Upon taking the Baum-Nichols prototype profiler, to no surprise to my wife or myself, I was identified as a “practical manager”.  I also scored highly as the “creative problem solver”; this would seem to come as no surprise to my senior-managers who accept me as a big ideas/visionary.  In fact that perception is starting to infuriate me as it apparently overlooks my practical manager side and, to me highlights, the fact that my bosses do not have a true grasp of what I am capable of.

I asked my wife to take the same test.  She came out, quite clearly, as a “learned expert”.  Now I would initially also have opted for this, but only because she less fitted each of the other options.  However, it was when we sat down to talk about the results the fit became painfully apparent.  As my wife, true to profile type, proceeded to critique a question with respect to internal needs or the external feedback of others.

So from that very limited two person sample I can confidently say that this test does effectively identify a characterization of our selves.  So with some delight I can now, go to my to-do list and mark off another task, as I am sure all the other “practical managers” out there would do.