5.1 Differences in People and Personality Preferences

APMG Change Management Foundation Exam

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1 Chapter 1: The v3 Foundation Exam and the Organisational Context

1.1 Exam Structure, the Five Syllabus Areas and the Certification Path 1.2 Scene Setting: External and Internal Factors Shaping Change 1.3 Change Management, Benefits and Dis-benefits

2 Chapter 2: Understanding the Change Context

2.1 Kelman's Three Levels of Adoption 2.2 VUCA and the Cynefin Framework 2.3 Planned Change versus Emergent Change 2.4 Systems Thinking in Change 2.5 Organisational Culture and Its Three Levels

3 Chapter 3: Diagnosing and Structuring the Change Approach

3.1 Lewin's Force Field Analysis 3.2 Co-Design 3.3 The ADKAR Model 3.4 Evolving the n-Step Process and Kotter's Eight Accelerators

4 Chapter 4: Delivery Strategy, Agile Practices and the Change Strategy

4.1 Delivery Strategy: Big Bang, Phased, Voluntary and Iterative 4.2 Agile Practices and Agile Change Practices 4.3 The Continuous Change Management Cycle 4.4 The Change Strategy

5 Chapter 5: People and Change — Individual Difference and Response

5.1 Differences in People and Personality Preferences 5.2 Neuroscience and Change: SCARF, Mindset and Insight 5.3 The Change Curve 5.4 Bridges' Transition Model

6 Chapter 6: Motivation, Resilience and Learning

6.1 Rewards, Punishment and Pink's Three Motivators 6.2 Positive Psychology, Resilience and Appreciative Inquiry 6.3 The Beckhard-Harris Change Formula and Schein's Two Anxieties 6.4 Competence, Learning and the Learning Dip 6.5 Learning Preferences: Kolb, Honey and Mumford

7 Chapter 7: Key Roles in Change Leadership

7.1 Key Roles in the Change Process 7.2 The Role of the Change Sponsor 7.3 The Change Agent's Role and Personal Influence 7.4 The Role of Local Leadership in Change

8 Chapter 8: Psychological Safety, Leadership and Culture

8.1 Psychological Climate and Psychological Safety 8.2 Carolyn Taylor: How Leadership Shapes Culture 8.3 Leadership Styles and Organisational Climate

9 Chapter 9: Teams and Change

9.1 Team Structures and Change Agent Networks 9.2 Tuckman's Stages of Team Development 9.3 Lencioni: Assessing and Growing Team Effectiveness 9.4 Harvesting the Value of Team Diversity

10 Chapter 10: Stakeholder Identification, Analysis and Engagement

10.1 Stakeholder Definition and Identification 10.2 Stakeholder Analysis, Segmentation and Empathy Mapping 10.3 Stakeholder Mapping and Sources of Power 10.4 Barriers to Engagement 10.5 Planning Stakeholder Engagement

11 Chapter 11: Communication Theory, Messaging and Emotional Connection

11.1 Communication Theory and the Communication Process 11.2 Barriers to Communication and Cognitive Biases 11.3 Messaging: Setting Context and the Tell, Sell, Include Approach 11.4 Appealing to Hearts and Minds

12 Chapter 12: Communication Channels and Planning

12.1 Ways of Communicating and VARK Language Style Preferences 12.2 Communication Channels: One-Way, Two-Way, Lean and Rich 12.3 Communications Planning

13 Chapter 13: Assessing Change Impact and Severity

13.1 Change Management as Risk Management and the Two-Step Assessment 13.2 Step 1: Categorising Impacts and Identifying Impact Areas 13.3 Step 1 Continued: Gap Analysis, Impact Profiles and Monitoring 13.4 Step 2: Change Impact Severity

14 Chapter 14: Resistance to Change

14.1 Causes of Resistance and Oreg's Four Neural Factors 14.2 Common Reasons for Resistance and How to Deal With Them 14.3 Building a Strategy to Manage Resistance

15 Chapter 15: Change Analytics and Exam Readiness

15.1 Measurement Types and the Change Delivery Scorecard 15.2 Building a Change Analytics Strategy 15.3 Exam Technique and Final Revision

5.1 Differences in People and Personality Preferences

Key Takeaways Explain This Topic AI

CM3 describes differences through four preference pairs: Extravert-Introvert, Sensing-iNtuiting, Thinking-Feeling, and Judging-Perceiving

Judging types prefer situations to be cut and dried, working to a timetable in a systematic and methodical way

Sensing types focus on definite detailed facts, while iNtuiting types are big-picture people who enjoy concepts and theory

An Introvert with a Sensing preference tends to support careful incremental change, while an Extravert with iNtuiting preferences favours dramatic immediate change

The aim is to look for the strengths each person contributes rather than to label or exclude
Last updated: September 2026

The People and change syllabus area opens with individual differences, because how someone responds to change depends heavily on personality preferences . CM3 lists several ways of describing differences — personality profiles, types, talents, preferences about receiving information, and learning styles — and examines the four-pair type model in detail.

The four preference pairs
Extravert (E) — Introvert (I)

Extravert: energised by the external world Introvert: energised by their own inner world
Likes talking to people, being sociable Enjoys their own thoughts and feelings
Likes to learn by activity and talk Prefers writing to express ideas
Lots of interests Fewer, more serious interests
Speaks first, thinks about it later Thinks before they speak
Likes starting new things A reflective learner
Sensing (S) — iNtuiting (N)

The N abbreviation avoids confusion with Introvert.

Sensing: focuses on sensory data iNtuiting: focuses on interpretations and intuitions
Focuses on what their senses tell them A big-picture person
Pays attention to definite, detailed facts Enjoys concepts and theory
Notices things in an orderly way Looks behind facts for meaning
Likes getting information in clear stages
Thinking (T) — Feeling (F)

Thinking: decides with logic Feeling: decides with values
Treats problems with logic Decides with empathy and consideration for others
Cause-and-effect reasoning With compassion
Tough minded Based on values and beliefs
Looks for the objectively right answer Seeks a widely accepted outcome
Appreciates just solutions Open to and accepting of others
Judging (J) — Perceiving (P)

Judging: prefers things cut and dried and clear Perceiving: prefers open-ended, ambiguous situations
Working to a timetable Spontaneous
Systematic and methodical Happy with ambiguity
Likes to plan Likes to be flexible and adaptable
Appreciates closure on decisions Dislikes restrictive systems and detailed plans
Dislikes the pressure of leaving things late Positively enjoys urgent work

The descriptor systematic and methodical belongs to Judging and is a favourite exam item, because candidates instinctively associate methodical working with Sensing. Sensing is about what information you attend to ; Judging is about how you like to organise and close things down .

Preferences at work in learning

Preferences shape how people want to be taught:

People with a strong Sensing preference are likely to appreciate more detailed instruction ; those with the opposite iNtuiting preference prefer more open-ended approaches

Those with a strong Thinking preference typically seek more rigorous logic in their learning and less personal support than those with the opposite Feeling preference

The practical implication for a change manager designing training: a single format will serve part of the audience well and part badly. Offering the detailed step-by-step guide and the one-page conceptual overview is not duplication — it is coverage.

Preferences at work in change situations

Type preferences also affect attitude to change, and CM3 gives four specific combinations:

Combination Likely attitude to change
Strong Introvert + Sensing A thoughtful, down-to-earth approach that supports only careful, incremental change
Strong Extravert + iNtuitive Likely to favour engaging with others in dramatic and immediate change
Introverted iNtuitive Favours ideas and vision
Extraverted Sensing Wants to organise immediate action

This is genuinely useful when reading a stakeholder. A senior manager who keeps asking for more detail and pushing back on timescales may not be resisting the change at all — they may be an Introverted Sensing type doing exactly what such a person does with an ambitious proposal. Responding with more enthusiasm is precisely the wrong move; responding with detail and a phased plan is right.

Conflicts and complementarity

The purpose of the model is not to sort people into boxes . CM3 is explicit: the ideal is to look for the strengths that each person can contribute to a given situation.

The worked example given is a meeting to discuss the impact of change on a work group. The Thinking person brings objectivity, rationality and care for fairness, all of which matter to a good outcome. The Feeling colleague brings a natural sense of humanity and sensitive understanding of the people involved, which also matters. Ideally we value both while respecting the different preferences from which they come — and if the two individuals can begin to understand and respect each other's contribution, they could begin to make a great team.

That framing matters for the exam and for practice. Questions that offer an option about excluding a personality type, or matching people to changes they will find comfortable, are testing whether you have understood that the model is about harvesting difference , not managing it away. It connects directly to the later material on team diversity, where diverse teams with high psychological safety outperform teams of similars.