Assembling a high functioning team, in the workplace or otherwise, is difficult. Often decisions are made and tasks are divided up without taking into account the dynamic of the group and the personalities of the individuals. One way to aid your teams and their functionality is to use a personality test and apply the results.
So what is a personality test?
One of the most famous personality tests is The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), and this is the example that will be used for the rest of the article. It classifies people into 16 personality types based on four different spectrums of behavior.
It’s important to note that these tests can be misused. For example, you might assume that introverts are poor candidates for stressful, high-visibility jobs. But here’s something to consider: Steve Jobs, the late CEO of Apple, exhibited “behavior indicating a preference for introversion.” The introverted/extroverted scale is not about whether someone is shy or outgoing—it addresses whether people gain energy from being by themselves or being among others. T
he point is the test is nuanced, and there aren’t right or wrong personalities. There may be tasks, or team combinations that better utilize the personality times of the group. The Myers Briggs is very good at telling what someone is naturally more comfortable or well suited for. It also helps determine how well rounded a team is. For example, two people of the same personality type may get along very well together, but a key ability such as big picture thinking or detail orientation may be unnatural to both. If a team has diverse personality types, that often leads to a successful group dynamic.
CPP, Inc., the exclusive publisher of the Myers-Briggs test, says: “The MBTI tool can’t tell you whom to hire, but it can help you work with your team so that everyone gives his or her best performance.” Understanding how people communicate, interact and collaborate should help manage teams more effectively.
How should you use the test?
To start with, taking the test should be voluntary, according to the Myers-Briggs folks, and the results belong to the test taker. If that person wants to share the results, great. But if you coerce a person to take it, that’s not productive.
Criticism from psychologists center on seeing that the same person taking the test twice shows different results, so don’t expect this to be a magic solution to your hiring and assignment needs. (This isn’t the “sorting hat” from the Harry Potter books.)
So what’s it good for? CPP, Inc. doesn’t say it should be used particularly for recruiting or hiring, noting that it’s more generally “a battery of assessments or tests or tools . . . designed . . . strictly for onboarding, manager development, leadership development and team development.”
Put another way, the MBTI doesn’t evaluate candidates and doesn’t predict performance or cultural fit. Rather, it was designed to help people in a nonjudgmental way identify what their blind spots are and what their strengths are, based on their innate personality characteristics, according to CPP, Inc. And that can be a very powerful tool.
For example, the MBTI can help identify employees’ strengths and compensate for their blind spots by identifying some inborn characteristics. “It provides a unique opportunity, not to judge, but to acknowledge that we have personality diversity that gives us a common language to talk about our differences,” says CPP, Inc.
Perhaps the best way to put it is this: The MBTI doesn’t tell us what people can or can’t do—it only tells us what people innately prefer to do, and if you’re assembling a team this can be important information.
