MBTwhy?

form filling

Here are two biiiig reasons why personality or psychometric tests suck….

You know the drill. Once in a while the boss decides you’ve all got to get together and find out about each other. What makes you tick, and all that jazz. So how’re ya gonna do that? Lucky you – it’s MBTI time (other tests are available). Forms are filled, scores are totted up, foreheads are wrinkled. And then you are ready for the illumination – the results (cue fanfare).

Guess what…the test results tell you a bunch of stuff you already know about yourself, and importantly, it’s stuff you like. ‘Ooh, isn’t it uncannily accurate’ titters the excited recipient. Well derrr, you filled out the form, what did you expect? This is the first reason these tests suck. They tell you what you already know.

And guess what else…the test results tell you a bunch of stuff you already know about yourself and don’t like. And being human, you choose to disregard it all. Yeah OK, you might buy it for a wee while, but as soon as the L&D expert’s back is turned – you’ve flipped back to the real you. This is the second reason these tests suck. You ignore the stuff you don’t like.

And please – don’t get me started on Belbin. If you want to know your ‘team role’ just take a look at your desk. It’s state of organisation or otherwise will tell you pretty much all you need to know. There you go – I’ve just saved you a bucket of cash for you to spend on something ‘useful‘.

From my experience I know many folks in the world of work agree with these observations, and I’m struggling to think of anyone who approaches these assessments with anything higher on the excitement scale than vague (and often forced) interest.  What do you think? 

photo c/o dumbledad

Author: Doug Shaw

Artist and Consultant. Embracing uncertainty, sketching myself into existence. Helping people do things differently, through an artistic lens.

25 thoughts on “MBTwhy?”

  1. Still chuckling about the title of this blog….;)

    I have to say, I have found these type of things useful, particularly in teams and particularly when self-awareness varies. As a tool in understanding the working styles of others and getting the best out of them, and even understanding better how I can be perceived when under pressure, I find it all quite helpful. Not as a be all and end all, not as an end in itself, but simply as a tool.

    For me, it’s not about expecting anyone to change, merely to increase self-awareness of ones own working style and the others we work with.

    But horses for courses….would be dull if we all felt the same about these things!

  2. Biased I know as I use them as part of coaching and leadership development.

    For self awareness I believe they are great for understanding and self and others, and I believe for some people if gives them a useful language to help describe the strengths and challenges they have.
    Danger with all of these things, and I can be guilty sometimes, is that the tool becomes the end rather than just tool to facilitate learning and reflection.

    If people are reverting back to the stuff you would like to ignore, thats about the person, the organisational context and the L&D intervention, not just the psychometric.

    I will be at L&D Unconference. Good to catch up, and thanks for throwing down the marker!

    Ian

  3. By the way, agree with sentiment around Belbin, and when using MBTI I try and keep it to people understanding the dichotomies rather than focussing on the resultant four letter type.

  4. Ha! I don’t disagree with your basic premise although as Alison points out, the value lies beyond the “Know Thyself” bit.

    Used in a team environment, MBTI is a useful tool to help you understand the way that other people process the world around them, and more importantly it gives people “permission” (probably the wrong word), and a common, neutral language to openly talk about differences in style without getting into a bunfight! 🙂 It’s not perfect, but I like the fact it’s focused on development and generates discussion.

    As with all of these tools: use and interpret with caution!

  5. I have to say I agree with Alison and Ian on this one. Some people’s self awareness is pretty low and these are a great way to bring these unconscious behaviours to the conscious mind where there’s nowhere to hide. They’re often a great platform for resolving conflicts in teams and to get people to face up to their bad habits.

  6. Oh you do know how to push buttons eh Dougster! Actually I both agree and disagree with you, when it comes to it. Psychometrics and personality tests are very useful in helping to raise self-awareness and bring to the fore traits you either do or not recognise in your team members. And as Katie suggests, you are given a language to use which allows you to understand others and them you.

    Importantly though, they are just tools, and should be kept in check as just that. You know I’m an advocate of the MBTI, and of Belbin, and there was a day I would default to use them to show my expertise and my vast knowledge. Over the years though, I learned that it’s more about helping people to talk to each other, and you shouldn’t restrict yourself to the tool. In fact, the tool should only be there if you can’t find another way to help that conversation to happen.

    And the conversation is the hardest thing to have.

  7. I have a similar view of them to you Doug. I’ll have to find the exact reference, but there was a study once where they got a group of people to fill out a personality test, and then handed out the results to the group. They were asked to read them to themselves, and then raise their hand if it accurately described them. Fact was, all the “results” were the same. It turns out everyone agrees that they “prefer working in teams, but sometimes alone” and “sometimes puts off things they don’t want to do”.

    A few weeks ago one of the departments here, at the behest of their new manager, went off site for a morning to do some team bonding. Part of this was to do a personality test, and they were told whether they were a “yellow” or a “red” person. They all came back gleeful that they knew what “type” of person they were. But when I asked them what it actually meant, none of them could tell me. When I asked how this knowledge would affect their daily work, none of them could answer.

    So if I’m yellow, should I act a different way around red people? Should I treat fellow yellows in a certain way?

    Just the other day I asked one of the attendees to that session, a good friend of mine, what colour a couple of his colleagues were. He couldn’t remember, so it obviously wasn’t that much of a revelation.

    Maybe use them as a discussion point at best, but I fear plenty of people assume that they provide some sort of organisational benefit by just doing them, and I simply can’t see it.

    1. You’re describing the ‘barnum effect’. Which is more to do with broad generalisations and statements used in astrology and pseduo-personality tests than psychometrics and personality tests proper. There’s a strict process these tests go through whereby they test validity of the questionnaire, the reliability of it, and a whole host of stats that help determine if it’s a robust tool or not.

      The role of facilitator is key in these situations. They should have enough training and knowledge in a tool that they can truly help the group understand how it can be used. I consider myself to be skilled at explaining MBTI well enough that it helps a group (or individual) to gain the insight to help them. But, once a session has been completed, I wouldn’t expect them to remember the ins and outs of Type theory, the four dichotomies, and the finite differences between various Type combinations. It’s taken me years to get a fair grasp on it, I wouldn’t expect the group to be that knowledgeable about it. I would expect though, that they’ve had a useful discussion about what the tool helped them to do as a team.

      The organisational benefit arises when you continue to use the tool in other settings, and in other environments so that the language is reinforced, and that it becomes a regular part of how teams work together.

  8. Interesting post indeed. I am currently studying Psychometrics and have picked up a certain disdain from tutors about MBTI and Belbin but not sure why this is. As others have said I think they are a useful tool for getting conversations started and exploring issues but I think they need to be used with caution. I remember being in a team that did a Belbin analysis with a team leader that scored particularly poorly on the ‘completer-finisher’ roles, she then used that information and the fact that it was a strength in others to step away from her responsibilities to ensure tasks were completed.

  9. Lots of good comments here Doug – looking forward to this turning into a good old discussion & debate (http://bit.ly/xkp0Cq)…

    I think your two biiiig reasons are inaccurate but reflect the attitude of many.

    Firstly, your observation that “they tell you what you already know”…. Hopefully, you’ll recognise some of yourself in any psychometric test. However, the value is that the outcome gives us an opportunity to recognise what we already know and perhaps to look at it from another perspective with language we may not normally use. What is so bad with being confronted with something you already know? Is it worth having that experience for the chance that is may tell you something you didn’t know?

    This nicely leads on to your observation that “you ignore the stuff you don’t like”…. This is possible, probable or even desirable for some! However, it’s the facilitation and the process you wrap around the psychometric (360 feedback, coaching, etc.) that makes the difference. The key is to use the psychometric test as a small part of a bigger process to raise awareness and create discussion which helps you develop. Isn’t this where the “world of work” often fails? Is the attitude towards MBTI a distraction from the real issue?

    Does anyone get excited by MBTI? Hand on heart I don’t think MBTI should be an exciting process. It’s what comes next that should be exciting & challenging. So is “MBTWhy?” more about poor development practices?

    Looking forward to more debate & discussion!

  10. One of the problems is that most people are exposed to MBTI (and similar tools) in a work setting – which isn’t ideal. After all, you can’t help but wonder if and how your results will be used. Also, if you go through an MBTI assessment in this environment you’re likely to view the questions through a professional/career-minded lens. Which again, isn’t ideal. Yes, how you express type in the workplace is important; but many of us are actually working outside our preferences day to day (it may be why we’re exhausted rather than energized by our jobs).

    In any case, the best way to truly do this or any kind of self-assessment is in neutral territory where you can settle into a different head-space. Unfortunately, that’s not always an option.

    And finally, though some people (myself included) really respond to the MBTI, I don’t think it’s a one size fits all.

  11. Sent from my iPhone

    Hiya Doug,

    I echo the feeling of many of the comments here with regards to agreeing and disagreeing with you.
    I’ve seen these tests so hideously over used and incorrectly used that at times when my business thinks they ‘need’ them I shudder. I have seen them used for recruitment and determining potential and have felt frustrated when not in control of how the output is used in this way.

    However, I’m currently training to be a therapist and one thing I’ve discovered through this training is that I and others, particularly in large organisations are not always as self aware as we think and are predominately organisation aware. In my experience large organisations don’t often allow their employees to know or be themselves. What these tests do in my opinion is benchmark us against the backdrop of the companies ideal type. I’ve seen people become distraught at the discovery that they have feeling rather than thinking preference in a finance role, for example. Becoming self aware against an ideal of what you think you SHOULD be is not always productive. 

    On the other hand, they do begin to provide an element of self awareness, an opportunity for people to understand how they can better relate to others.

    The key to me is the conversations which surrounds the glossy report and as David said, what happens next… for that you need a good facilitator, the test or tool you use I find is usually irrelevant…

  12. Hi Doug

    I absolutely agree with your sentiments that “one size does not fit all” – I think that putting people in “boxes” is what makes them resist having a psychometric test in the first place.

    Tools like MBTI and Disc are useful for self awareness and are personality profiles with a 70% accuracy – understanding that they may not reflect who you are all the time is important.

    Better to understand your attitudes and motivations in a particular context (LAB Profiling with 90% accuracy) if you want to get something out of the process as an individual.

    Thanks for generating debate on the topic of psychometrics – if you are in Cambridge on 13 March why not come to our HR lunch where we are debating “Psychometric tools – do they work, when & where to use them!”

      1. Hi Robert

        In response to your question regarding the accuracy of psychometrics I am sure you have found that when asking someone to complete a psychometric on paper or online there is likely to be an element of falsification / indecision / conscious thought that skews the results. Which is why I now prefer using LAB Profile which is a conversation psycho-linguistic tool that is highly contextual and allows you to “test” and verify answers as you go.

        JobEQ.com has done some interesting research on psychometrics and their validity (some are only rated at 60%!):

        http://www.jobeq.com/articles/judge_a_psyc_test.php

          1. Hi Robert

            Thanks for your question. The percentage of 70% refers to the “industry standard” rather than to MBTI in particular. When testing people several times, how consistent are the results?

            I did take a look at the test validity and reliability of MBTI (as this is Doug’s bug bear!) on Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers-Briggs_Type_Indicator .
            The reliability of the test is described by some researchers as being low. “Studies have found that between 39% and 76% of those tested fall into different types upon retesting some weeks or years later”. This might be a relief to some who don’t feel comfortable with their “type”!

            I do have some interesting data which I would be happy to send to you on the LAB Profile (and its online tool iWAM). With a conventional test-retest, where people completed the iWAM a second time after a period of 1 month on average, the scores for most patterns remained within 5% of the original score. So 95% accurate.

            I would be as interested as you are in other research available on the subject!

            Regards Katherine

  13. Hi Doug

    Great discussion taking place here and as I mentioned on Twitter I both agree and disagree. Lots of responders have picked up on the self-awareness opportunities that Belbin and MBTI offer and this is my personal experience.

    I completed my own MBTI assessment shortly after joining my organisation. I think partly this was to help me develop, but mostly to help my Director learn about my preferences. You are right, the results showed me “a bunch of things I already knew”, but as we know our brains are massive hard drives and often the things we know get archived and we stop being aware of them. For me, it helped me to understand that whilst I was a very capable trainer, the job would drain me of my energy and force me to work against my natural preference. I always felt like this but never really considered why. Having this heightened awareness definitely helped me in my role.

    It also helped me in building an effective relationship with my Director. For example, I know that whilst I get hugely excited by the big dreamy picture and love challenging the status quo, my boss needs the detail. He needs me to help him see how this would work and moreover, because he is so detail focused he needs to know how I got to where I did with my thinking. So I have to push myself to have this detail when communicating with him.

    That was 3 years ago and I am now a HR Manager no longer involved with delivering training. On my drive to work today I was trying to process why I am so much happier in my new role and the reasons are many. I reached into my hard drive and pulled out my MBTI and began to think again about those preferences and how my current role is so much more aligned and clearly this can explain some of the rejuvenation I have felt in this role.

    But as I said on Twitter today I also agree that these tests can “suck”. Largely this happens when all common sense is removed and when they are used in isolation. I have seen this happen and the consequences, and it isn’t pretty. I also would argue that if people don’t buy into them it is totally pointless in going through the motions and wasting money. Understanding and credibility must be present if people are to benefit from engaging with these tools.

    Thanks for another thought provoking post Mr Shaw 🙂

  14. There are many reasons that I am not a great MBTI fan, though I have done the training. Malcolm Gladwell captures some of the reasons. He writes, (http://www.gladwell.com/2004/2004_09_20_a_personality.html)
    “Annie Murphy Paul tells us …that there are twenty-five hundred kinds of personality tests. Testing is a four-hundred-million-dollar-a-year industry….” He goes on to quote another writer, Mischel, who himself quotes Carl Jung – on whom MBTI is based – as saying, “Every individual is an exception to the rule, to stick labels on people at first sight is nothing, but a childish parlor game.”.
    Jung’s point, the whole of his thinking, is that people are constantly becoming, changing, adapting relating to each other and cannot be pinned down and labelled. I am deeply saddened to see, as I have seen several times, 4 letters on or by someone’s desk, “So people know what I am.”

    I expressed some anxiety recently about some comments that seemed very judgemental to me. The person replied, “Well that’s because I am a “J” and you are a “P” and anyway I am right and that’s all there is to it.” Mmmm, I remember I was a “P” by one point, I think, about 20 years ago.

    Katherine makes a fair point about 70% accuracy, but the more I think about it, the less I understand what accuracy in this context means, or what 70% means either. Is personality so fixed and tangible that we can mark whether something hits it or not? How far away is a miss? Does it matter? Number often give managers unwarranted feelings of control that usually lead to later puzzlement and disappointment.

    Sadly, as Iain McGilchrist has written last year in what I think is probably the most important book on personal and social psychology for decades, as a society, people gave become increasingly obsessed with left-brain activities of isolating things and fixing them fast to examine them in more and more detail without using their right-brain to appreciate how things and especially people relate to each other and change their relating as things emerge and evolve through their co-relating and co-creation. If you haven’t read it, McGilchrist’s book is “The Master and His Emissary”. It is very long and a taxing, but brilliant read about neuroscience, psychology and 3000 years of Western culture.

    Both MBTI and Belbin make a core assumption that success (whatever that is) depends most on what you have – the right roles, personality mix, competencies, etc. At Humap we have developed two instruments that work from the basic premise that success is a function of what you do and keep doing much more than what you have. One is Humap361 a new kind of 360 tool that I will be using to ask Doug to give me feedback next week (be kind, please, Doug!). The other is a team assessment tool that simply reflects to a team how they behave with each other and compares that with patterns of behaviour known to generate sustained achievement, based on brilliant work Marcial Losada has been doing for years. If anyone is interested I have just written a piece about it for AMED’s magazine and, I’ll happily email a draft on request.

    I hope the dialogue develops!
    Jonathan

  15. Good morning and thanks to everyone who has contributed so generously to the discussion. It’s Leap Day today and I’m out taking advantage of the bonus day and having fun.

    I will read all your comments carefully before the end of the week and if I can offer anything useful to the conversation I will gladly do so.

    Thanks again – Doug

  16. I am coming at this from a different perspective than some here. I am not a coach, HR manager or L&D  professional, I am a Technology manager. You know, one of their patients, never fully cured, offering them a job for life so as to manage my numerous dysfunctionalities.

    Like one or two others, I disagree rather with both central assertions. Perhaps unlike others, I don’t have any need to defend it, conscious that I may just have a vested interest. This is in no sense my stock in trade, but I have been on the receiving end. It worked.

    I have seen it used as a filler at a team build, essentially to keep us out of the bar for an hour. That was pointless and an insult to the chap running it.

    When I was first on the receiving end I was well briefed in advance and then expertly debriefed afterwards so as to get the most out of it.

    Put simply, it changed me, or at least made me realise (where realisation is not the same as knowledge, rather like shock is not the same as surprise) a few things, the effect these observations had on my ability to be effective and crucially my ability to be effective through others has been marked. It gave me an initial set of manual over rides to help me in circumstances where my natural behaviour doesnt work. Of course I revert to type, especially under pressure, but I usually catch myself early when i slip and often in advance of starting something.  Thereafter, once I had noticed that these over rides worked, I came up with more. Some, are almost part of me these days, some stressful, but worth it.

    I ought really to write them down. It might be quite amusing. It might also be quite painful.

    1. There’ll be a psychometric test somewhere you just failed because of your mistake. And another you just passed because of your willingness to acknowledge an error 😉

  17. I know of a chap who was not selected for a leadership role in a certain major telecoms company because he repeatedly said “we” and “the team” when describing achievements, thereby showing – to the HR people doing the selecting – his unwillingness to demonstrate personal leadership.

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