Open door vs. closed door

I've been meeting a lot of new people lately, and most of these folks would qualify as "founders" of some service or goods company. One dimension I've found myself subconsciously categorizing them in is what I call "open doorness vs. closed doorness."



Open door people look for possibilities. When presented with a wacky idea or a strange scenario, they ask themselves and the people around them: "How can we make this work?" They are people who seek to keep doors open.



Closed door people look for ways to remove possibilities. When presented with a crazy idea, their knee-jerk reaction is to look for the easiest way to declare the idea infeasible. These are people who attempt to close as many doors as possible.



Ostensibly, open door vs. closed door seem similar to open minded vs. close minded. But I've avoided using the latter terms because they have large icebergs of meaning associated with them — namely, that open minded is good and closed minded is bad. I don't believe this is categorically true. I think there are times when having a rapid and succinct method for dismissing possibilities is extremely helpful.



I believe that closed door correlates with Judging types and open door correlates with Perceiving types on the MBTI personality test.



I also believe that people in each type tend to gather in groups with others of the same type. In the case of founders, open door founders tend to bring on others to their team who are also open door, while closed door founders bring on those who are also closed door.



Finally, these are not fixed qualities (is anything?). It is possible for a person to guide themself into one or the other.



A self-indulgent note: I recently took two MBTI tests, and both told me that I've become a Perceiving type. This feels true. It also makes sense, given my recent instinct to cull my friend group. Most of the people I've found myself drawn towards of late are open door types.