Myers Briggs is a well-respected and well-known test that provides interesting and helpful information about some tendencies we might have.
There are only 16 types of personas covered in the Myers Briggs model. And while the infomration is interesting - it's always nice to recognize yourself in a list of characteristics that are supposedly yours - it isn't detailed enough to account for the differences between individuals.
Here's a first-hand example:
Jan and I worked together at a consulting company, and some of the courses we taught included the Myers Briggs assessment. The language of Myers Briggs was used often in the department and when generalizations were made about our Myers Briggs tendencies, I would usually get annoyed. Jan and I were both ENFP’s on this assessment (Extraverted Intuitive Feeling Perceiving) and often I would hear, in Jan’s sing-song voice, “we ENFP’s have to stick together!”
Why did this annoy me?
Well, Jan and I were similar in some ways, and very different in others. We were similar because we were extroverted by nature, never meeting a stranger and often deriving energy from others, especially the participants in our training classes. We both had strong intuitive tendencies, often making decisions based on how we felt and our instincts. On the surface, we seemed similar.
But in meetings, I hate wasted time and personal chatty conversations. I can be rapid-fire focused, fast-paced and make decisions in a snap.
Jan loved to start meetings out with a personal story and she kept every one’s attention, because she was a great entertainer. She was not bothered at all when time was wasted.
I was focused on goals, bottom-line and self preservation.
Jan was focused only on the people and she always threw herself in front of the bus for every client we had.
I was constantly coming up with new ways to do things, new programs and ideas. And I was never as strongly detailed as Jan.
Jan hated all the new ideas and knew each current program inside out and she hated to make fast changes.
Myers Briggs found the similarities between us, but didn't dig deeply enough to see the differences. The science behind our assessments reaches far beyond personality traits or tendencies and can predict how individuals will behave in a certain situation, how they will perform in certain positions, and how they will think.
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