Do you ever sit in a meeting and wonder why no one else in the room seems to understand the right way to set the agenda? Do you ever wonder why your friend wants to go out on the town at conferences and you want to just go back to the hotel and sleep? Does your collaborator’s working style make you grit your teeth, but you know he’s brilliant so you stick with him anyway?
For myself, I’ve found that the Myers-Briggs system for understanding personality traits has been very helpful in understanding and working through the conflicts that can arise in situations like these.
The Myers-Brigg Type Indicator (MBTI) is a psychometric tool based upon Jung’s theory of psychological types. It was designed by Katherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers in order to provide a simple way for individuals and groups to apply that theory for greater self-understanding and for better communication in workplace settings. Although the validity of the MBTI has been criticized by some, many professionals in psychology and laypeople have found it useful. I’m not a professional in the field, and I’m interested in it only as a tool I’ve found useful. YMMV.
When you take the MBTI, you answer a series of T/F questions that ask whether you agree with a statement most of the time. The results of the test are reported as a series of scores for four pairs of terms. The terms you received high scores for then become your type. There are sixteen possible types in this system.
The four pairs are:
- Introversion/Extroversion (how you prefer to engage with the world, and where you gain energy from)
- Sensing/INtuition (how you collect information)
- Thinking/Feeling (how you make decisions)
- Judging/Perceiving (how you relate to organization or structure)
The actual MBTI can only be administered under licensed conditions, but a related tool developed by David Kiersey is available online. Kiersey’s book Please Understand Me is a useful resource as well. Kiersey’s system adds some descriptive terminology to the original MBTI types that makes certain distinctions more clear.
These terms are best understood as preferences, not predictors or limits on behavior. Thus an introvert may in general prefer solitude, but can succeed in a people-based career if he builds in enough rest periods in between. Your score for one pair may be very high on one side of the spectrum and close to the middle for a different pair, which means it’s a less strongly marked preference in your personality.
Most important, there is no judgment involved in the MBTI or Kiersey system. No one type is better than another.
Some personality types are naturally more interested in the whole system (because of their response to structure) and others naturally dismiss it. Some types are statistically more prevalent than others (and gender-marked). Certain professions tend to attract people of certain types, and so the MBTI has often been used in employment counseling.
So, what does all this have to do with getting along with your colleagues? I was first introduced to the MBTI through a professional development workshop offered by my employer at a job I held before academia. Approximately 75 people took the official MBTI and then participated in a day-long series of sessions to explain the meaning of the results. (I’m an INTJ.)
For me, the most persuasive moment of the day was when we were divided into groups based upon our last two traits, Thinking/Feeling and Judging/Perceiving. So I was with all the other people who were also TJs. All the groups were given a hypothetical workplace management problem (a decision about who in the hypothetical office to downsize) and told to solve it in half an hour. Because I was sitting in a group with people who shared my TJ trait, even though none of us knew each other, we were able to quickly and easily decide upon our process for discussing and deciding about the problem. It felt instinctive, natural, and easy. People sitting in the other groups similarly reported a sense of satisfaction and ease with their process. But as you might imagine, each group pursued a radically different strategy. My group discussed pros/cons, took a vote, and then we were done. Another group was still talking about how to make the decision when the half hour was up.
If I were on a committee made up of people from both of those groups, I might feel frustrated at some people’s need for emotional discussion and their wish for everyone to agree. They might feel frustrated at my need for a decision to be made and finalized. Because these traits are so deeply seated in our personalities, they feel obvious, natural, and self-evident. So it’s easy to just think that the other person is cold or inefficient, when in fact it’s a deeper question about how to communicate about making decisions. Knowing some basic things about the Myers-Briggs system helps me try to understand the information-gathering and decision-making styles of my colleagues even when they seem very different from my own preferences. And that’s the first step to greater individual and collective productivity overall.
(cc licensed image by flickr user OiMax)
Have you taken the MBTI? Let us know in the comments!
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19 Responses to Myers-Briggs: or how to learn to get along
Mark C. - February 5, 2010 at 10:47 am
I’ve found my Myer’s Briggs scores changing over the years, and I’m not really sold on Jungian archetypes, so I’ve been leaning on it less and less.
john theibault - February 5, 2010 at 10:52 am
I took the Kiersey test about ten years ago. It came out ENTP.
My understanding is that the E/I and J/P traits are about evenly distributed, while the S/N and T/F traits are uneven, with about 25% N and T. The NT combination does seem unusually common in academe. Make of that what you will.
Julie Meloni - February 5, 2010 at 10:37 am
INTJ. There was a point a few years ago when the N was an S, and I didn’t understand that, but it’s back at N now.
For an amusing anecdote (to me, anyway), I will note the following: 4 or 5 years ago Natalie called me and didn’t say hi or “this is Natalie” or anything like that — it was just “quick! what’s your Myers-Briggs type?” because that’s just the kind of girl she is. And I’m the kind of girl who knew it right away. I’m a big believer in matching people and group members so that their M-B types are complementary (doesn’t mean “same”), or at least being aware of differences so the differences can be worked through. I think Natalie’s given very good examples of why, above.
Sharon Richmond - February 6, 2010 at 1:42 pm
Enjoyed reading your experiences with personality type theory, as measured by M-B. I have used this model with our MBA students at the Stanford GSB for about 7 years, esp. as applied to self-awareness, developing understanding of others’, and developing leadership. One clarification to offer – don’t think about these differences as “traits,” which are usually normally distributed descriptors, where being in the middle (mean) is ‘good’ and being on the extremes, “bad” – think aggressiveness, shyness, etc. Rather, think of what this model offers as cognitive preferences – the more native approaches to gathering info and making decisions. The E/I dimension is most useful for noticing where you get energy, or what you find re-energizing/replenishing, ie ppl, things, actions outside of you (E) or thoughts, ideas, things inside of you (I). And J/P points to your overall drive toward either gathering more info (P) or getting to conclusions (J).
If you are interested in becoming part of a community of folks who love learning more about this model, visit aptinternational.org. Our website is plain in design, but rich in resources, and it’s an amazing world-wide community of folks who use this model/tool in many environments.
Andrea J Wenger - February 6, 2010 at 12:23 pm
I love the concept of breaking a group into teams based on the last two letters of the MBTI type, then asking them to solve a problem. My question, though, would be whether the solutions developed would each be inadequate in some way. People with similar personality types tend to have similar blind spots. It would be a fun to examine the strengths and weaknesses of each solution, and to learn how people can compensate by using their non-preferred function.
@john theibault – NT types are indeed rare, about 15% of the population, but are overrepresented in academia. They tend to excel in arenas that require logic and theory. By contrast, SP types are underrepresented in academia. They tend to be kinesthetic learners, so academic environments often don’t cater to their needs.
Rebecca - February 7, 2010 at 11:43 pm
I’m always amused by the number of INTJs in the academy. (Me too, btw…) I think the likemindedness of many academics is part of what drew me… Personally I’ve been stunned at how accurate the test has been for me, and how consistent my scores have been over the years. My husband has been less impressed, as his ISTP is only partially accurate. However I still find that it is useful for deciphering how to communicate with others.
JoVE - February 5, 2010 at 4:50 pm
Just knowing that different people respond in different ways, even if you don’t have any formal knowledge of your own type or theirs, can be helpful.
I am a classic extrovert decision maker (think out loud) and big picture thinker. And I used to co-coordinate an intro course with a colleague who was about the opposite of that. Once we had figured out each others styles it worked really well. He was able to accept that just because I said something in a a meeting, it didn’t mean I was wedded to it, and I got better at accepting that if he said something in a meeting, he had thought it through pretty thoroughly and I shouldn’t dismiss it lightly. Also, I could come up with big ideas and he’d fill in the detail.
Expecting others to be like oneself leads to lots of problems. I find that I now let people who don’t know me well some of my ways of working — that I think out loud, for example — and try to be conscious of the fact that they might be different. It makes a huge difference.
Nels - February 7, 2010 at 3:46 pm
INFJ. It’s pretty extreme in every category, too (though my partner is as far into introversion as possible). Everytime I take the test, the score is the same. And I really see it at play in my life. As someone who often gets criticized for my introversion and for the role that feelings and emotions play in my life, I really like how the test treats those things as valid personality characteristics.
I always create groups randomly, but I do point students to this and other indicators so that they can think about how they fit into groups and how they can best evaluate themselves and each other in their individual evaluations.
New Asst. Prof. - February 7, 2010 at 4:43 pm
I’ve been an INTJ since my freshman year of college, and while the strengths of N and T have varied a bit, they have never switched over. My PhD thesis mentor was also an INTJ, and I couldn’t list that as the #1 reason that we connected so well, but… As a new faculty member, I wish I new more about the types of my colleagues, especially in often-frustrating faculty meetings!
Clancy - February 5, 2010 at 11:25 pm
ENTJ here: slight extroversion, moderate intuition, moderate thinking, strong judging. I just Googled “ENTJ Myers-Briggs” and got some pretty amusing results: “The Executive,” etc. The Wikipedia entry for “fieldmarshal” is interesting too.
Rana - February 5, 2010 at 2:08 pm
See here for more: http://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/
Rana - February 5, 2010 at 2:07 pm
When I was teaching writing, mostly I just sat down and talked with them – asking them things like is it helpful when they can see examples of what we’re discussing, or whether they’d rather listen to it, or whether they get fidgetty sitting still too long. There are a bunch of other diagnostics (like listening for language like “I see,” “I hear you,” or “I sense what you’re saying”) but they felt artificial to me, so I found that just telling the student that there are different ways of learning things, explaining them, and seeing which one resonated worked well enough.
It also serves as a useful reminder to include all three components somehow in one’s classroom activities.
Natalie Houston - February 5, 2010 at 2:04 pm
My own type has stayed consistent over the 20 years since I first took the MBTI, although the strength of my N and S scores sometimes shifted a bit, usually related in part to the work I was doing at the time. I’ve always found it most helpful with interpersonal and group communication — I’ve never tried to apply MB even loosely in my teaching, because it’s more complex than the group projects I assign really require. I do, however, address all three learning styles, which definitely are important in the classroom.
Thanks for those distribution numbers, John — those and other statistics I’ve read (I couldn’t find a source this morning to cite for the post) give some interesting context for individual perceptions about “fitting in” with a team or group. For example, INTJs are the least common type for women in the general population, but I know many in academe. Academic work often has the flexibility and autonomy to suit the strengths of almost all the types, once you can find your particular niche.
Jonathan Dresner - February 5, 2010 at 2:38 pm
INTP, though the first two are borderline: I’ve scored as ESTP on occassion. Never taken anything remotely like the official tests, though I did have a friend in college try to classify me as part of a psych class. This is part of why I ignore it now: the lack of perspective, ambiguity, shadings, make it a really blunt instrument, even assuming that it’s got a rational and evidentiary foundation.
The Jungian theory bothers me, as well, because there’s no real basis for considering his ideas any more sound than the Japanese researcher who came up with the blood type personality system: they were making it up as they went along.
Rich Apodaca - February 5, 2010 at 11:07 am
A large company I worked at did a one-day session in which each member of a research group took the M-B test and learned about the system together. I found it very helpful. Doing it as a group let me compare my team-mates’ responses/types with what I already knew about them.
Like any model, M-B is a simplification. I was very skeptical going into it that anything of value would come. I was surprised to find that it did give useful insight into both myself and coworkers, and group dynamics.
Learning how to effectively work in groups is not something the average chemistry PhD gets a lot of training in. This is ironic, given the high emphasis placed on this skill in industry. I think M-B training can be very helpful as a starting point.
Amy Cavender - February 5, 2010 at 11:36 am
ISTJ here. I typed as INTJ the one time I took the entire MBTI, but I always type as ISTJ on the Kiersey instrument, and I think that’s a more accurate reflection of my information-gathering style.
Melissa H. - February 5, 2010 at 11:39 am
I took the test about a year ago. I was an INTJ, as well. What is rough is that not everybody knows their type. Or you know their type, but they don’t match you. While it’s nice to think how much progress we could make if we all worked with the same type, it’s just not possible. And especially for us TJs, it can get very frustrating. But, at least we know. And at least we can make the attempt to adapt.
I personally found the MBTI very enlightening and useful for interactions with others. If you know where YOU stand, at least you have a leg up and can make the effort to make interactions go smoother.
Rana - February 5, 2010 at 12:22 pm
My scores aren’t stable enough to make personal assessments on (the two ends especially have scores that alternate which slight deviance from the middle they occupy), but I can appreciate the general concept.
A typing approach that I’ve found more useful, however, both as a teacher and in general, is the “how do you learn” type system. It divides people up into visual learners (who need to see something for it to make sense), aural learners (for whom information is best understood when heard), and kinesthetic learners (who need to be physically involved in the learning process). I am a visual and kinesthetic learner; I learn by looking at things, and by doing them. My partner is a full-bore aural learner, and learns things best when he listens. It’s been an education learning how to communicate across that divide; he’s had to learn that telling me things is far less effective than writing them down, while I’ve had to learn to be patient with his lack of interest with visual reminders and text-based communication. (An example: remembering his schedule, so we can coordinate busy and less busy days – he remembered it (initially, before he started classes) as a spoken set of places and times and course names. I remembered it as resembling an elongated “M” – heavy days Monday and Friday, moderate Tues and Thurs, light on Wed. – and solidified the impression by gesturing it to myself. Writing it down would also have helped.)
It also works brilliantly in the classroom, especially if you end up with a kinetic learner in your group, because that person is inevitably used to struggling (visuals are the largest group in the population, followed by aurals and then kinesthetics) because so little of the learning process engages their need to physically interact with the information. Even little tricks – like handwriting paper drafts or walking while brainstorming or acting out interpretations – can make learning easier for them. And so on, for the other two types.
joanna - February 5, 2010 at 1:16 pm
What instrument do you use to determine what your students’ learning styles are? I’ve tried using VARK, but it is a bit overmuch for Basic Writers. I’d love to know of alternatives.