to be able to behave and operate in a way that works for us, but with that comes certain responsibilities. So if I have an Extraversion preference, for example, I have a right to be able to perhaps talk my thoughts out loud, bounce ideas off other people. But I have a responsibility to make sure that the other person is happy to do that, and it’s a time that works for them to do it. I can’t just go and stand next to the desk and start shouting things at them and expect that they’re gonna respond. Not that I would ever actually shout at anybody, but you know what I mean. I can’t immediately expect them to respond to me.

MS: Not that you would, but it happens in workplaces more often than we’d probably prefer to admit.

CE: It does happen, yeah. Absolutely, so my right to think out loud comes with the responsibility of making sure that that doesn’t impact on anybody else’s working life and I’ve made that clear for them. From an Introversion point of view, I have a right to be able to – or you have a right – to be able to have space and time to think and reflect. But perhaps with that comes a responsibility to tell people that that’s what I’m doing. That it’s not that I’m disinterested or I don’t understand or I don’t need another question. I’m just going to take a bit of time to go and think about that.

And I think sometimes that’s a really useful way to think about the fact that, particularly when people are working in teams, we want teams to be set up and structured in a way that works for everybody. But as good members of a society – in this case, the society of our team – with that comes give and take and that we need to have both of those things in balance to make sure that everybody gets to work in a way that gets the best out of them.

MS: That sounds like it could be an important tip for managers or leaders too. I was just thinking, as you’re talking about the differences and helping people work in a way that works for them, but also making sure that people know what the way that works best for them is and are able to talk about it. Just the differences between a manager or someone who’s leading a team who prefers Extraversion and how can talk things through and maybe share more, versus if they’re leading a team that is people of different preferences, what that dynamic might be like.

CE: Yeah. And why it’s so helpful and useful to go through something like the MBTI as a team, to be able to not understand, ‘well, where am I coming from? What am I bringing into this team’ but also ‘where does everybody else sit’ and to give people a language that they can use to talk about some of these things. It may be that they could get to those kinds of conversations without using the MBTI assessment, but it will be a much quicker process to get there by giving people a neutral language and a framework. And I just used the word neutral . . .

MS: Oh the neutral language too.

CE: Yes, I realized as I said that.

MS: Language. Yeah, the neutral as far as not – because I know you were saying before with the behaviors – that a lot of times it can be, not a lot of times, but sometimes it can feel like you’re, I don’t want to say blaming. There’s another word I’m thinking of, but judging. It can feel like you’re judging me for something in a negative way versus just saying ‘this is a difference.’

CE: Yeah, absolutely. There’s one thing to say, ‘well, it drives me crazy when you interrupt me all the time’ to suddenly say, ‘actually now I’ve realized that you just need to say that out loud because otherwise you’re going to lose it, and it’s a really important point that you want to share, but actually you didn’t realize the impact that was having on me.’ There is something about, for all eight of the preferences, being able to give people a framework to put some of those differences in.

But yes, to your point, a non-judgmental way of talking about them. And that all these things are perfectly okay and perfectly normal. Obviously within that, as we just talked about in the last question, we have responsibilities as good citizens to make sure that we are not doing things that are harmful or purposefully annoying to other people, but equally they are all perfectly valid ways to operate in the world and that we should respect those differences. And leverage them as well because actually there’s huge power in terms of working with people who are very different to us.

If we can both be aware of that and harness that in the right way. If we’re not aware of it, it can be something that causes an awful lot more friction and tension – and particularly when we think about groups of leaders, particularly perhaps people leading change. If we have all of these different perspectives covered, we can then start to think about, ‘well, what will the people that report into us need?’ And if I can then position my messaging – if you and I were to position some messaging together that would work for both of us from an Extraversion—Introversion point of view – there’s much more likelihood it will work for the people we’re then communicating it to. Rather than if we just did it from either one of our individual standpoints. We may miss a whole load of people who don’t necessarily think like we do.

MS: And that’s probably pretty important when it comes to any change initiative, whether it’s new company direction or- I know there’s lots of changes that happen within companies. Economic change, working remotely.

CE: Yeah. Systems changes, structural changes, all of those kinds of things. Anything that really needs to be communicated out to groups of people. What would you need if this message was being communicated to you? And what would I need if this message was going to be communicated to me? And if we’re able to combine those two – and obviously we talked earlier that we all have the ability to access all of these preferences – so I could try and do it on my own, put myself in the shoes of somebody with an Introversion preference and what would they need?

But it will be far easier and probably far more accurate to just go and ask somebody that has that Introversion preference: ‘what would work for you?’ Having somebody that you can work with and trust that you know is quite different to you can be a real benefit from both sides in terms of broadening our approach to make sure we’re appealing to everybody.

MS: So much good stuff. I know we’re a little over an hour and I know we generally try and keep these-  so many good tips and such an interesting conversation, Catherine. Thank you so much for being on the show today.

CE: You are more than welcome. It’s been so great to chat and to explore through things together. Thanks so much.

MS: And if people want to find you, because I know you said you do consulting, you do MBTI trainings and workshops. You work with leaders and teams. Where can people find you?

CE: That’s a good question. Where can people find me? Should we put some details in the notes along with the episode?

MS: Yeah.

CE: And we can do that in terms of where people can reach out in terms of LinkedIn and if people, particularly within the UK and Europe, are interested in having us come in and support with work, then we can pop that in there. And obviously if anybody in the US is, we can point you in the direction from that point.

MS: Perfect. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again for your time and all your insight and sharing both work stories and personal stories and all your experience with the Introversion—Extraversion MBTI type. I’m really excited for people to hear this episode. I think it’s going to be very very helpful, informative, and hopefully the AI robots don’t take over once they know all this stuff about personality type.

CE: No, let’s hope not. You’re very welcome. Thanks so much for your time as well, Melissa. And for setting this up. It’s been great.

MS: Thanks Catherine.

CE: Thanks a lot.

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