Whose Personality Resonates With You?

[Ernie]

A few years ago I was teaching history to my daughters and some other elementary students and I got my first personality glimpse of James Madison. Immediately I resonated with him.

Madison skillfully articulated what was wrong with the Articles of Confederation.
He was a man who loved crafting documents and a well written plan with checks and balances.
He seemed to be a man who enjoyed coming up with a plan that everyone could get on board with, even if it was not their first choice.
Madison undertook an extensive study of other world governments before heading to the Constitutional Convention and arrived 11 days early to make sure he was prepared for making his sales pitch for "The Virginia Plan".
He helped draft The Constitution (The Constitutional Convention took place in a hot building from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Of the 70 delegates appointed, only 55 showed up, and only 39 made it to the end and signed the US Constitution. People like Daniel Boone who made decisions on the fly, would probably not have made it past the second day of the Constitutional Convention. Had he been elected as a delegate, he might have been one of those who never showed up.)
Madison helped picture what the new government would look like by explaining it in the Federalist papers.
He helped write the Bill of Rights.
In later years, when he was referred to as the “Father of the Constitution,” Madison protested that the document was not “the off-spring of a single brain,” but “the work of many heads and many hands.”

Over the years I have been frustrated with people who say, "You can't please everyone!" and then never go to the effort of trying to please as many as possible. I've also been frustrated with people who follow policy woodenly, and have very little interest in making exceptions or changing/overhauling policy to make it more suitable and supple. And thirdly, I have found it frustrating to team closely with those who fly by the seat of their pants, and let a string of broken relationships and unfinished projects in their path.

The last few years I have mused on how difficult my life has been at times in my life when I have tried to team with folks like Daniel Boone. Both Madison and Boone were pioneers and contributed to the establishment of the US, but they did so in very different spheres. They probably weren't designed to team together in the same daily business.

What person(s) do you resonate with? (I am simply referring to gifting/personality. Not who you resonate with in terms of values or beliefs.)

[joshuabgood]

I have always thought with a team it is most balanced to have a few of all of them. The planners are great folks. The executors are great folks. You need some people that can quickly and easily make decisions the fly since no amount of planning and execution can fully eliminate risk or surprises. Also you need some folks who have the energy to "start a bunch of things" that other people don't think of as possible. Put it all together and the health maybe is in the tension.

As for me, the folks that are really detail oriented at times feel to me to slow down progress, however, I need them on my team to operationalize our plans.

[Ernie]

I have always thought with a team it is most balanced to have a few of all of them. The planners are great folks. The executors are great folks. You need some people that can quickly and easily make decisions the fly since no amount of planning and execution can fully eliminate risk or surprises. Also you need some folks who have the energy to "start a bunch of things" that other people don't think of as possible. Put it all together and the health maybe is in the tension.

As for me, the folks that are really detail oriented at times feel to me to slow down progress, however, I need them on my team to operationalize our plans.

So you don't agree that James Madison would have been a hindrance on Daniel Boone's expeditions, and that Daniel Boone would not have been very useful at the Continental Congress? I guess it depends on what you mean as being part of the team.

I agree that a variety of people can make a team better, but I still think that some sorts of people are not cut out for certain endeavors. e.g. I think I probably wouldn't be much good on an ambulance team. In any such situations, I can quickly get overwhelmed thinking about how an accident could have been prevented. If working for an emergency healthcare organization, I might do well on the community prevention side, or on the long-range planning of the organization side, but I wouldn't do well on a day-to-day emergency care team.

[joshuabgood]

I have always thought with a team it is most balanced to have a few of all of them. The planners are great folks. The executors are great folks. You need some people that can quickly and easily make decisions the fly since no amount of planning and execution can fully eliminate risk or surprises. Also you need some folks who have the energy to "start a bunch of things" that other people don't think of as possible. Put it all together and the health maybe is in the tension.

As for me, the folks that are really detail oriented at times feel to me to slow down progress, however, I need them on my team to operationalize our plans.

So you don't agree that James Madison would have been a hindrance on Daniel Boone's expeditions, and that Daniel Boone would not have been very useful at the Continental Congress? I guess it depends on what you mean as being part of the team.

I agree that a variety of people can make a team better, but I still think that some sorts of people are not cut out for certain endeavors. e.g. I think I probably wouldn't be much good on an ambulance team. In any such situations, I can quickly get overwhelmed thinking about how an accident could have been prevented. If working for an emergency healthcare organization, I might do well on the community prevention side, or on the long-range planning of the organization side, but I wouldn't do well on a day-to-day emergency care team.

My guess is that frontier expeditions actually went better when there were also planners aboard. Of course there are still curve balls...and wonderful accidents, as in Sacajawea's connection with a long lost family member on the west coast, but yes, I feel the Constitution also needed folks who could compromise and bend principles on the fly, hence all the unprincipled compromises (Connecticut, 3/5, etc)...in order to work.

But even in Madison's case, you can't really foresee everything...see the unceremonious exit of his family from the Whitehouse a few years later with Dolly famously grabbing GW's pic on the way out.

[Ernie]

But even in Madison's case, you can't really foresee everything...

Yes, this is nearly verbatim what I hear from Daniel Boone's. Even though I never believe that everything can be planned, and never intend to plan everything, and am willing to adjust the plan when needed, Daniel Boone's think that planners are trying to foresee and plan everything.

My guess is that frontier expeditions actually went better when there were also planners aboard. Of course there are still curve balls...and wonderful accidents, as in Sacajawea's connection with a long lost family member on the west coast, but yes, I feel the Constitution also needed folks who could compromise and bend principles on the fly, hence all the unprincipled compromises (Connecticut, 3/5, etc)...in order to work.

Yes!

But I think we are maybe talking past each other...

Both Madison and Boone were pioneers and helped develop the US. For the US to become what it is today, it needed Daniel Boone's and James Madison's. In that sense they were a team.

However, I don't think Boone would have enjoyed having Madison on his expeditions and I don't think Boone would have lasted four months at the Constitutional Convention.

To do expeditions, Boone would have needed a "planner" who could plan on the run. Not someone who would have arranged business meetings every day for months before attempting an expedition. Nor a planner who after two months of business meetings - and still no agreement on a plan for moving forward - would favor yet another two months of business meetings.

To prepare a constitution, Madison needed people who could compromise and bend principles on the fly, while at the same time being able to attend business meetings 6 days a week for four months.

[Ernie]

Let's move on. Who else has a person in mind that seems to resonate with your personality?

Are there any online sites that can help people resonate with the personality of well-known people?

[joshuabgood]

To do expeditions, Boone would have needed a "planner" who could plan on the run. Not someone who would have arranged business meetings every day for months before attempting an expedition.

A lot of these expeditions were in fact meticulously planned months in advance...see Lewis and Clark.

Who else has a person in mind that seems to resonate with your personality?

Maybe I am to simple, but I resonate with all of them. Meaning I see the value add as resonating...not I am personally like them all. I think teams in any sector need all the gifts.

[Ernie]

Who else has a person in mind that seems to resonate with your personality?

Maybe I am to simple, but I resonate with all of them. Meaning I see the value add as resonating...not I am personally like them all. I think teams in any sector need all the gifts.

I agree that organizations need all the gifts. It seems to me that some personalities function better in certain tasks than others. That is all I am trying to say.

I'm simply asking people to think of a character who functions/functioned a lot like themselves and talk about it. Maybe you read about someone and something clicks in your mind, and you think, "That person reminds me of me."
Sorry I ever got into the Daniel Boone thing. That seems to have taken the lightheartedness out of this thread that I intended.

[joshuabgood]

Who else has a person in mind that seems to resonate with your personality?

Maybe I am to simple, but I resonate with all of them. Meaning I see the value add as resonating...not I am personally like them all. I think teams in any sector need all the gifts.

I agree that organizations need all the gifts. It seems to me that some personalities function better in certain tasks than others. That is all I am trying to say.

I'm simply asking people to think of a character who functions/functioned a lot like themselves and talk about it. Maybe you read about someone and something clicks in your mind, and you think, "That person reminds me of me."
Sorry I ever got into the Daniel Boone thing. That seems to have taken the lightheartedness out of this thread that I intended.

Well some people do say I am to serious all the time...

[Ken]

What person(s) do you resonate with? (I am simply referring to gifting/personality. Not who you resonate with in terms of values or beliefs.)

In terms of founding father types I would say Benjamin Franklin. Who was a master in so many different fields and was even to some degree the father of American Oceanography. He was the first person, for example, to accurately chart the Atlantic Gulf Stream current. He did so by interviewing hundreds of ship captains and tracking their speed and course across the Atlantic. https://divediscover.whoi.edu/history-o ... lf-stream/ This was the first ever chart of the Gulf Stream Current that Benjamin Franklin published in 1769



And this is a modern thermal satellite image of the Gulf Stream today