MiRo is now training practitioners in 100% online courses. There has always been an e-learning module and an online test but now the workshops too can be done in the comfort of your own Covid-19 bunker. As a result courses can start earlier and work around candidates’ schedules. When we can get together again, we will be offering low cost face to face refreshers for everyone who trained online but in the meantime you can become a fully fledged MiRo Practitioner without leaving home.
Not only that but because we’re saving on travel expenses, room bookings and lunchtime sandwiches (MiRo training courses are famous for the first class lunches BTW) we can pass those savings on to you.
Here’s what people are saying about learning online with MiRo:
“We all found that a really stimulating day. We spent an hour and half talking about it afterwards. I really valued and enjoyed your expertise.” MW
“Thoroughly enjoyed the day yesterday and it was great to be in the learner rather than teacher role.” SS
“I can’t wait to get using the MiRo tool. Thanks for a really interesting day, I think we all thoroughly enjoyed it. Really thought provoking!” MK
If you’d like to know more about training to be a MiRo practitioner or if you know anyone that does, contact us HERE
Having recently been involved in some quite difficult contract negotiations, it occurred to me how hard I have to work to overcome my natural desire to be nice, even when it is not expected of me and certainly not useful to me. Remembering that a programme called “tit for tat” won a competition to find the best strategy to win the prisoners dilemma some time ago, I decided to employ it as the basis of my negotiating strategy. Results (so far) are promising.
“Tit for tat is a game-theory strategy in which each participant mimics the action of their opponent after cooperating in the first round. “Tit for tat” can be used in games with repeated moves or in a series of similar games. “Tit for tat” emphasizes that cooperation between participants produces a more favourable outcome than a non-cooperative strategy.”
More on “tit for tat” here: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tit-for-tat.asp
Of course, not only has someone thought of it already but they have written the book. Here’s Adam Grant’s TED talk:
https://youtu.be/YyXRYgjQXX0
On MiRo Practitioner training courses we usually start by setting some ground rules and hopefully by extension start to think about how we as practitioners should relate to our clients. Invariably the subject of “trust” is raised. That we should trust each other, our clients and seek to be trusted ourselves. But do we know what we really mean by “trust”?
Given that it is the basis of almost all of our interactions, in business and in our personal lives, in politics and beyond, its amazing to think that most of us do not really have a working definition in our back pocket.
On her rather brilliant podcast “The Allusionist” Helen Zaltzman spoke to Rachel Botsman about the concept of trust.
You can check out Rachel Botsman’s in one of her numerous TED talks too or order her books and find out more about her work at: https://rachelbotsman.com/
MiRo uses theoretical models from Jung and Marston to talk about personality and behavioural type but there are other ways of viewing it. Native Americans talked in terms of spirit animals while in classical and medieval Europe the four humours were seen to be behind human temperament.
These days the thinking is far more about the nature of the human brain. The problem is (As Iain McGilchrist says in this lecture) is that “when we talk about anything we have to compare it to something else that we understand better” so this may all just be another set of metaphors but he tries not to talk about the brain as if it were just a machine. Perhaps it is more like a person or perhaps more correctly, like two people. Once again it is worth being careful here too, neither he nor we are suggesting some kind of army of homunculi (a la that Woody Allen movie) but that we humans have more than one possible way of being. Competing or complimentary aspects of our personalities, creating the tensions and talents that make us who we are. Fascinating stuff and for the 21st century at least this may be the way forward for MiRo. It’s certainly food for thought.
We’d heartily recommend McGilchrist’s weighty by enlightening book:
Someone sent me a link to this twitter conversation the other day with the title “interesting thread”.
The Myers-Briggs personality types were invented in 1944 based on Jungian psychoanalysis concepts from the 1920s. They've never been valid, and have been obsolete for over 60 years. Companies and therapists that use them are committing scientific malpractice. pic.twitter.com/qsdSXM7jzq
I’m not so sure about that assessment but do realise that it contains many of the objections to psychometrics like ours, which I hear on a regular basis. Some don’t make much sense and while others are well meaning it is hardly possible to make coherent or nuanced point in 140 characters. Just ask Donald Tump. However one person did post a link to a video of one of Jordan Peterson’s lectures, in which (love him or hate him) he mounts a pretty strong case against psychometrics like MBTI and by extension MiRo.
You can watch them here:
Jordan Peterson on psychometric testing
Jordan Peterson on “what job suits you”
So given that “not hurting anyone’s feelings” seems to arouse such negative emotions in some folks, I thought I’d mount a defence of what we do.
There is a place for the Big 5 and IQ tests and whatever other psychometrics are out there that can predict performance or success in whatever way those things are measured. Peterson quite rightly says that people with an IQ of less than 100 are unlikely to be successful or happy in a career as a professor of mathematics. Likewise the much-vaunted Big 5 can make similarly accurate predictions. If you’re not very agreeable, highly neurotic, closed to new ideas, not very conscientious and incapable of extroversion (for which read “unsociable”) it is hard to imagine where you might be successful or happy. While if you score the opposite way on all of those scales, it would be surprising if you were not already successful and happy.
We at MiRo toyed with a Big 5 assessment but decided that “not hurting people’s feelings” was still important to us. We are not sure either that all of the Big 5 are not changeable and more allied to mental and emotional health than personality.
MiRo is here to help people to understand themselves and each other and to make better choices about how they, work, interact, approach problems in the here and now and plan for the future. We intend to help people understand how they are different from or similar to their colleagues, friends and customers not whether they are better or worse.
If you are a professor of mathematics with an IQ of less than 100, it will become evident soon enough; in fact I wonder why it was not evident a little earlier in your career. However regardless of your IQ and whether you are a professor, a parson or a post office worker, it might be useful to know why you are continually frustrated by a particular colleague and how you might communicate better with her. It might be worth knowing what kind of career is likely to feed your soul, how to help your workmates deal with changes to their working practices, what your boss expects of you but doesn’t say out loud, which of your personality traits is most likely to influence someone else to change their mind and any number of other factors that make work into a pleasurable and productive human experience instead of an undignified fight for resources.
There is space for all of it of course and if it works, by all means use it. However if you can avoid hurting people’s feelings, do, particularly if you have to work with them tomorrow. MiRo is about understanding people. The ancient Greeks knew that that was important too. Over the doorway of the temple at Delphi, it read, “Know thyself”. It is from there that all wisdom begins.
Coming to a practitioner near you very soon, our new MiRo Leadership Report. We are just putting the finishing touches to it (We will put an example version up on the news feed as soon as we have the final, final version). We have sent an advanced almost final version out to our practitioners for last comment and we’ll be making a few tweaks, I’m sure as a result of their in-put.
There are any number of factors that can make someone a good or even a great leader. It is probably true too, that the necessary personal characteristics and sufficient environmental circumstances are latent within all of us and all of our futures. MiRo cannot test for qualities such as courage under fire, self-sacrifice or personal integrity. Nor can we predict the future that may call any one of us to step up the plate at any moment. Although different cultures may value different qualities in a leader, these choices are in truth arbitrary. MiRo cannot test for good or bad
leaders but from the answers that you supply in your MiRo assessment, we can make some reasonable predictions about the style in which you might choose to lead.
By looking at classical personality type (as defined by Myers and Briggs) and temperament (as defined by David Keirsey) as well as our tried and tested MiRo Behavioural Mode model we hope that the Leadership Report will add another dimension to the information that we can give you. If you are in a leadership role already and want to improve your skills or if you are about to take on your first role in a leadership position, the new report used in conjunction with the MiRo Enhanced report can give you some real insight into how you might best approach things and where some of your blind spots might be.
So watch this space and if you like what you see please do let us know. We hope to have a number of new reports to add to the party over the next year or so, so we’d love to hear your comments and sugestions.
Welcome back and a happy new year to you all. We hope you’ve all had a peaceful and enjoyable break and that (hangovers notwithstanding) you’re all fired up and ready for a great year ahead. It’s 2018 and although there is still no sign of jet boots, diner pills or flying cars there is lots of new stuff on the way here at MiRo.
The long awaited leadership report is up and running on our local server and the text is being proof read this week so watch this space for updates on that. Our plan is to add more supplementary reports over the course of the year but to be certain that we are adding the right ones and that they are relevant to you, we need to hear from all of you, our practitioners, our end users and our interested bystanders alike. To that end we are currently exploring ways that we can start to facilitate an on-going conversation online. More news on that to come too.
The enhanced report research programme is now in full swing but we are still looking for more working teams in 2018, who’d be willing to get involved. If you haven’t heard about it, we’re offering half a day of training, up to 20 free enhanced reports and a team report (worth around £2000 in total) in return for a little bit of feedback. If you’d like to know more or if you know someone who would, just get in touch and we’ll do the rest.
There are new look reports on the way and some new online resources for practitioners appearing this week (practitioners, keep an eye on the resources area in your account screen) as suggested by some of the attendees at our recent refresher courses and more to come throughout the year.
And speaking of refresher courses, there will be more of those too. There are still places left for the free course in Leeds on 1st February and there is likely to be one more free course in the south. After that we’ll be charging for places on refresher courses so sign up now if you’d like to get up to speed with everything that’s new at MiRo. We’ll even buy you lunch.
Along with all of that there are a number of things still at the idea stage that we hope to be able to tell you about soon but what I can tell you is that there’s lots to be excited about at MiRo in 2018 so keep an eye on the news. We’ll keep you posted and we’d love to hear from you too about everything you’re doing out there. In fact we want to fill this news page with your news too so let’s keep talking and here’s to a great year ahead!
Over the course of 2017 and 2018 MiRo Psychometrics will be running a number of refresher courses for existing MiRo practitioners and just to get things started we’re running the first two completely free!
If you are already accredited but would like to revisit some of the things you learned on the original course, learn about some new concepts from the Enhanced Report and get a heads-up on some new developments that are on the way, then we’d love to see you there. We’ll even buy you lunch.
The workshop will cover:
The four Behavioural Modes and a brief recap on the Standard report.
An introduction to the Enhanced Report.
Cognitive functions and Pivot Points.
Personality type and personal and professional development.
The team report and using MiRo with groups and organisations
Bespoke reports.
Any questions and a sneak preview of forthcoming developments.
We plan to run one more free course in the North of the country in early 2018 but after that courses will be subject to a small charge so don’t miss this opportunity to join us for free.
At:
Sheepdrove Organic Farm in Berkshire (20 minutes form the M4)
On:
Thursday 30th November 2017
Places are limited so if you would like to attend or if you’d like to know more, get in touch with us now.
Email:
admin@miro-psychometrics.com
Tel:
0844 870 0392
Full joining instructions and further details will be available a little closer to the time but if you’d like to make a start now visit our e-learning module at:
Anyone who has trained as a MiRo practitioner or attended one of our workshops will know that part of the reason that MiRo exists is because of our discomfort with some of the positivistic assertions of traditional personality typing systems, namely, that I am either this OR that, rather than this AND that. And what if I chose to be something different today? Does that make me inauthentic?
In his book “Who are you really?” Professor Brian Little ponders these very problems and concludes that perhaps our personality is less defined by what or who we are but more by what we actually chose to do. Discussions about free will aside, perhaps to be authentic is less about being true to our nature or our nurture and more about having a mission and making choices.
Our man Jez, recently did some work with Limehouse Films. Here’s some nice stuff they said about him and about MiRo
"Jeremy delivered a fantastic development day for our team using the MiRo Behavioural Mode Assessment tool as the basis. He worked closely with us beforehand to ensure what was delivered on the day suited our objectives and our team.
Four months on, the MiRo terminology has become part of our everyday discussions, individuals consciously develop their behavioural preferences and work with others in the team with a greater understanding of how they can motivate and get the best out of them.
I would recommend Jeremy to any organisation committed to making a difference."
Tracy Keates Operations Director
Thanks Tracy. You can hear more words of undoubted wisdom from Tracy at:
