Are you Thin or Thick Skinned?

A new psychology book is out called Your Emotional Type, that examines people through how easily external stimuli affect their lives.    Under this concept, there are two types of people:

• Thin boundary people, or people that are highly sensitive to input from their surroundings, are like "walking antennaes", and are "thin skinned"
• Thick boundary people, or people that have a high resistance to input from their surroundings, and are "thick skinned"

Now you may ask, why is this relevant for management?

When leading change of any type, it is critical to understand the people involved, and see what kind of people are best fit for certain tasks and activities.     Would you hire a "thin boundary person" to manage a customer service line?

You can take a test to see if you are thin or thick skinned here, and read Therese Borchard's great review about the book here.