The easiest way to describe the difference is to know that MBTI was based on the seminal work of Carl Jung. Carl Jung, in 1921, published his seminal work ‘Psychological Types’. Its core theme was two functional dualities of Thinking-Feeling and Sensing-Intuition with an attitudinal overlay of Introversion or Extroversion. Jung called Thinking-Feeling the rational domain and Sensing-Intuition the irrational.

By forcing the choice between Thinking (T) or Feeling (F), Sensing (S) or Intuition (N), and combining with Introversion (I) or Extroversion (E) you ended up with eight initial personality types. Myers & Briggs further developed Carl Jung’s work in the 1940’s. This became the standard source point for all further instruments. It is two-dimensional by its nature with the forced choice of either/or. You are either thinking or feeling.

Summary of Psychometrics

• Myers Briggs is known as a psychometric instrument.
• All other psychometrics developed in the 20th century, are based on Jung’s original concepts.
• They are all about psychology and personality.
• They all end up with a two-dimensional framework of types (4, 8, 16).
• The core is based on a duality. It is an ‘OR’ framework – Thinking or Feeling etc.
• Jung himself did not like these instruments calling them “A mere parlour game”.

Foreground

In the late 90’s the emerging field of business coaching was being created. One of the areas that repeatedly cropped up in organisations was that of communication. One of the pioneers of this emerging field, Think Feel Know, had the insight that communication could be framed as a triad of Thinking and Feeling and Knowing.

They saw that people used all three to varying degrees. They also saw that when someone who was, say, a primary Knower was communicating with a primary Feeler, or a primary Thinker, then that was where all the lovely difficulties started to show up. For example; A Knower will like to have and process all their information in very succinct ways; minimal and brief is their mantra. By contrast Feelers like to have all the nuances, the story; flavour and imagery are their hot buttons. Thinkers like to have all the detail, the numbers, the analysis, the process; the manual and the report fire them up.

You can start to see where the flashpoints occur right away. Our coaches started to have a lot of fun in educating clients, on how to improve their communication with this then conceptual framework.

Summary of TFK

• Think Feel Know is all about communication.
• It has been developed in the 21st century.
• The core is based on a triad. It is an ‘AND’ framework.
• People Think and Feel and Know.
• It is a three-dimensional model with the Thinking, Feeling, and Knowing being the three axes.
• It is an empirical framework that has been shown to work.

The beauty of Think Feel Know is its simplicity. People get it, they remember it, and therefore they use it. As a consequence what people love about Think Feel Know is the immediate results they get for themselves in communicating to their peers, their team, their family.

It’s an international training and coaching company. I always get asked what on Earth is Think Feel Know?

At the heart of Think Feel Know is a process that enables people to instantly communicate with each other. The beauty of Think Feel Know is its simplicity. People get it, people remember it, and therefore they use it. As a consequence what people love about Think Feel Know is the immediate results that they get with their team, their family and with their clients.

So what is Think Feel Know?

We believe that people communicate in three fundamentally different ways. A thinking way, a feeling way, and a knowing way. We all use all three, but have a preference for one over the others. Match the other person’s preference and you quickly generate rapport and connection. Ignore the other person’s preference and the exact opposite will occur.

Thinking is all about data and information. It’s the detail. It’s the what and how of life. The planning and the strategy. The process. Thinking is logical.

Feeling is all about energy. It’s the why and who of life. Why am I doing this and who can I get involved. It’s all about purpose and relationship. Feeling will hold you to the task long after the logic and vision has faded.

Knowing is the instinct. The gut sense that this is the way to go. It’s the where and the when. The vision. It’s quick and direct. It’s headlines and one liners. The most famous knowing comment of the last fifty years was Kennedy’s “A man on the moon by the end of the decade”. It’s directional and temporal.

When you’re with a knower, talk succinctly and briefly.

When you’re with a feeler, paint verbal pictures and use lots of personal reference points.

When you’re with a thinker, follow a logical process and give them all the detail required. They love soaking up all the content.

As you can see, when you use all three, you get a balanced message and nothing gets missed out. As someone said to me recently “You can have the right reason (the why), the right plans and strategy (the what and the how), but if it’s the wrong people, the wrong time and the wrong direction, the project will fall over”.

As Rudyard Kipling once said

I have six honest serving-men:
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who

So, in summary:

Knowing gives you the Where and the When

Feeling gives you the Why and the Who

Thinking gives you the What and the How

Use all three in your communication and you will connect to a group. Use one of the preferences to communicate to a person who has that primary way of processing and communicating and you will connect to them.

A client experience

It’s only when Think Feel Know is applied to real life situations that it’s full impact can be realised; the way it can transform a situation in a very short period of time from stuck to energised is quite remarkable.

Because of this, we now use Think Feel Know in all our recruitment and HR activities. It ensures that the people we hire are right for the task, are be able to operate effectively with their colleagues, and provide the level of service in the appropriate manner to our clients.

Roman Marszalek
Doctor Logic Ltd.

I was recently involved in some and asked the participants to answer the question, “Before you even get up to make a presentation – what is the context of making a presentation?”

As usually happens, they were all stumped – both by the question itself and by what context meant.

So, with a little education we came to realise that context is that which makes sense of everything. It’s like having a helicopter view or a map of the maze below. It brings with it crystal clear clarity.

If you have clarity about your purpose, when you stand in front of a room to make a presentation, it gives you a position of unwavering confidence and focus.

What is the context of “Presentation”? To make this simple, just look at the word itself. The stem is Present. Therefore you need to be both Present, i.e. attentive to your audience, and be a Present or a Gift to them.

When you give someone a present, what do they have to do? They have to unwrap it to get to the gift, do they not?

Hence, whenever you make a presentation, the key thing to hold in your mind’s eye is that you’re there to unwrap yourself, to give to the audience the gift of yourself.

Do this honestly and the audience will stay with you.

Addendum: Talking of gifts…

My next Gift Day, where I share with people the simple structures for building successful businesses and careers, is on May 22nd.

Please book quickly as places are limited.

It is the seekers who make the prophets. Why do we not hear and heed the prophetic voices that are in our very midst? There are voices of great clarity and with a quality of insight equal to that of any age, speaking cogently all the time. It is the level of interest and seeking, the responsiveness of the listeners, that enables a prophetic voice to grow in stature. The challenge is that we see current prophecy within the context of past wisdom, we tend to live in the past when it comes to wisdom, we have decided not to live in the present. So listen carefully to the prophetic voices that are speaking now.

An example of this principle in action was the leader of a large, important, and difficult to administer public institution. One day he realised things weren’t the way he had hoped they would be. His solution was unusual.

For three months he stopped reading newspapers, listening to the news broadcasts, watching TV; and for this entire period he relied wholly on those he met in the course of his work to tell him what was going on. In three months his administrative problems were resolved.

There were no miracles; but out of the sustained intentness of listening that was produced by this unusual decision, this able man learned and received the insights needed to set the right course. He and his team were strengthened by the process.

Why is active listening so rare today? One problem is that people are very quick to look for someone else to blame, to pin a problem on rather than admitting, “OK, I have a problem. What is it? What can I do about my problem?”

Do we listen to the one we want to communicate to?

As we approach confrontation, is our attitude one of wanting to understand?

The only true response to a problem should be to listen first. The spin off is that true listening builds strength in other people. Saint Francis said, “Grant that I may not seek so much to be understood as to understand.”

One way of learning to listen is to not be afraid of silence and of asking the question of oneself, “In saying what I have in mind, will I really improve on the silence?” which reminds me of something that Blaise Pascal said in 1652, when I was just a lad. “People’s misfortunes stem from one thing and one thing alone and that is their inability to sit in silence on their own.”

‘But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means?’ – Oscar Wilde

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-the-final-quote.m4a[/podcast]

‘The terrible thing about the quest for truth is that you find it!’ – Remy de Gourment

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-epilogue.m4a[/podcast]

‘On action alone be thy interest. Never on its fruits. Let not the fruits of action be thy motive, Nor be thy attachment to inaction.’ – Bhagavad Gita

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-21.m4a[/podcast]

‘Life is a bridge. Cross over it, but build no house on it.’ – Indian Proverb

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-20.m4a[/podcast]

‘Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you…Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question…Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; If it doesn’t it is of no use.’ – Carlos Castaneda

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-19.m4a[/podcast]

‘The heart has its reasons which reason does not understand.’ – Blaise Pascal

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-18.m4a[/podcast]

‘Genuine love ought to be founded on the mutual recognition of two liberties; the lovers would then experience themselves both as self and the other; neither would give up transcendence, neither would be mutilated. Together they would manifest values and aims in the world.’ – Simone de Beauvoir

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-17.m4a[/podcast]

‘Art is unthinkable without risk and spiritual self-sacrifice.’ – Boris Pasternik

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-16.m4a[/podcast]

‘Children begin by loving their parents; after a time they judge them; rarely, if ever, do they forgive them.’ – Oscar Wilde

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-15.m4a[/podcast]

‘As far as we are able to understand, the only aim of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.’ – Carl Jung

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-14.m4a[/podcast]

‘An optimist may see a light where there is none, but why must the pessimist always run to blow it out?’ – Michel de Saint-Pierre

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-13.m4a[/podcast]

Places are limited. Please sign up quickly.

‘Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions: reality can be attained only by someone who is detached.’ – Simone Weil

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-12.m4a[/podcast]

‘Energy is the only life … Energy is eternal delight.’ – William Blake

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-11.m4a[/podcast]

‘In quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.’ – Isaiah

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-10.m4a[/podcast]

‘Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of Liberty is the history of resistance. The history of Liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.’ – Woodrow Wilson

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-09.m4a[/podcast]

‘Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.’ – George Santayana

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-08.m4a[/podcast]

‘A child becomes an adult when they realise that they have a right not only to be right but also to be wrong.’ – Thomas Szasz

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-07.m4a[/podcast]

‘Four things come not back: the spoken word; the arrow sped; time passed; the neglected opportunity.’ – Omar ibn Al-Halif

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-06.m4a[/podcast]

‘I knew what I wanted and determined at an early age that no man would ever tell me what to do. I would make my own rules.’ – Mae West

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-05.m4a[/podcast]

‘Oh heavens, how I long for a little ordinary human enthusiasm. Just enthusiasm – that’s all. I want to hear a warm, thrilling voice cry out Hallelujah! Hallelujah! I’m alive!’ – John Osborn

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-04.m4a[/podcast]

‘Like the flowers I need dew and night air.’ – Georg Buchner

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-03.m4a[/podcast]

‘Liberty means responsibility. That is why most people dread it.’ – George Bernard Shaw

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-02.m4a[/podcast]

One thing I have always said is that it is always useful to carry a small notebook with you – Those that know me know that mine’s red and within the 60 I’ve amassed over the years are all the ideas that have translated into my books and creative ventures

Just looking through No. 59 and the core of the book I’m writting now jumps from every page

Quite often I would never have remembered the insight, or concept quickly added as it dropped into my waiting consciousness – So I urge you, as I recently urged a group of students I’d been invited to talk to, get yourself a notebook you can easily carry around with you and capture your muse before it delicately slips away

How cool is that? – They also happen to be incredibly good at what they do – Don’t hide your light – Let it shine

‘Who is more foolish, the child afraid of the dark or the man, afraid of the light?’ – Maurice Freehill

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-chapter-01.m4a[/podcast]

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-introduction.m4a[/podcast]

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-preface.m4a[/podcast]

[podcast format="video"]http://www.thefreedomtree.com/podcasts/podcast_tft_1/tft-vol-1-achnowledgements.m4a[/podcast]

We’ll be posting regularly with our thoughts, and on the progress of our newest book The Freedom Tree Volume 2.