Bug’s Life is a children’s cartoon film, a comedy about a colony of ants struggling against the threat of their enemy, the grasshoppers.  For teams that are not averse to the injection of a bit of ‘Free Child’ into the workshop, it can be a light but powerful way of helping team members recognise type preferences in others.

I use the opening 10 to 15 minutes, which sets the scene and establishes the basic conflict of the movie.  The ant colony are collecting food for the grasshoppers but Flik, the ‘hero’, inadvertently destroys the food store.  Hopper, the leader of the grasshoppers and the arch ‘villain’, reacts angrily to this and gives the grasshoppers the impossible task of replacing the lost food in a short amount of time.

This is a useful clip because it can be used to teach straightforward lessons about recognising Myers Briggs personality types, but also serve as an introduction to more advanced topics such as organisational culture or type bias.

Although I review the clip after they have seen it, I give the team the questions I’m going to ask beforehand.   This is so that they know what they are looking for.  I also suggest that they have open the pages of my book or handouts that list the characteristics of different preferences (this book is now out of print, but there are plenty of other publications that can serve the purpose; also I’ll post the content of the pages in a future blog on recognising type).  Setting the questions beforehand helps to make the film a learning experience, otherwise they might get caught up in the action or enjoyment of the film and not get the Myers Briggs value from it.

I typically ask four questions, two basic in nature, and two more advanced.  The two basic questions are for them to work out the Myers Briggs types of Flik and Hopper (the conclusions are usually ENFP and ESTJ respectively).  More advanced questions can help lead, later in the workshop, into the advanced topics of corporate culture and/or type bias.  The first is to ask them to work out the prevailing cultural type of the ants (the conclusion usually ESFJ, though ISFJ is frequently suggested).  The second is to ask, for the functions S, N, T and F, whether the film portrays each function in a positive or negative light (the conclusion is usually that N and F are portrayed positively, S and T are portrayed negatively). The treatment of S is sometimes controversial, as the ant colony is generally portrayed in a positive light.  However, in the clip shown S is portrayed as unable to cope with change or anything outside their immediate experience (eg: see the reaction to a falling leaf), so it is a more subtle negative portrayal.

It can also be valuable, after discussions of the questions above, to ask what typological message the writer/director was (unconsciously) trying to convey. The theme is one that appears in many other movies, such as Dead Poets Society or Patch Adams, where an individual’s preferences do not fit with the wider culture in which he is living.  Flik, as an ENFP, was struggling with the SFJ culture and they were struggling with him.  In film’s such as Dead Poets Society, the culture wins out.  But in films such as Patch Adams, the individual and the society ultimately find a way to live with each other.  These themes can be useful metaphors that can lead in to a discussion of how the team or the organization treats difference:  whether it is a battle that someone is going to win or lose or whether they will find a way of accommodating their differences in preference.