Understanding personality type: How do you like to live your life? Judging and perceiving

In the fifth article of her series, Anita Houghton sheds light on how we like to live our lives in the external world, whether organised and scheduled, or spontaneous and flexible

There were once two administrators who were responsible for supporting a large training programme. Now this programme had grown over the years, and it had reached the stage where there was too much work for two staff, but funding was such that additional help was out of the question. The one administrator coped with the situation by drawing a very clear line around his responsibilities: This is what I do, please don't ask me to do anything else. This person was very efficient in getting his work done, and whatever his managers asked him to do (within the parameters), they knew it would be done quickly and competently. When it came to new or unscheduled tasks, though, he was very reluctant to take them on, and that meant that the managers tended to ask the other administrator to do those jobs. Because, you see, the other administrator made no such delineation, and said "yes" to any job that came her way. She was always willing to do anything, and was brilliant in an emergency as she was prepared to drop everything to get a big job done in a hurry. Trouble was, jobs piled up on her desk, and when the managers gave her non-urgent jobs, they never knew when, if ever, they would be done.

This illustrates the final pair of preferences explained in the series, which relates to how we like to live our lives in the external world. If you are someone who likes getting things done, who likes their life to be largely organised, who is more comfortable when a decision is made than when it is yet to be made, and who feels the need to finish work before they can play, then the chances are that you, like the first administrator, prefer judging. (Note that judging does not mean judgemental). If, on the other hand, you like keeping your options open, are flexible, feel constrained by timetables, can happily play when there is work to be done, and feel energised by last minute pressures, then, like the second administrator, you probably prefer perceiving.

Judging and perceiving at work

Both of these preferences are essential at work. Judging is useful for getting jobs done, organising schedules, making sure routine work happens when it is supposed to. Perceiving is essential for adapting to circumstances, dealing with emergencies, handling change. If you want something scheduled, or a big job done in comfortable time, you need judging skills. If you want to deal flexibly with unpredictable demand or want something done in a hurry, you need perceiving skills. We can all do both when the situation demands it, but given a choice we have a preference for one or the other.

Where problems arise

It's not hard to see how these preferences can cause problems when brought together, whether it be in the workplace or at home. A supervisor with a preference for judging may find managing a perceiving employee very stressful, not knowing until the last minute if they are going to meet a deadline. The perceiver, on the other hand, may feel oppressed by the judger's need to have tasks completed ahead of schedule, because they need the last minute pressure to become energised.

A little while ago an article was published in this journal on the subject of procrastination, its ills, and how to overcome it.1 Now everybody is prone to putting things off, including judging types, but there are some important differences in how this plays out in the two types. Judging types put off tasks because either they don't want to do them, or they are low on their priority list. Perceiving types put off tasks, not necessarily because they don't want to do them or they are not important, but because they need a sense of urgency to give them the energy to do them. Much of Raj Persaud's article is helpful for both types, but there is one area where he makes a statement about procrastination which is typically "judging" in its perspective: "Some procrastinators put work assignments off until the last minute because they have convinced themselves that they work better under pressure--a common myth." He goes on to say, "The chore still gets done much more poorly than if the proper amount of time had been allocated." Judging types like to get everything done in good time and know that last minute rushes damage the quality of their work. Perceiving types have a rush of energy as the deadline (or some other stimulus) approaches, and this is when they do their best work. This is hard for a judging type to believe, and because our culture values the judging preference they have little cause to question their perspective. Perceiving types suffer from this culture, both because they feel stressed and constrained by its rigidity, and because it makes them think they are unusually disorganised. When perceiving types are assessing their preferences they will often look sadly at the characteristics and say "I'd like to be like this (judging)... but I'm afraid I'm more like this (perceiving)."

But while perceiving types have their problems with a judging culture, judging types working with perceiving types can also have problems. A woman I know has a preference for judging, and she once worked for a man whose preference was for perceiving. She likes to be in control of her work and associated deadlines but was dependent on her boss for decisions on both. "He," she told me, "liked to keep his options open for as long as possible, and on the rare occasions that he made a decision about something, he was more than likely to reverse it the next time we met. It drove me nuts. I couldn't plan my work, and I ended up having to do large pieces of work at a few hours' notice."

Once you understand type, these difficulties are easier to deal with (see boxes). Perceiving types can start to value people they can rely on to finish things and to make decisions, and judging types can start to value people who are happy to help out in an emergency, are easygoing about change, and are good at finding the fun in work. Both types can work on developing skills in the other preference.

1. Persaud R. Procrastination: why putting off is such a turn off. BMJ Careers 2004;329; 6-7.