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Subject:Personality Types & TWriting From:"Susan W. Gallagher" <sgallagher -at- EXPERSOFT -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 3 Aug 1999 12:21:14 -0700
At 10:31 AM 8/3/99 -0500, Catharine Strauss wrote:
>>When I first entered this business, I was warned by my agency to be
careful
>>about being a "Type A personality in a Type B profession."
>
>What do you consider to be traits of Type A or Type B people...
>
>Do people feel that personality tests (Meyers-Briggs, Type X, etc) are
>helpful in the workplace, or do they limit people and their potential?
I'm not sure that Type A/B classifications can determine your level
of success in tech writing. Classic definitions, that Type A is the
workaholic among us, constantly feeling stressed and pushing back at
the world and Type B is the laid-back, go-with-the-flow person, really
can't define success or failure. I know tech writers of both types who
are very successful. I spent several years teaching a type A employee
to shrug her shoulders; she now has high blood pressure and I don't,
but we're both successful in or own rights. She, however, started her
own company and I'm a management-level corporate captive.
The Meyers-Briggs, as well, isn't a good indicator. I'm an ENTP (well,
I've done some work on that, so more close to EN?? at this point), and
I've only heard of one other in tech writing -- we both do programmer
manuals. But "introverts" and "extroverts" both do well in the tech
writing arena. (these results were from an impromptu study done on this
list some years ago -- results may still be available in the archives.)
Some say that left-brain/right-brain tests are better indicators. Maybe,
Idunno. I place just left of top-dead-center and am rather consistent
about it.
I'd be more inclined to measure (if possible) curiosity and the ability
to figure things out rather than any tested personality type as a success
indicator for this profession.
