Personality and Organizational Culture
Dr. Jung pauses for a moment and then offers some tentative observations:
“I want to bring in my uncle’s personality types once again. Much as personality type or character helps to define what is unique about a person’s perceptions and actions, so the culture of an organization defines the unique way in which members of the organization are inclined to see and act in the world. If we consider your own organization, which is in the business of gathering and reporting on the news, then we might easily conclude that those working in your organization are being asked to be anchored in the facts, to be rational in their assessment of what is happening in the world, and nonpartisan in their reporting and analysis of the news. This would suggest that the culture of your organization would be inclined toward sensing rather than intuition, thinking rather than feeling, and perceiving rather than judging. Overall, the culture of your organization would be extraverted rather than introverted in that your newspaper is intended as an active agent in your community. When you put all this together, you end up with an ESTP culture. Does this initial analysis make some sense?”
Mitch immediately responds:
“Yes, but there are many members of my organization – including me—who have quite different personality profiles. We don’t seem to fit with this ESTP culture.”
Dr. Jung comments:
“Of course there are major individual personality differences in your organization. However, the culture of the organization tends to be influenced by many factors other than its employees.”
Mitch responds to what Dr. Jung has just said:
“I think you are right about the way newspapers are supposed to be fact-based, rational and nonpartisan, but this is not the case in 21st century journalism. And many of the operations in an organization such as mine do not involve collecting or reporting the news.”
Dr. Jung:
“You have made a couple of good points. First, an organization might be at least temporarily operating outside of their cultural type. This will often create tension in the organization. I suspect this is the case with many American newspapers. I suspect that the push in the United States toward alternative realities, an emphasis on promoting one political agenda, and the ownership of newspapers by someone with a specific politically driven bias, makes the operations of a newspaper quite difficult.”
Mitch:
“You got that right!! It is virtually impossible to keep neural and grounded in reality when running a newspaper these days. Even though I might personally wish our newspaper to remain neutral in our community, I know that newspapers only sell these days if they offer a compelling, partisan narrative. This is especially the case with the competition offered by social media. It is not just print that is old fashion. The world of reality and thoughtful, balanced reporting is no longer in vogue.”
Dr. Jung:
“There is also the matter of units in your organization that do not gather or report the news. What we know about the culture in most organizations is that the primary product or service delivered by this organization tends to determine its culture. In a healthcare system it is the nature and dynamics of the healthcare services being delivered that defines its culture, just as the delivery of learning provides the culture of an educational institution.”
