The De Niro Hoffman Scale
Attuning to the Situation for Best Results
Follow Me on Twitter @trader_dads
Check out the website version too: traderdads.com
Right off the bat, we’re going to be using Myers-Briggs Personality types for this discussion. I get that it’s closer to astrology than Cambridge Analytica but as you’ll see, it’s just for point of reference as it’s used in enough Human Resources ice breaker sessions that people know it. I realize Myers Briggs methodology is a Little Childish and Stupid, but then, so is Business School Management theory
Ok…the De Niro Hoffman Scale, where to begin….
Meet the Parents
The Meet The Parents trilogy is a comedy classic which introduces two of the most polar opposite Fathers in Movie History. On the one hand, we have Robert De Niro as Jack Brynes. The proper, puritan WASP type and a not quite ex-CIA agent . On the other hand, you have Dustin Hoffman as Bernie Focker, an amiable Jewish lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-dad.
Each character (and the actor who plays them) are polar opposites on the Myers Briggs Personality scale. Each character believes their attitude and parenting style are best for nearly every circumstance or situation.
But which one is actually better to handle a given life situation?
Well, if the goal is defusing a situation and moving forward with all parties safe and reasonably satisfied, then neither De Niro’s nor Hoffman’s style is best in it’s pure form. Each attitude has strengths and weaknesses in their personality traits.
De Niro Hoffman Doctrine:
For any given situation a Trader or a Dad may come across, they need to judge just HOW MUCH De Niro to salt in or just HOW MUCH Hoffman a person needs to put into their response. The right balance on De Niro Hoffman scale leads to a happy, harmonious family and bank account. The wrong balance leads to friction, anxiety and Payment Collectors.
Qualitative Features
We start the foundation of the De Niro Hoffman Scale with a breakdown of each extreme. This will help define the scope and style of the personality. The side’s strengths , the side’s weaknesses and how this side approaches a situation. There are several wikis and fandom boards (Yes, there are fan boards) arguing slightly different breakdown for each person but for clarity, I made them direct opposites in all 4 dimensions.
De Niro:
Robert de Niro as well as the Jack Brynes character he plays, are both INTJ personality types on the Myers Briggs Scale. What is an INTJ ?
An Architect (INTJ) is a person with the Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging personality traits. These thoughtful tacticians love perfecting the details of life, applying creativity and rationality to everything they do. Their inner world is often a private, complex one.Not to mention their uncanny knack for seeing right through phoniness and hypocrisy like a Human Lie Detector. Architects question everything.INTJ Strengths:
Strengths:
Rational
Informed
Independent
Determined
Curious
Original
Weaknesses:
Arrogant
Dismissive of Emotions
Overly critical
Combative
Socially clueless
At some point, they start dressing like this and plant hidden cameras in the house.
Landing on the De Niro side of the scale:
If you’re operating with the De Niro side of your brain, then you’re no nonsense type. You expect order and discipline and routine. If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
Hoffman:
Dustin Hoffman on the other hand operates in a different mental frame of mind. Hoffman falls on the Entertainer (ESFP) side of the spectrum.
An Entertainer (ESFP) is a person with the Extraverted, Observant, Feeling, and Prospecting personality traits. These people love vibrant experiences, engaging in life eagerly and taking pleasure in discovering the unknown. They can be very social, often encouraging others into shared activities.Entertainers love the spotlight, and all the world’s a stage to them. People with this personality type are often the first to help someone talk out a challenging problem, happily providing emotional support and practical advice. However, if the problem is about them, Entertainers are more likely to avoid a conflict altogether than to address it head-onESFP Strengths:
Strengths:
Bold
Original
Showmanship
Practical
Observant
Excellent people skills
Weaknesses:
Sensitive
Conflict-averse
Easily bored
poor long term planners
unfocused
At some point they start dressing like this and complain about their Man-o-pause
Landing on the Hoffman side of the scale:
If you’re operating with the Hoffman side of your brain, then you’re a “let bygones be bygones kind of fellow”. A spontaneous trip to the Ice Cream Parlor is equally likely as a spontaneous vacation to Alaska. Luminous beings are we…not this crude matter.
“Quantifying” with Scales
Now that we have a flavor of what personality type each side might be, we can take it one step further and apply some “Big Data Analytics” to it.
Or if we’re like 90% of businesses who say they use Big Data, we’ll be taking a count, an arithmetic average of data points and putting them in a dashboard with a colorful chart.
Originally, I thought a full fledged Likert Scale along each of the Myers Briggs dimensions between De Niro and Hoffman would be cool. In a future post, I may write up and post a basic python script which will input values and spit out a score based on whichever algorithm and weighting you could assign it. Look for that sometime in 2027 after my kids don’t need something every 5 minutes.
Until then, The De Niro Hoffman Scale will be a Bipolar scale . This is done because The bipolar scale has the advantage that it measures both the direction (side of the scale) and intensity (distance from the center) similar to the BofA Bull & Bear Indicator
Also, like the BofA Bull & Bear Indicator, De Niro Hoffman is currently proprietary so no one will ever know how it truly works nor check its accuracy. It just mysteriously works.
Using The De Niro Hoffman Scale
We’re almost at the end……
First, you need to FIND YOUR DEFAULT type:
Take a Myers Briggs test or just trust you understand yourself well enough. I’m not going to spend a lot of time here. I’m an INTJ so I’m actually calibrated at the extreme. Interestingly enough.
Second, we need the TARGET point to handle a situation
You’re not going to handle a situation with an employee the same way you handle a situation with your wife or a situation . Or put another way, the emotional side might take hold, but you also know it may not be the best behavior to achieve success
Use Cases
Yay!…It’s like in High School when you reached the end of a chapter. Q&A time.
With the De Niro Hoffman Scale in mind, think about the below situations or maybe a different situation you actually experienced.
How much attitude adjustment towards De Niro or Hoffman side do you need for the best result?
Do you come out on top when leaning towards the De Niro side?
The Hoffman side? Why?
How do you respond?
What does a win look like?
What is most important here based on First Principles.?
Maybe you come out on top with both.
Maybe both are losers.
Dad Scenarios:
— You catch your child sneaking in WAY after curfew (again).
— An unplanned pregnancy happens
—Your neighbor sets up an obnoxiously bright and loud Holiday display
Trader Scenario:
— You experience a major margin call in your trading account but bills are still due
— You get laid off from your job of 12 years
— A rival VP conveniently starts icing you out of a new project, when a Director position is rumored to be opening up
Insane Movie scenario:
— You have a particular set of skills and your daughter is taken
— Someone murders a golf pro and his girlfriend who just happens to be your wife. You’re found guilty and sentenced to 2 life sentences, back to back go to a New England Prison in the 1940s
— You’re a former Army Ranger catching a Prison flight home to see your daughter for the first time. Other inmates violently hijack the plane and now your buddy, also on the hijacked plane, can’t get his insulin he needs to live.
Conclusion:
The De Niro Hoffman scales sounds a lot better than the “Brynes Focker Scale”. That’s pretty much the only thing I took away from the whole thought exercise to be honest.
Oh, and calibrating your emotional response to the situation is important for coming out on top in either family or professional circumstances.