Keiser Please Understand Me

111. PI.Is.III111.rsflllll M. Phenomenon

Keirsey and Bates's Please Understand Me, first published in 1978, sold nearly

2 million copies in its first 20 years, becoming a perennial best seller ~ll ov~r ~he

world. Advertised only by word o f mouth, the book became a favo~te tralmng

and counseling guide in many institutions-government, church, buslnes.s-and

colleges across the nation adopted it as an auxiliary text in a dozen dIfferent

departments. Why?

Perhaps it was the user-friendly way that Please Understand Me helped people

find their personality style. Perhaps it was the simple accuracy o f Keirsey's

portraits o f temperament and character types. Or perhaps it was the book's essential

messag~: that members o f families and institutions are OK, even though they are

fundamentally different from each other, and that they would all do well to

appreciate their differences and give up trying to change others into copies o f

themselves.

Now: P"IS' IllIIrstalllll H

F or the past twenty years Professor Keirsey has continued to investigate

personality d ifferences-to refine his theory o f the four temperaments and to

define the facets o f character that distinguish one from another. His findings

form the basis o f Please Understand Me II, an updated and greatly expanded

edition o f the book, far more comprehensive and coherent than the original, and

yet with much o f the same easy accessibility.

One major addition is Keirsey's view o f how the temperaments differ in the

intelligent roles they are most likely to develop. Each o f us, he says, has four

kinds o f i ntelligence-tactical, logistical, diplomatic, s trategic-though one o f

the four interests us far more than the others, and thus gets far more practice than

the rest. Like four suits in a hand o f cards, we each have a long suit and a short

suit in what interests us and what we do well, and fortunate indeed are those

whose work matches their skills.

As in the original book, Please...