INFJs in Business or Entrepreneurship

Stepped into and later out of a business there was a need for. Left my partner with it. It is not there any longer. Stayed long enough to pay all the notes off.

Stepped into a business to help my parents. Now they are both gone and my drive is gone. My reason is gone. My purpose is gone. The industry took a nosedive a few years ago and I am still swimming. If someone would just quit dragging their feet it might work. I sometimes feel sopmeone is trying to drag me under.

Need a new purpose in life fulfilling enough to inspire me again.
 
Melkor said:
Yeah. Those companies always do well.

Like those hippy art shops that close after a few months when they realise the world isn't all sunshine and rainbows. XD
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Opening =/= maintaining, no? :)

But I think that's one level of it.
Some people have distaste--
others revel on it.

You know, the way some people, no matter what MBTI it is, can survive in the world out there, some struggles, some hates it...
It's just (part of) life, really.
Maybe I'm being somewhat dismissive towards this issue. : |
 
I dont see why INFJs couldnt do well in business. To say INFJs couldnt do biz... wouldnt that put them in historically poor positions like slavery or robbers? How would they have survived? Business isnt rocket science.
 
Business is the art of taking another mans money without the use of force or violence.

Women make excellent businessmen.
 
Melkor said:
Sounds like a dreadful idea.

The key concepts in business, heirachy, extracting as much profit for as little expense from innocent consumers, obeying your superiors or abusing your inferiors, looking out for yourself over your colleagues...

They don't fit well with the INFJ ideals, nor does the very outward, almost predatorial attitude towards potential customers exist within their mentality.
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I believe your making a strikingly inaccurate generalization of "business", if the specific "key concepts" you list are any indication....

Being around business for a good portion of my life, and directly involved for many years, I won't refute that what you've listed does indeed exist within the business community.

But, one could restructure what you've said about "business", and pick out a few choice realities of... say... a "romantic relationship" and it would come off sounding equally void and parasitic...something like:

key concepts of romantic relationships, relenquishing personal emotional, psychological, and sexual freedom to a single other individual, a guarantee that every one entered into will eventually end due to dissatisfaction, dysfunction, or loss of interest, and either you will have to share the bad news with the other, or you will be on the receiving end of it... and there is often nothing in your power you can do to change this reality once it has set it... The one possible exception would be a relationship that ends in "marriage", and even that is fraught with dissapointment, painful realities, and very often ends just like every other. You enter into one because you believe you will experience something you desire, but that will nearly always be coupled with many realities that you neither expected, nor desire.... etc... etc...

I full well recognize that many businesses operate with some or all of the elements you list... but, "abusing inferiors / obeying superiors" is not a function of "transactional relationships", "barter", "economics"...etc. sadly, it is a function of "human relationships / interactions" as well as "interpersonal dysfunction" and also "social retardation / ignorance".

And there are many many many forms of business.... and only a very select few can be correctly labeled "extracting as much profit for as little expense from innocent consumers" When I purchase something, I don't consider myself "innocent"... but neither do I consider myself a "consumer". I choose to insulate myself from the majority of "pop culture / mass media /etc" for the most part. It is a deliberate decision, and one that the vast majority can choose to do as well should they have the desire and be willing to adept their life as needed. (i don't own a microwave, a TV, I don't watch video's online that contain ad's, and if I go to a store, I usually take a book so I won't have to bother noticing the popular mainstream magazine and periodicals, etc. I don't face book, or myspace, etc...etc...etc...)

I do however have a business, and one of the luxuries is I have been able to afford to help certain family members through certain financial stresses when they needed it. I also am able to dictate what days/times I work, and thus I'm able to spend a great deal of time with my family. And although I often am payed extremely well for the work I do, every single dollar I earn is the result of someone making a choice to give me that dollar in exchange for me providing a particular service for them.

And furthermore, about 150 years ago and before... (at least as far back as end of the roman empire)... the majority of the population has been "in business" for themselves, either as tanners, or blacksmiths, or carpenters, or printers, or farmers... etc.

So, the self evident point I am making is that inferring that "business is bad" is no more accurate than the statement "romantic relationships are bad". In fact, "business" is an abstract concept that I believe can most simply be explained as

"the act of participating in a transactional relationship with another entity, and all things related to such a relationship"...

hmmmm.... there's that word again... "relationship".

seems to me, it's people that make choices, either good or bad, and "business" is simply a vehicle to manifest such choices.

People... People make choices, take actions, and persue goals - both good and bad.

"business" is merely a vessel for these choices that HUMANS make.
 
Lerxst said:
Since we tend to be "idealists" here's a very real danger for any business owner in today's corporate structure - the case of Ben & Jerry's:

In the current corporate structure money takes precedence over mission -- as a matter of law -- but for many social entrepreneurs, maximizing company profits can often be at odds with their desire to act responsibly. The well-known story of what happened to environmentally and socially-conscious Ben and Jerry's when it was bought out by Dutch conglomerate Unilever in 2000, is one of the most significant examples of this clash. In the case of Ben and Jerry's, the founders didn't want to sell for fear the takeover could compromise their efforts as a socially responsible company. However, when the founders couldn't come up with a counter offer from private investors that topped the price of shares offered by Unilever, its shareholders sued, and Ben and Jerry's was forced to relent to the sale.
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http://dowser.org/b-corp-better-laws-for-business/
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Being a publicly traded company, such as Ben & Jerry's, is one of many corporate structures. If Ben & Jerry's had not decided offer their business up for an IPO and become publicly traded at some point in the company's history they would have been less beholden to their shareholders (*Because they would not have had shareholders). It is possible to structure a company as a non-profit or as a privately held organization and then it would be much easier to operate based on what the founders want, rather than what the shareholders want. Also, I'm going to guess that the founders did extremely well financially when they were bought out, no? Probably so. And I would be curious to know what has changed within the company since it was bought by Unilever -- has it become less socially responsible? And in what ways was it more socially responsible when it was owned solely by the (now very rich) founders? These are things I am wondering.

The founders of Craigslist are an example of business founders that have done extremely well without being publicly traded and that is an interesting case study. It has been very successful and is not structured in the way the article describes. The thing about the article that seems odd to me is that it is written in such a way to imply that shareholders have the final say in all business structures, and this is not actually the case.

Just wanted to add that the concept of a B-Corp from your article sounds interesting, and there are many companies that are operating under this model, it seems:
http://bcorporation.net/community/search

Which sort of proves that there is more than one way of doing business.
 
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I'm an INFJ. I currently work as an Accountant, and I have started a small business offering accounting and business services to other small businesses. I feel like I am offering help to these small businesses by making things run more efficiently.
 
Melkor said:
Sounds like a dreadful idea.

The key concepts in business, heirachy, extracting as much profit for as little expense from innocent consumers, obeying your superiors or abusing your inferiors, looking out for yourself over your colleagues...

They don't fit well with the INFJ ideals, nor does the very outward, almost predatorial attitude towards potential customers exist within their mentality.
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I think your position is valid considering the perversion of business today but I still believe that business need not be about power structures and deceit but can, in fact, be built on mutual respect and trust. Believe it or not there are people out there who genuinely want to produce a product or provide a service worth experiencing and take time and care to avoid exploitation in the process. It's surely not the easy road and definitely not a route to quick riches but for some there is greater satisfaction found with a clean conscience in bringing a quality product to the market.
 
Hrm. I can imagine INFJ's as the hopefuls in the corner flower shop or the hippies with the small family run super-eco business. But not as part of a huge business machine, I simply don't think they'd enjoy it. :o
 
They're known for doing things they don't enjoy.

Until they break, of course.
 
my brother is an INFJ and a business owner, he swears that Steve Jobs is also some form of an INFJ which would explain why Job was more about the company vision and creating a culture as opposed to the Microsoft ISTJ business model. Jobs was also a bit of a free thinker, and a hippy who spent time in communes, and ashrams.
 
An INFJ business could be a success - just depends on what you call success.


In the common sense of business success, I don't think INFJs are well equipped to succeed: we would, by temperament, prefer to train/assist a mediocre employee to flourish, rather than simply fire him/her and find someone better. I suspect that ideological/aspirational/sentimental goals for the business may interfere with responsiveness to the real market. (One would rather, by temperament, keep the original goals instead of abandoning corporate dead weight).

Nevertheless, if the success of a business is not to be measured by sheer financial/influence gain - then an INFJ run business could be successful in areas such as improving life/products/society/etc. But, such activities are not normally called business activities, but rather social/charitable/educational activities.
 
Business activities or not, success is measured from within.

Maybe success is subjective. Maybe success does not matter as much as whatever we personally deem more important at the time.

Employees? Can't do anything for some of them, though one might try and try again. Human compassion can be tested and taken advantage of, just like government programs we help fund.
One grows weary of certain things after years of abuse. One can even grow weary of being in business. It is nice when one can be charitable and survive.
 
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Billy said:
my brother is an INFJ and a business owner, he swears that Steve Jobs is also some form of an INFJ which would explain why Job was more about the company vision and creating a culture as opposed to the Microsoft ISTJ business model. Jobs was also a bit of a free thinker, and a hippy who spent time in communes, and ashrams.
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No way he was infj man. Not a Fe user for sure. A NT of some sort , and I guess he's an introvert who studied a bit of NLP to succeed in public speaking. So I would say, INTJ at core. But many type him as ENTJ.
These are lines from the Isaacson biography:
Steve Jobs, Isaacson’s biography makes clear, was a complicated and exhausting man. “There are parts of his life and personality that are extremely messy, and that’s the truth,” Powell tells Isaacson. “[..] Jobs, we learn, was a bully. “He had the uncanny capacity to know exactly what your weak point is, know what will make you feel small, to make you cringe,” a friend of his tells Isaacson. Jobs gets his girlfriend pregnant, and then denies that the child is his. He parks in handicapped spaces. He screams at subordinates. He cries like a small child when he does not get his way. He gets stopped for driving a hundred miles an hour, honks angrily at the officer for taking too long to write up the ticket, and then resumes his journey at a hundred miles an hour. He sits in a restaurant and sends his food back three times. He arrives at his hotel suite in New York for press interviews and decides, at 10 P.M., that the piano needs to be repositioned, the strawberries are inadequate, and the flowers are all wrong: he wanted calla lilies. (When his public-relations assistant returns, at midnight, with the right flowers, he tells her that her suit is “disgusting.”) [..]
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Jobs really wasn't much better than Gates. Had the roles been reversed for #1 and #2 in the industry, we'd probably look at Gates with a more sympathetic view and Jobs as the "evil one". There's no reason to think either of them were/are an INFJ; they didn't create their business to help humanity and fulfill an ideal goal down the line, they started their business for the same reason as anybody - to make money.

Jobs took a different approach by creating a hippie-culture around his since Microsoft already dominated the practical, "thinkers" market. It was a business strategy, plain and simple. The fact that people now think Jobs was such a great and wonderful guy, tells you that his branding tactics worked.
 
Just wanted to weigh in here after reading all the new posts - I am an INFJ, I presently work as an exec. assistant at a private equity firm. couple of years ago, i taught myself to trade stocks. Nothing fancy, but i made some money, and i also lost some money. Values of companies as points on a graph fascinated me...it was like trying to predict their success as one would predict weather; you have some tools but you cannot guarantee sunshine or rain. And social value versus actual value, and the conflict between those forces was also very interesting. I guess that's why some people find it to be a gambler's rush. Anyways, I digress. I presently have the opportunity to get trained on an accounting software and to take a university level accounting course (introduction to accounting). I'm pretty happy with this, but also surprised, because I never grew up being drawn to math...but now I see that accounting is all about organizing payments, what comes in and what goes out, and as an OCD INFJ, this is quite appealing. (Parents are ESTJ and ISTJ, classic pairing...both major judgers and analysts, lol...) Moving up another notch, if I could get educated on how to better analyze and valuate these companies on the stock exchange, I could begin to qualify as being a financial analyst. Analysis is another thing INFJs are good at. But, being a female with an art & english background, it makes it more of a 'task' to be recognized as capable and intelligent in a predominantly male industry where it is very old school, old money and a boy's club, generally. At the same time, I have a bi-polar need to indulge my artistic abilities with painting....so confusing sometimes.

I've learned in this mostly financial, mostly accountant environment, that this industry is largely dominated by Js - the judgers. There is a full array of ESFJs ESTJs ISTJs ISFJs here in this office. The Js really enjoy arriving at the 'bottom line'. Give me the bottom line is kind of what I need to hear from others before I make a decision.

And yes, you are exposed to some corrupt or daft individuals who spout hot air or are out to fleece other investors. But those are not as plentiful as the people who follow the rules of business conduct. Thankfully, these people have some 'family values' so to speak, as cliched as that sounds.

So essentially, it is what it is! :D
 
Oh, just wanted to add that Mark Zuckerberg is without a doubt, a classic ENTP. Can't speak for Jobs or Gates - Gates seems a lot more ESTJ...Jobs more so INTP or ISTP or something.

Incidentally I am dating an ENTP now l/t. He's my best match. ...and he's also a computer nerd that can program the tv to work from his phone, lol! They're pretty great.
 
Not all business is cutthroat or of dubious morality. There are many places an INFJ could succeed in business I think. They will just have to be ready for monotony and maybe have to seek meaning in places other than their work.
 
I've always done well at it, but hate it. Sales, especially. I'm the type of salesperson that will down-sell everything to make sure the customer is perfectly happy with the deal. Makes for great customer service and repeat business, but most of my employers are too narrow-minded and had too short of an attention span to see the long term benefit.

As a business owner, dare I say, I think I'd do really well. History of my life is to have an idea and then see someone else follow through with it 5-10 years later. So combine a fresh idea with pleasing people and....

Of course, I'd only do well in the narrow margin of business I perceive as worthwhile and morally and ethically upright. A non-profit, or co-op for instance.
 
I am INFJ and I work for a private equity company in a metropolitan city. It has exposed me to capitalism at it's finest. That being said, I have been wanting to start my own business now as a result of seeing that 'owning' something is sometimes more profitable than working for 'the man'...who incidentally owns things. I used to work for a not for profit...and quickly learned it was total bullsh!t. It was such a terribly toxic environment. Money is great. And the stereotype of all INFJs being just hippy dippy and not concerned about that is baloney. I'd like to rail against that stereotype. I think if you can find a niche business that taps into your talents and interests, whatever they may be, then that's great. I would not work for another not for profit or arts org, unless it paid me amazingly well, and I liked the people. Sadly, that's few and far between. I am also not totally comfortable in a super corporate environment...it's a bit deflating, but this is where I've survived the longest, go figure. I have ideas for starting my own venture, and I'd hope that I can grow it to become a sole source of income in the future. Cause, you know...mortgage, hello.
 
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