Author recommendations by Personality

In this series, I have been writing articles that offer pointers or suggestions to interesting topics, and expect your effort of further investigation. (If you want more details, there are tons of book reviews available on the web.) In this article, I will present a theory on personality, and recommend a few authors based on such personality profiles.

People read a wide range of topics and content. So books distinguish themselves mainly by the presentation style, which is highly correlated with the personality of the author. In general, we are easily attracted or drawn to books written by authors who have similar personality as us. When I recommend books or resources to people, I am actually doing personality matching, between the author and the reader.

Personality profiler: the 4-MAT system

Originally presented as a theory of Learning Styles within educational circles, I find it extremely helpful in teaching, learning, small group interaction, leadership training, seminar presentation, relationships, … basically any time I need to communicate with people. While I briefly introduce 4MAT here, you will have to read further on the web. (Google for "4MAT" and read the first few non-commercial sites, such as the links at nodak.edu and the geocities.com/jeniskanen/4mat.htm).

4MAT proposes four styles of learning: Intuitive, Logical, Practical, and Dynamic. Intuitive persons relate to stories and case studies, and are creative storytellers. They tend to be people person, empathic, talkative, learn by listening, and make decision based on feeling. A Logical person learns through reading, at ease with facts, formula, and data, and highly organized. Such a person can buy a car solely based on the specs, without ever seeing the car. A Practical person is hands-on, learns through examples, doing things with their hands. They are the best students in shop or craft classes, and will become future athlete, musicians, painters, or chefs. Finally, the Dynamic individual is the innovator and explorer, who pays little attention to conventions, status quo, and others' advice or teaching. They learn through trial and error, with the motto "Fire, Aim, Ready".

Of course, we see some aspect of the four styles in each person. The theory asks us to identify the dominant and possibly a secondary style in us, to better understand how we best learn, and what can cause us the maximum impact. In fact, I would add that our personal styles are the best channels for us to experience God, to find our passions and roles in the church.

Why is this a superior method compare to conventional systems? People are ultimately different and diverse. Simple classifications, such as Male vs. Female, Mars vs. Venus, or Introvert vs. Extrovert, are too simplistic with only 2 categories. The other extreme, that everyone is different, lacks explanatory power. The 4-MAT system is at the right level of complexity: the 4 styles are not too many for our mind to comprehend, (the human brain can hold at most 3-5 items in focus at one time,) while the resulting 16 categories of people (a combination of dominant and secondary style) is not too few to be simplistic, not too many to be overly complex, and enough diversity to capture different types of people.

In contrast, the conventional Myers-Briggs system uses 8 adjectives to describe 4 dimensions, which are not necessarily independent. The resulting 16 unintuitive personalities are extremely hard to remember. The limited predictive power does not warrant all the unnecessary complexity in the system.

Recommended Authors

1. Intuitive:

   Max Lucado writes as a journalist, with pithy lines and short motivational stories. You can tell his style even by the book titles: "He Still Moves Stones", "When God whispers your name", "He Chose the Nails". For his fans, all his books and audio books have recently been published as a 2 CDROM package of e-books and mp3 audio. So you can have a compact library of all his works.

2. Logical:

   Ravi Zacharias: With deep and diverse insights into cultures, religions, and the human psyche, he is a thinker's thinker, and makes apologetics come alive. Although a long time in ministry, preaching the Gospel and debating with atheists and other religions, he only start to publish much more in recent years, capturing the struggles faced in post-modern society in titles such as "Can man live without God", "Cries of the heart", "Deliver us from Evil". I lost track of his other titles taking on all the other major religions. His sermons are all online via OnePlace.com.

   Jerry Bridges: His series "Pursuit of Holiness", "Practice of Godliness", and more recently "Discipline of Grace" and "The Joy of Fearing God" are the most recognized titles from the Navigators, and long time favorites among Christian campus groups. In the Puritan tradition, these books cuts to the heart of the matter, and address seriously our personal discipleship training, often with analogies to rigors in sports or battlefield. So this is suitable for the next style as well.

3. Practical:

   Charles Colson: His stories always carry the message that our faith is socially relevant, as seen in famous titles "Loving God" or "The Body", filled with faith and life of great Christians from many nations. The recent work "How now shall we live" explores in detail how all aspects of academics, whether science, physics, biology, philosophy, sociology, … are failing our society, while the Bible continue to hold all the answer to our lives. It continues to be on top of my list of must-reads for all Christians.

   Tony Campolo Another author who embraces social impact, with titles such as "Carpe Diem – Seize the Day", "You can make a Difference", and various titles for youths, he also writes on non-conventional issues, as in "Following Jesus without Embarrassing God", that makes him an author for the Dynamic style as well.

4. Dynamic:

   Whatever list I come up with, you will ignore. So explore on your own, and email me your list of authors and reviews.

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