The INTJ/INTP Communication Gap
haha, thanks. For the longest time, I kept pegging him as an INTJ because he's not like most INTPs I know. However, INTP makes a lot more sense with the rampant miscommunication.
So do you have any suggestions for improving the communication gap that seems to occur?
Could you explain a little more about the gap? For example, where misunderstandings seem to occur and where you end up diverging?
One thing that helps me get on the same page with others is if they make it a point to clearly explain the terms they are using. INTPs will do this probably too much, but it's necessary for us to feel like we're looking at a situation clearly.
I've found the communication gap between INTJ and INTP to be one of the best ways for an INTx to figure out which of the two types fits. A lot of the material that describes INTJs often describes someone who is rather fastidious and organized (because of the TJ), when most INTJs aren't like that at all. In fact, even very organized INTJs will "feel disorganized" because they aren't "organized enough." So even though the INTJ description mostly fits, the INTP seems to objectively fit better.
Similarly, not all INTPs are as vague and absentminded and laid back as the typical descriptions suggest. In fact, INTPs can be very precise and fastidious about how ideas are expressed, nitpicking minor definitions, and they seem anything other than "laid back" when they do so.
I believe that it is possible in terms of skills and training for a single person to both have prominent Te and Ti judging, depending on the material before them. Ti is where you figure it out for yourself, delving into the logic, not entirely trusting anothers' representation of the material to be entirely correct. Ti is your internalized logical understanding of a system/issue/problem. Te's focus is different: one's own understanding is still present, but it is voluntarily put to the test. It is compared to reality, compared to others' opinions/views/understandings, and it is actively searching for better ideas. Anyone who has had to work in a strongly technical field has had to develop both of these perspectives, or otherwise be crippled. If you don't develop your own understanding, you end up with a lot of confirmation bias and garbage-in-garbage-out spewing of bogus information. If you don't develop the ability to juggle ideas and perspectives other than your own, and honestly evaluate them, you won't be able to work smoothly with a technical team. If you are a competent member of a technical team, you might be better at one aspect than the other, but you do both: you have to.
This makes it even more difficult to determine whether one is INTP or INTJ, because, well, you actually do have aspects of both, and it can be difficult to tell which one you lean on more readily.
Now to the communication gap between these perspectives, where the function you lean on becomes more clear.
The absolute best way to tell whether you're an INTJ or an INTP is to get into discussions with other INTJs and INTPs and see where the discusions go.
The INTJ discussions will often be boring, even if you're both INTJs. The idea is communicated, there's nothing else to do, and the conversation is over. Once in a while, there's an interesting insight to be shared, someone says, "wow, cool," and the conversation is over. This attitude actually lends itself to the work world, where there is a job to be done, and spending hours just talking is problematic.
The INTP discussions will go all over the place, due to Ne. Whenever one gets bored with the current topic (and often, even when one isn't bored with the topic), a new tangential topic becomes the centerpiece of the conversation for a while. Ideas are usually not resolved, though they might be defined, and inconsistencies are pointed out.
Get an INTJ talking with an INTP, and generally, things go well. There's a lot in common, and even INTJs enjoy shooting the breeze about technical topics for a while, and INTPs enjoy many of the insights than INTJs have that they didn't think of themselves.
However, once they disagree, the communication gap appears. What happens is that there is some particular problem or issue, and the INTJ and INTP both attempt to solve it. The problem is that the priorities that define a real solution are very different.
The INTJ approach is, "Find the one or two things that need to be resolved, fix those, and be done." Ni plays a huge role for the INTJ in this respect: a huge amount of experience with past problems is compared with the current problem, in an almost supercomputer kind of way, and like magic, Ni throws up a few possible solutions. Te then sorts through these possibilities, throws out obviously bad ones, and then tests the ones the survive. What is left is "the correct solution." The INTJ will then implement the solution.
The INTP approach is to
understand the problem. Rather than using Ni, the INTP uses Ti to achieve this personal understanding, while using Ne to brainstorm for possibilities the conclusions of Ti clash with reality. This Ti/Ne combination is
very good at finding potential problems that might be caused by any particular choice made to fix the issue at hand.
Now, when the INTJ and INTP work together on the issue, these approaches will often clash. The INTJ is working to resolve things promptly, using Ni as a shortcut to achieve rapid understanding of the issue. The INTJ is fully capable of using Ti to analyze it in far more depth, but has abandoned this approach in favor of expediency. The INTP is working for a full understanding.
The INTJ figures things out (or so he thinks), and then informs the INTP of the solution. The INTP uses Ti and Ne and quickly intuitively feels some apparent inconsistencies and logical contradictions in the INTJ solution. Given a bit more time, a lot of the contradictions/problems are verbalized.
At this point, the INTJ does the same thing with the INTP's contradictions as he did with the original issue, resolving each one of those. It's actually a pretty good team-up, and the INTP brings up a lot of relevant and important points, which the INTJ quickly resolves. And then the INTP, still developing one's own personal understanding, doesn't stop.
From the INTJ's perspective, the INTP points start sounding more like technical nitpicks, arbitrarily specific definitions, or entirely tangential observations. Most of the better INTP points the INTJ often classes as valid, but that the gain achieved by implementing the INTP idea is not worth the cost of implementing it.
From the INTP's perspective, the INTJ is thinking sloppy, not considering all of the angles, willing to arbitrarily accept systemic flaws just to get the job done (badly), and in general not really trying to understand what is going on.
So, if you're still wondering whether you're INTJ or INTP, figure out which side of this kind of argument you end up on. Do other people seem disinclined to REALLY look into a problem/issue and just slap on a patch? Or do you find that you already have a solution to the problem, and feel held back by having to explain that solution to everyone else, over and over again, until they understand it?
I'll end it here. There's more details to be had, mostly along the lines of how INTJ and INTP end up talking in circles around each other, because each has a different priority and a different definition of what a good solution is.