In any given situation, people are capable of taking on different roles. Often, we help contribute to a workplace or family or social situation, by joining in and enriching your little community with our own contributions.

Sometimes, though, the group starts to become dry and needs something to spice things up.  Perhaps work is slow or inefficient. Perhaps our friends or family are bored.  Contributing to the status quo isn’t going to help – someone needs to brainstorm a bright idea.

Other times, there may be a lot of contributors and ideas. Perhaps there are even too many.  There may be chaos, disorder, and disunity.  In this case, what’s needed is someone to see what’s going on and set some constructive boundaries and focus for the group, in order to channel everyone’s energies in a positive direction.

Lastly, in a worst case scenario, the group may be struggling to function at all, and even when it manages to, it is headed in the wrong direction. Perhaps a workplace is rife with arguments, and in between conflicts, everyone goes off on their own and does work that creates more problems than it solves, making the next conflict even worse. Yet another bright idea isn’t going to be welcomed, and re-channeling focus of the group wouldn’t do it either when the attitudes are so hostile. What’s needed is a total reset, a total reformation. Someone needs to say “everybody just hold on a minute,” go back to the drawing board, and re-think through how things should be.

 There you have it!  These are the four major roles of personality in MindFacets:

  1. The Constructor – Directly contributes within an existing flow.  The star and team player.
  2. The Focuser – Establishes a flow in which others’ activity can thrive.  The peacekeeping nurturer and dispenser of wisdom.
  3. The Brainstormer – Sees fresh ideas and directions for existing flows.   The contagious optimist and creative spark.
  4. The Reformer – Challenges old ways with new ones.  The contrarian leader and entrepreneur.

Everyone’s personality is capable of each role.

 Often we need to play each of the 4 roles when we are on our own, living our individual lives:

  • Imagine finding something good in life, and getting on a roll with your Constructor, but then never being able to realize when you’ve gotten all the good that there is to get out of it.  You get stuck in a rut!

  • Or imagine coming up with fun and interesting ideas with your Brainstormer, but then never ever focusing long enough to accomplish any of them.

  • If you have an overactive Reformer and are constantly angry and telling everyone else they have it all wrong, and never letting anyone get any momentum, nobody will like you and it will be hard to have peace or get anything done when you’re around.

  • A Focuser can build a nest for people and ideas to bloom, but when the nest becomes empty, it’s time to move on, perhaps by finding someone else’s thriving nest and being a contributor rather than a nurturer.

As another example, in business, once you’ve mastered your trade, using your Constructor role, it can be more profitable to hire others, train them, and find work for them, in effect switching to a Focuser who nurtures others’ work, possibly without doing any of the work.  There are many ways in which switching roles can be helpful.

Fortunately, our mind is always subconsciously ready to move in any role.  Finding the best results in life is a matter of realizing the most fitting role and choosing to adopt it.

Questions to ponder:

  • Can you notice the 4 roles at work in your life or in others?
  • Do you notice you tend to get stuck in any of them longer than you should?
  • Are there any roles you tend to avoid?
  • In a challenging situation in your work or social life, can you think of how playing a particular role could help the situation?
These 4 roles are a cornerstone of MindFacets, and will provide a framework upon which we can hang an understanding of how thought and emotion works, and how our individual personalities colour those thoughts and emotions.