University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
The Character of Organizations
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The Character of Organizations

Using Personality Type in Organization Development

William Bridges
Davies-Black Publishing, 2000
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Innovative

Recommendation

Organizations have their own personalities, as William Bridges demonstrates by applying the most popular personality test ever devised for humans to groups of people working together. Bridges developed the "Organizational Character Index" (OCI) from the ubiquitous Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator. While OCI thus far lacks the rigorous testing of hundreds of certified Myers-Briggs trainers, intuitively the model makes sense. Bridges provides a useful way of thinking about organizational styles and tries to understand the nature of departments within organizations. Abundant examples, lists and charts help illustrate the principles. getAbstract recommends this book to managers and human resource professionals seeking insight into the nuances of organizational development, provided that they are willing to spoon through a certain amount of alphabet soup. (Note: Though this book has a 2000 copyright date, with the exception of a new forward by Sandra Krebs Hirsh, it is a republication of a work written in about 1990.)

Summary

What Is Organizational Character?

Organizations differ in size, structure, purpose and character. An organization's character or personality is only partly comprised of the personalities of its people, as reflected on the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator (MBTI). Often, a distinction exists between the qualities of the people themselves and the way the organization expects them to be.

An organization is also made up of differences between the styles of various departments, such as the contrast between finance and human resources, regional sales and central marketing, or executives and middle managers. If you know about organizational character, you can better understand how different approaches will work with different organizations.

You can understand organizational character by comparing organizations to pieces of wood. Each one has a different grain, can take more or less pressure, and is varyingly soft and hard or light and heavy. Thus, some wood is more or less suited to a particular purpose, although each one is well fitted to some purpose. You might also think of character as an organization’s climate or personality. However you regard it, an organization...

About the Author

William Bridges, Ph.D., principle of Williams Bridges & Associates, has been a leader in transition management since the 1980 publication of his best-seller Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes. Bridges and his company have provided assessment, training and consulting services to hundreds of organizations, including Amoco, AT&T, Intel and Motorola. His other books include Managing Transitions, JobShift and Creating You & Co.

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