RETIRED: Now what?
This story starts as I retired from a 30 year career as a
Mechanical Engineer and an Engineering Manager. I am a Christian and I prayed
for guidance in the next phase of my life. Of course, I had already planned
(me, not God) to teach and was on the staff at Metro (Mechanical Engineering
Technology). To give me a better foundation, I enrolled in an adult education core
curriculum. I was immediately drawn to adult assessment tools (MBTI, Enneagram
and several Temperament instruments). I learned the Enneagram (a typology with
nine personalities) and wondered about its relationship to the MBTI instrument
(which results in a typology of 16 personalities). Without a second thought, I
proposed to study these two typologies as my Masters project.
MBTI/ENNEAGRAM PROJECT
The project was accepted and my prayers became more earnest
and often! I thoroughly learned the Enneagram (studied at least 10 different
authors) and became qualified to administer the MBTI instrument. After many
failed attempts, I finally arrived at a model. A Pair of MBTI types (different
by only one of the four letters) was used to model each Enneagram personality.
This model was described in my Masters project submission (11-25-92) to the
Regis University Graduate Programs in Community Leadership and documented in Enneagram
Patterns in MBTI Type Tables (Gabbard 2001).
MBTI QUALIFICATION
As I was doing the required reading for the MBTI qualifying
exam, I read about the properties of the MBTI type table (adjacent types were
different by only one of the four letters). In a blinding flash, I was
compelled to place my model on the type table. I immediately found a path
through the type table that represented the Enneagram circumference (Wings).
The Enneagram Paths were changes in orientation/attitude between my Pairs. I
was absolutely overjoyed! I expected choirs of angels to announce this
discovery but I found myself in a room totally alone, perhaps I wasn’t alone. This
discovery was the answer to my earlier prayers.
THE “WHISPERINGS OF ANGELS”
I asked a friend, David Hartman also a pastor, about the
source of such inspirations. He laughed and said that I was born way too
late. When I looked perplexed, he explained that in the middle ages these
inspirations were thought to be the “whisperings of angels.” I loved that
explanation and have always attempted to be open to these whisperings. As I
looked back, I realized that I had already been whispered to dozens of times.
As a Christian, I know that these “whisperings” are actually promptings from
the Holy Spirit. The Spirit has taken this path to awaken my spiritual gifts.
As far as I can tell, I have two main gifts that allow this whispering to be
documented.
- Ni, Introverted Intuition
First, I am extremely sensitive to patterns of information.
These simply explode into my consciousness. There are no words or instructions
that come with most of these whisperings but I simply know the content of the
message. It seems to be one of my jobs to comprehend the meaning of the
message.
- Ti, Introverted Thinking
Second, I received a “write command,” later, that means I
cannot simply comprehend. I must find language and expression for these
messages so that they can be shared by others. While I have not done a superb
job of transmitting the message to others, I am able to write the message
down. Since I am also a very logical person, I found that I could almost
always provide an acceptable rationalization. So, when I write, I always try
to put forward the best rationale for what I have comprehended. Sometimes I
succeed and I am still working on the rest.
While it looks like I contribute a lot to this project, I
will remind you, and me, that these are given to me! Of course, it is my
responsibility to use these gifts appropriately and I attempt to be diligent. But
these are gifts, freely given to me.
CERTAIN OF MODEL
As a result, I am very certain that my Pair model (Gabbard
2001, p16) accurately captures both of these typologies, MBTI and Enneagram.
This “certainty” is not shaken by those in the Enneagram community who cannot
believe in an Extraverted 9 or those in the MBTI community who cannot believe
in a personality with a preference struggle in the dominant function. I
believe in this model because it enables me to identify MBTI concepts that are
analogous to Enneagram concepts and vice versa. I now view both of these typologies
from higher ground. If you show me an Enneagram concept, I will point out its
MBTI counterpart (Gabbard 2001, pp33-43).
THE NEXT STEP
OK, what is the next step? As I prayed, I was instructed to
“write.” So, I have been documenting this information since the Spring of
1992. In the interim, this work has expanded (at the urging of 100s of
whisperings) beyond a comparison of typologies to a full blown career
counseling system, Seven Dimensions of Career Awareness, SDCA. But, every step
was carefully and prayerfully considered, sometimes reconsidered.
40+ OF COLORADO
Once I became qualified, I did training at 40+ of Colorado,
a support group for unemployed professionals. I took a workshop on the MBTI
Career Report Manual (CRM, Hammer 1992) and started to do light career
counseling at 40+ using the MBTI Top 50 lists. I continued to take data by
giving both the MBTI and Enneagram inventories. I offered a one-on-one follow
up session. I was prepared with my Top 50 lists. But, everyone wanted to know
about the careers chosen by Enneagram personalities. [In 1994, there were no
career counseling lists for Enneagram personalities. There were none until I
published my workbook (Gabbard 2003).] Most were able to identify their
Enneagram personality with their career path. No one asked me about their MBTI
type and the Top 50 lists. While I do not doubt the value of Top 50 lists, I
found that several of my clients had problems with them. Basically, there are
too few occupations (only about a dozen) on this list that are exciting to a
person with a given MBTI type. Some simply started to doubt the list and gave
up on the process. I started to wonder if I could create lists for my MBTI
Pairs? Would these lists help?
ANGELS AND THE CRM
While I trained on the CRM in 1993, a whisper in late 1997 made
me suddenly realized that I could use the CRM rankings to create Pair lists. The
inspiration was simple. I added the rankings of both Pair types to produce a
Pair score. Low scores mean that both types are attracted to the same
occupation. At first, I made lists (like Top 50 lists) by simply sorting the
scores for a Pair in ascending order. But, I never liked the fact that an
occupation could be on several different Top 50 lists and these lists worked
the same way. So, I decided to uniquely place an occupation on the list for
its minimum Pair score. I started by sorting these lists in order of ascending
Pair score. In fact, my workbook is done this way, despite the fact that these
occupations are coded. I started producing occupational codes early in 1998
and documented this work in Occupational Lists for Career Counseling
Professionals (Gabbard 2003).
WHO IS HOLLAND?
This reference is to John Holland, the father of Holland
Occupational Codes (HOC). I also took training on the CISS (Campbell Interest
and Skill Survey) in the early 90’s. I was impressed that their occupations
had occupational codes, not just rankings. Each occupation occurred on only
one list and each list was displayed by a code sort. This seemed to do a good
job of grouping similar occupations. I found out that much of the career
counseling world (Strong, Campbell and O*NET OnLine) operates this way and all
of it is based on John Holland’s work on a typology of six working
personalities and congruent work environments. Of course my angels whispered
in my ear again. I revisited my methodology for presenting occupational lists.
TYPE OCCUPATIONAL THEMES
I refer to my scoring and coding technique as Type
Occupational Themes, TOT. But shortly after the publication of my workbook, I
decided to sort my occupational lists by occupational code. However, I would
not sort them in the Holland order, RIASEC, but would sort them in alphabetical
order (ACEIRS makes a lot more sense). However, I had a problem. Some of my
codes were very short (length is based on Pair score range and distribution of
scores) and they sorted to the top of my lists rather than with similar
occupations where they actually belonged. A whispered inspiration solved this
problem for me. Despite the fact that some of my codes are short, I actually know
the entire code string (code pattern). So, I now sort my lists by code pattern
(entire code string) despite the fact that I display shorter codes in the
actual lists. This finally incorporated all of the desirable aspects of
Holland coding into my career counseling lists. I produced several ToolKits
that displayed lists (Top 50, Theme and Enneagram) this way. These were well
received by my clients and associates. I thought that I might retire again.
But there were more whispers, many more.
TEMPERAMENT
Up to this time all of my coding was based on a Pair of MBTI
types. I had always been frustrated by Temperament. It seemed to have
absolutely no relationship to my MBTI/Enneagram model (Workbook, p114). I
wondered if I could model Temperament by using two Pairs. My angel actually
shouted at me. “If you can produce a Pair score for two types, why can’t you
produce a Quad score by scoring four types.” I have no idea why this did not
occur to me previously. So, I immediately set about creating Temperament codes
for the occupations in the CRM. In fact, I created a Temperament ToolKit for these
lists. But, I was not done!
O*NET ONLINE
I became aware of a website produced for the US Department
of Labor called O*NET OnLine. Try it; you will like it. I started
using it with my clients. [I attempt to work with enough clients to test my
materials. At the invitation of my Pastor, Stan Jewell, I worked with
out-of-work parishioners and Jr/Sr High Youth Groups.] I used the MBTI
instrument to find their four letters. This was followed by a session with the
Top 50 list for their type. They were instructed to find at least 10
occupations that were interesting to them from the Top 50 list. This avoids
the problem of having them own the entire list. I put together a set of
guidelines and turned my clients loose to research their choices on O*NET
OnLine. The angel whispered, “Turn this into a career counseling system.” I
was stunned. I thought that I was doing very well, thank you! However, as I
considered this, there seemed to be endless possibilities in this approach. I
had Top 50 lists. I had codes for Themes, Enneagram and Temperament. O*NET
OnLine provided SOC (Standard Occupational Classification) codes and Job
Families (first two digits of a SOC code), O*NET Interests (a six digit Holland
code) and, through a Crosswalk, a CIP (Classification of Instructional
Programs, US Department of Education) code. Finally, the Atlas of Type Tables
(Macdaid 2005) provided eight Specific Populations for these occupations. This
could work. CIP codes could be used by students selecting a college major and
SOC codes could be used by job seekers. We could look at the codes of the 10
occupations selected by our clients and see which coding scheme best captured
these selections. We could even offer clients additional selections that did
not appear on their Top 50 list.
SEVEN DIMENSIONS OF CAREER AWARENESS
This led to a CD based product that never got beyond Beta
testing. The seven “Dimensions” were identified in the paragraph above. The
product was tested by a college on undecided students. It actually worked
reasonably well as a self-paced project but did not lend itself to a strict
lesson plan. Since this is what I had in mind, I was not disappointed by this
outcome. Perhaps I am getting this “written.”
JUNGIAN TYPE CODES
No such luck, I was in the middle of a warm morning shower
when the angel whispered again. “Larry, you dunce, the eight Jungian Function
Attitudes are a classical Pair system. If you want to get in the middle of the
MBTI community, create Jungian Type codes.” Sometimes my angel is rather blunt
but how could I have missed the opportunity to create Jungian Type codes? It
should have been the next thing after my work to code Themes (MBTI/Enneagram
codes). I dried off, coded Jungian Types and created a ToolKit for these
codes. These codes were actually included in the CD, above (at the last
minute), as an eighth Dimension but no one complained. These codes have a
unique place in the MBTI community. The code pattern (all eight code
letters) should actually define the eight functional working priorities for a
given occupation. Jungian Type code counting, a technique used by many
Holland professionals, can be used to estimate the functional priorities of any
grouping of occupations.
[I could also code groups of occupations but I would have to decide how to
weight the type tables of the various occupations. However, code counting
allows others to also do this.]
WEBSITE
The next voice that I heard was from my son-in-law, Randy
Hodges. He informed me that it was crazy to do a CD and suggested that the CD contents
be added to the website. Now everyone is talking to me! We expanded the
website, www.elcie.com
MBTI TYPE TABLES for OCCUPATIONS (TTO)
Then came the toughest blow of all. All of my
previous work was based on the 208 Atlas type tables included in the CRM. I
am standing at the CPP booth at the NCDA and I see a new book in their
display. Guess what, it is a brand new compilation of 250 occupational type
tables (TTO, Schaubhut 2008). These type tables are linked to SOC codes. This
linkage proved to be a very difficult task with the occupations in the CRM or
the Atlas. So, after silently screaming (Good thing, I was in a public
place.), I start all over, secure permissions from CPP to use
the SOC linkage and code this new set of type tables. I am still in the
process of updating many of my ToolKits.
TYPE CODES
My angel is after me again. This time I am encouraged to do
Type codes for this group of occupations. Actually, I had done Type coding
previously but I had not seen the value in publishing these lists. So, I am
being asked to reconsider a previous decision. Happily, this is the simplest
kind of coding possible. One simply codes directly from the rankings. You say
that you did not see any rankings in the new CPP publication? You are right.
I had to create these rankings. But once I have them it is easy to see which
of the 16 types has the lowest ranking for a given occupation. The range of
rankings for each occupation allows me to produce a Type code and Type code
pattern for these 250 occupations. Basically, the Type code says that this
occupation is most like ISTJ, second most like ESTJ, etc. This positions me
for another blinding inspiration! Finally, I am shown where all of this
is going. Type codes (Uni codes) allow us to see the results of
four “clear” preferences. Pairs (Theme, Enneagram and Jungian Type) allow us
to see the results of three “clear” preferences and two “slight” preferences or
a preference struggle. Quads (Temperament) allow us to see the results of two
“clear” preferences and two preference struggles. Despite the fact that there
are several coding possibilities for each of these basic coding configurations,
there is only one basic coding option left. This would be called Octa coding.
This has one “clear” preference and three preference struggles. The eight
basic Preferences are a perfect example of this type of coding as each
preference is represented by eight individual types. So, I rush to Preference
code these 250 occupations. Since four preference struggles cannot be typed,
I have covered all of the basic kinds of coding possibilities. Perhaps, I am
close to completing this writing assignment.
THE CURRENT WEBSITE
So, the website starts with Top 50+ lists. The plus sign
indicates that the starting list for each of the 16 types consists of the Top
50 from TTO plus appropriate selections from 30 unique Atlas
occupations. Clients select occupations from these Top 50+ lists. Clients
also are shown more occupations from the grouping that best matches their
selections. O*NET OnLine research guides the client to select a college major
(via CIP codes) or three occupations (via SOC codes) for resume and cover
letter preparation.
The Seven Dimensions have become Type, Theme, Enneagram,
Jungian Type, Temperament, Preference and O*NET Interests. Interestingly, this
provides seven personality based Dimensions of Career Awareness. So, I kept
the original name.
With the next major O*NET update, I will code all seven of
these Dimensions but the raw data for the O*NET Interests will come from the
appropriate Details report (O*NET OnLine) for each of these occupations. I
will also update my Enneagram codes. I find that I can get better results by
modeling 4 and 5 by two Pairs, each. I will also make it possible, at low
cost, to download copies of selected coded lists that are sorted per customer
need, i.e., by O*NET Job Family or SOC code.
The Spirit is Lord!
“As one, we serve our Father, and all that he’s
begun—obedient to the Author, until the writings done,” DeJarnette.