The power of “we” // Otto & me
I’m giving thanks for an unforgettable mentor, bigger than life – as on the big screen – Otto Kroeger. I met Otto while working at GE in Reston, Virginia, and that meeting changed my life through the power of, as he would say, “heightened self-awareness for better self-management.”
My business relationship with Otto quickly morphed into mentoring and then into an enduring friendship – one that lasted 25 years until his death in 2013 and one I miss dearly. I would not be where I am today, not have the MBTI knowledge and skills, the ambition or the confidence I possess using this powerful tool, had I not had that him as my mentor. Our relationship made me realize how being mentored and being a mentor have been critical to my professional success.
Otto was a fun-loving Broadway star/singer and a consummate scholar, studying people and using the theoretical underpinnings of Jungian theory to help others. As a fellow entertainer and singer, we would perform duets and see who could remember all the lyrics. From an MBTI content standpoint, I watched him on videotape for hours, studying his style, depth of knowledge, delivery and experiential facilitation methods. Otto’s stories, best-selling books and research projects that included scholarly longitudinal studies deepened the MBTI’s connection to health, resilience, and college retention, among other research areas. Along the way Otto was everything a mentor should be. In the most practical sense, he was the MBTI and Jungian insider who knew all the ropes and the unwritten rules and helped me chart a path to personal and business success.
Because of him, I encountered the best ways to use type theory in my executive coaching practice and team dynamics and recently completed a workbook, Types Translation. Otto’s legacy lives on through the experiential learning methodology of Otto’s successor, Hile Rutledge, President & Principle Consultant of OKA and my business partner, friend and coach. Since 1977 OKA has earned a reputation for experiential, interactive learning characterized by high engagement, high impact and actionable, practical results. I had the privilege to be a senior consultant of the firm for more than a decade.
During this Thanksgiving month, in Otto’s memory, I’m giving thanks for the gift of self-awareness through mentoring and through the psychological tool that brought us together – one of the world’s most widely used personality tools and the most trusted one on my speaking, coaching and consulting tool belt today – the Myers Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®).
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