Your P-ness is driving me crazy
What do you do if you are a J working for a P? Sounds like the start of a joke.
A J and a P walk into a bar, and the bartender says, "What will you have?" The J says, "I'll have a gin and tonic", and then the bartender dies of old age, waiting for the P to decide.
Okay, enough of that.
For the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) uninitiated who have no idea what this crazy woman is on about, these are two personality preferences that are often used to help describe how we each think and work with others.
J stands for Judging and P stands for Perceiving. As you can tell from my appallingly lousy joke, the J tends to be quite decisive, and the P wants to take in and explore possibilities and can be hesitant to arrive at a conclusion. Deadlines and plans stress ps. Js wish to get it done.
As a J who has worked for quite a few P managers, I am well aware of this dilemma. My P boss will want a piece of work done. By the time they tell me, the work is usually approaching a deadline, so I will need to work fast.
After discussing the approach, I pull out all the stops to get the work done to get it back for feedback. But just as I have pulled an all-nighter, my P boss has had a thought. Another piece of information comes their way, and we up-end the work that has already been done and mostly need to start again.
I am not unaware of how this dynamic plays out. I have multiple hacks for not getting sucked into the endless rework in these situations.
I try to wait for a few days before I do more than draft out the work, prepared for the inevitable change of mind.
I share what I have done in short increments so that I can work with adjustments as I go.
I have tried going hard and fast to get a completed piece of work so good that a P boss will be satisfied.
I double and triple-check what has been agreed upon before I start to gauge any changes in thought directions.
But it doesn't always work.
Perhaps my P boss feels I am not considering other options and want it done irrespective of quality - which is not usually the case.
For me, there are two repercussions for unbridled P-ness.
In my book, Do ONE THING and do it deep, the P boss can be part of the problem in a NO THING workplace. That's where you can't ever seem to get any work finished. Decisions are not made, work is held up endlessly while they consider stuff, and there are multiple reasons to wait - time, budget, new staff, restructuring, or the day ends in Y. That is deeply frustrating and not just for Js.
In Marshall Goldsmiths' book, What got you to here won't get you to there, he writes about value adding, where the leader 'adds value' to the employee's ideas. "That's a great idea, but why not do this..." This might create a finished product that is 5% better, but it also creates an employee who is now considerably less invested.
I don't have any good answers here except to be aware of the consequences of P-ness-ness. Weigh the costs, and you can avoid the ensuing deep frustration and an increasing lack of self-confidence in the team.