The Psychology of Money - An Investment Manager\'s Guide to Beating the Market

preference for intuition (see Figure 11.3). The danger there, as you

can guess, is that they generate lots of wonderful ideas, many of

which are impractical or hard to implement. Again, the recurring

theme in all of this diversification is balance. The strings of the

instrument must be just tight enough to hit the perfect pitch.

These examples compellingly show that the Myers-Briggs di-

agnostic tool can help determine how to get more creativity out of

yourself or your team.

Individuals with a preference for intuition (N) have an edge in

the creative department, but those with a preference for sensing (S)

can still take steps to add big-C Creativity to their investment

portfolio. Without this “N” factor in their thinking, investors are

likely to become limited in their viewpoint and miss the next curve

in the road. There are plenty of examples from history of intelli-

gent people making “dumb” statements because they could not see

the changes coming. A few of the more famous ones:

Level Number NF NT SJ SP

Nonexempt 247 14% 14% 59% 13%

Exempt 377 11 30 44 15

Senior 80 6 36 50 8

Executive 10 0 60 40 0

Figure 11.2 Personality types preference distribution at Sovran Bank.

Level Number NF NT SJ SP

Exempt 44 5% 27% 55% 14%

Senior 24 8 33 50 8

Executive 16 0 75 13 2

Figure 11.3 Personality type preference distribution at a South African

bank.

Case History 93

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