Eight Resources for Effectiveness

Individuals seeking to enhance their effectiveness first need to understand what personal resources are available.  Carl Jung, and later other researchers, provided a model which suggested that eight mental resources are actively used and engaged in everyday challenges.

Imagine you are in a meeting and you note that some people:

• Have a practical, here and now focus
• Are making sure to verify details
• Are eager to express ideas
• Have a capacity to imagine possibilities very easily
• Are natural at critiquing and finding logical outcomes
• Are able to provide thorough analytical perspectives
• Have a nack for empathizing with others
• Are eager to clarify values and ideals related to choices being made

These kinds of behaviors are expressions of the eight mental resources that we have access to and that we can actively develop.  When we don’t use these resources with greater intention, we find the following challenges:

• failure to scan the environment for key information
• failure to specify details
• failure to innovate thoroughly
• failure to reflect on possibilities
• failure to execute on systematic options
• failure to find gaps and errors in possible solutions
• failure to reach out to others
• failure to affirm purpose and mission

There is a good chance that some of these eight kinds of issues also show up when you are working with others. 

In my research on personality and individual effectiveness, I explored the ways these eight resources are experienced and demonstrated in everyday life.  Realizing that there are two important conditions for these eight resources: a natural attraction and use and a demonstrated use as required by current situational pressures.  In other words, an individual might really have a natural focus on the here and now with an ability to find practical courses of action but the current work environment does not encourage this kind of behavior. With the use of the Pearman Personality Integrator, we are able to measure how much of these eight functions are being used and to provide developmental tips to leverage these natural resources.

Another key aspect of using these eight functions is related to how well we can flex among these processes.  In my research over the last thirty years, I’ve identified that the ability to be psychologically flexible requires proactivity (anticipating possible options), composure (calm and emotionally balanced), connectivity (being socially interconnected), variety-seeking (finding new experiences from which to learn new behaviors) and rejuvenation (renewing oneself in the face of persistent demand).  While it is best if an individual actively uses all five of these sources for maximum flexibility, in general terms, we have developed some of these arenas and not others which keeps us from the flexibility.

As important as it is to identify how you use the eight resources as defined below, to maximize the use of these mental processes developing the level of flexibility that allows for easy shifting when needed, is vital.  Imagine being in a meeting where everyone is involved in a long, tedious, demonstrative logical debate about three options and no one has the ability to shift perspective to ask a values oriented question or to facilitate looking at either new data or new ideas.  In this condition, the group only grinds to a halt and no progress is made.

With the Pearman Personality Integrator data, individuals and groups can get a handle on the mental resources they over rely on and those that need more attention, and they get insights on how to increase the ability to flex among the resources that are so naturally available.

Jung proposed that eight processes or mental resources were actively in use to facilitate an understanding of daily life experience.  He suggested that there was a primary process around which all other processes were in service. 

Each of the mental functions can be understood in its basic form, which is usually simple, limited, and fragmented to its more complex and integrated form, which is very layered, inclusive, and wholistic.  Take the suggested descriptors below as benchmarks:

Perceiving Processes or Mental Resources

Se:  basic--scanning the environment, complex--artful use of talents

Si: basic--repeating a fact, complex--identifying subtle shifts and adjustments in information

Ne: basic--expressing multiple ideas, complex--facilitating discussions about long term horizons projected from multiple angles

Ni: basic--a hunch about a situation, complex--creating metaphors about underlying meaning and potential scenarios

Judging Processes or Mental Resources

Ti: basic--using a formulaic analysis on a situation, complex--creating a multi variate method to study and analyze factors and possible outcomes

Te: basic--giving a criticism, complex--creating a system for exploring and testing the validity of assumptions and working principles in a situation

Fi: basic--attachment to an object as valuable, complex--identifying all of the developmental and constructive ideals and elements in a situation

Fe: basic--inclusiveness of others, complex--using empathy to empower relationships and to build networks for improving commitment for action

We have the proposition of eight mental resources.  There are multiple researchers that have presented various degrees of evidence that these propositions are reasonable.  When developing the Pearman Personality Integrator®, my focus was on what has empirical support.  These eight mental resources have been found to be reasonable from a number of perspectives, no “belief” required.

With the Pearman, individuals receive feedback on their use of the eight mental functions that have been refined through additional research.  Individuals get a report which covers the eight mental functions in terms of degrees of use and degrees of natural comfort with using the process at hand.  This information allows for a rich exploration of what an individual believes is true about himself or herself and what he or she expresses in their daily life.  Far beyond the parameters of this essay, there is a very important issue with the realization of how one see’s himself or herself and how he or she believes behavior is expressed that is very fruitful in terms of health and well-being.

The “what” of the Pearman is that eight mental resources are measured.  The “so what” of the eight mental resources is that individuals get a full report of how the eight mental resources are used. This comprehensive look prompts an exploration of which mental processes are most attended to in perceiving experience and in making meaning of experience, and which are relatively less used.  The ensuing “now what” is the realization that development involves leveraging particular strengths and exploring ways to appropriately enrich those processes that are ignored.  In this way, individuals can integrate an understanding of their entire psychological system of perceiving and judging, and in so doing, have a comprehensive picture of how they operate and what they might flex to in order to enrich well being and personal effectiveness.