Issue Highlights

Happy New Year from CPP, Inc., and welcome to the first CPP Insider issue of 2008! In this issue:

	Read how culture can influence training with the MBTI® instrument.
	What do you and your organization do when unexpected things happen? Learn how to capitalize on unanticipated opportunities to exploit your luck for business success.

We hope you enjoy the issue and, as always, look forward to hearing from you at cpp_insider@cpp.com.

- Managing Editor

Type and Culture

When studying the development of individuals, it is important to recognize the need to consider both their type and the culture in which they have developed their type.

Type and Culture: Using the MBTI^® Instrument in International Applications provides a beginning guide for MBTI practitioners who are using or want to use the instrument and psychological type in cultures other than their own or with multinational and cross-cultural groups.

Culture is likely to influence training with the MBTI instrument and the theory of psychological type in the following ways:

• How people respond to completing a personality inventory
• How people react to the notion of individual differences
• How the professional explains the preferences and how the audience understands the explanations
• The design and delivery of the training program

If you plan to conduct a training session in a culture different from your own, you should gather information and think through the following three influences:

• Your type
• The normal training styles in your culture
• Information about the country and culture with which you will be working

It appears that every culture has preferred types or type preferences that are different for males and females. Below are creative ways to explain the MBTI preferences when you are working in a culture very different from your own:

• State explicitly that your definitions and examples have been developed with your culture.
• Use them briefly, limiting idioms and jargon.
• Ask participants to identify examples of the preferences in their culture.

Learning about cultural norms, being sensitive to the effect these norms may have on MBTI training, and modifying one's natural style are central to effective cross-cultural training. When you begin training in cultures different from your own, you will be afforded a truly humbling and enlightening experience.

Let us not be blind to our differences-but let us also direct attention to our common interests and the means by which those differences can be resolved.

— John F. Kennedy

For more information about the application of type theory in culture, read Type and Culture^® by Linda K. Kirby, Elizabeth Kendall, and Nancy J. Barger.

New from Davies-Black^® Publishing

Optimizing Luck by Thomas Meylan and Terry Teays

Disasters happen. Stock markets take unanticipated nosedives. Governments and foundations cut off funding. What do you and your organization do when unexpected things happen? Does it mean failure? Not at all! It's an opportunity for you to exploit your luck for business success.

In Optimizing Luck: What the Passion to Succeed in Space Can Teach Business Leaders on Earth, authors Thomas Meylan and Terry Teays tell the compelling story of a nineteen-year NASA satellite project and its powerful and practical lessons for leaders and managers to establish luck-optimizing and fault-tolerant habits and corporate culture. The big winners in business know how to find the advantage in adversity and have the skills and flexibility to capitalize on every bit of luck that comes their way. Through the practices of hiring, delegation, adaptability, running lean, communication, and rewards and success, leaders and managers can develop the specific competencies for optimizing luck.

Being able to capitalize on the luck that comes your way begins with hiring the right people and letting them do their job. Delegation—letting your people do their jobs—is an integral part of planning and operations. If you, as a leader or manager, are having trouble with delegation, here are some steps to get started:

• Define the scope of the task.
• Select a person who seems to have the skills required for the task.
• Spell out the responsibility as clearly as you can.
• Set your expectations of what you want done (not how you want it done) in concrete terms.
• Set a time when you want the task finished.
• Cut the person loose to do it.
• Remain in the background as a willing resource, if needed.

The payoffs for following these steps are worth it. First, you can assess how well you delegate. Second, getting put in charge of a small project allows people to show what they can do, and their performance gives you concrete data on the way each was able to perform.

To discover many more “luck-optimizing lessons” that will help you and your organization to expect the unexpected and be ready to deal with any possible disruption to plan, read Optimizing Luck by Thomas Meylan and Terry Teays.

Learn more about Optimizing Luck >>

Succession Planning

Who's Next? Succession planning should be a critical exercise in finance. Too bad so many companies avoid it. - CFO magazine/CFO.com, November 1, 2007

Organizational Development Consultant Heather Ishikawa of CPP, along with industry leaders from Deloitte Consulting, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Qwest, provide expert advice to help companies navigate the complex process of succession planning. Read the article >>

Selection and Retention

Hiring Assessment Tool Cuts Management Turnover - Best Practices in HR, November 17, 2007

This article features a case study of how St. Luke's Hospital & Health Network has implemented the CPI™ 434 assessment to assist in the interviewing and decision-making process for hiring new managers. Learn how with the use of this screening tool, St. Luke's has decreased management turnover by 30% and increased employee retention. Read the article >>

Communication and Insight

Learning Tool: MBTI^®Complete - Government Training News (Learning and Development News Publication for the Private Sector), November 2007

Read how organizations use the MBTI tool to help managers understand how they work and communicate with others and to help employees understand and appreciate individual differences. Read the article >>

For more CPP featured articles click here >>

• NACE 2008 - May 27-30, 2008 - New Orleans, LA
• ASTD 2008 - June 1-4, 2008 - San Diego, CA
• SHRM 2008 - June 22-25, 2008 - Chicago, IL
• NCDA 2008 - July 9-11, 2008 - Washington, DC
• MBTI^® and Strong Combo Workshops - Ongoing

Let us know if you're going to be at any of these shows—we'd love to meet you there. And if you have recommendations for other shows we should attend, we welcome your suggestions. Email us at cpp_insider@cpp.com.

MBTI, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, Myers-Briggs, the MBTI logo and Introduction to Type are registered trademarks of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Trust. Strong Interest Inventory, FIRO-B, the FIRO-B logo, SkillsOne, CPI 260, the CPP logo, and Davies-Black are registered trademarks and CPI, California Psychological Inventory, and the CPI 260 logo are trademarks of CPP, Inc.

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