Appreciating Differences - Jack Falt - Ottawa area, Ontario, Canada

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Book Review by Jack Falt

Nardi, Dario, Character and Personality Type: Discovering Your Uniqueness for Career and Relationship Success, 1999, ISBN 0-9664624-6-7, 76 pp

This is another booklet in the Understanding Yourself and Others series developed by Temperament Research Institute. Dario Nardi co-authored a previous booklet, The 16 Personality Types, with Linda Berens. In this booklet the author is looking at the many expressions of Temperament and Type, giving numerous examples to use to compare with our own journey.

The author has us consider eight life-themes: Physical and Creative (Artisan-like themes), Establishment and Community (Guardian-like themes), Academic and Entrepreneurial (Rational-like themes), and Political and Growth (Idealist-like themes). In each he gives a specific example showing how these can overlay a specific temperament. Each of us has access to all the temperaments, and we often focus on an aspect of another temperament that is not our own. Each life-theme is accompanied by a description of possible pitfalls, showing how being rigidly caught up in the theme can have negative consequences. These are also excellent vignettes to use when clients complain that Temperament and Type just put people into pigeonholes.

The next section devotes two pages to each of the sixteen personality types. Four short biographies of each type are given. These are based on actual people who are very confident of their Type. Often when we think of a type and its components of preferences, we get caught in viewing them in a stereotypical manner. These vignettes show how varied people can be and still express their True Self. The emphasis here is on the various flavours of a specific Type rather than emphasising the  underlying Temperament or Type Preferences.

The readers are asked to integrate all that they learned about themselves so far in terms of their temperament, life-themes, best-fit type pattern, and the biographies that matched. Then they are asked to look at the flavours of style. Are they participative or independent? Do they have a local or global perspective? Have they a soft or hard demeanor? Is their attitude mainstream or counter-cultural?

With this information you should be able to locate yourself on your career map: What are your aspirations? How have you actualized your skills? How committed are you to the long haul that may be ahead? Will what you do make a contribution to others?

The topic of relationships referred to in the title is given directly on two pages, but is referred to throughout the booklet. There is also a relationship map with key questions to answer: Is the relationship more than chemistry? How compatible are you? How do you balance intimacy with needs to develop the self? How strong is the commitment to accept the other person as he or she really is?

There are appendices that review some of the basic Temperament and Type theory, as well as answers to some frequently asked questions.

The booklet is useful to people who have gone through the temperament-type process as developed by the Temperament Research Institute. It is a resource booklet meant to be used by a facilitator leading a group or an individual through a career development process. It may help those who are still unsure of the Best Fit Type. This booklet goes beyond the usual way of looking at Type. It will be interesting to see how people respond to these very dynamic descriptions.

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List of Articles by Jack Falt