The Use of Personality Assessment in Team Decisions

[MysterE]

Hi all -

I hope everyone is having a great build-up to build-season.

I am currently working on this year's application for our Drive Team and I am trying something a bit different. One section of the application is going to ask those applying to complete a Meyers-Briggs Personality Assessment - specifically one located here: http://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test.

We did this with our leadership at the beginning of the year and its been amazing to see how accurate the assessment of our team leaders has been. On the one hand, its allowed me as a coach to communicate better with each leader dependent on their personality type and on the other it has allowed the members to better understand one another when conflict arises.

I'm curious if anyone else has tried something like this and how it has worked for you. Secondarily - if you want to have some fun - take the quiz. Its pretty interesting.

Best -
Mr. E.

[Taylor]

How many other INTPs are out here? We only make 3% of the general population, but somehow I think the self-selection of chiefdelphi might skew the numbers.

[Sperkowsky]

Originally Posted by Taylor

How many other INTPs are out here? We only make 3% of the general population, but somehow I think the self-selection of chiefdelphi might skew the numbers.

I just did the test and got ESTJ they seem pretty similar.

[Jimmy Nichols]

ISFJ here.

Not so sure about the patience in Parenthood. That gets broken quite a bit, :/

[MysterE]

I am an ENFP - which sums me up pretty well.

[mastachyra]

Originally Posted by Taylor

How many other INTPs are out here? We only make 3% of the general population, but somehow I think the self-selection of chiefdelphi might skew the numbers.

Yep. INTP-A

Its nice to be in Einstein and Newton's company

[Jon Stratis]

ENTP here. Personally, I've never found knowing someone else's results to help in dealing with them... But I have found that knowing my own results helps me identify how I subconsciously approach a problem, and helped me to be more flexible in dealing with other approaches.

[Ben Martin]

ISTP-A here. Looks pretty spot on.
We've never used anything like a personality test for team decisions, though.

[Monochron]

I haven't read anything definitive saying that the results of that test have much validity. From what I remember (and I would love to be corrected) they are very useful for categorizing people, but not useful for extracting useful data about a person or acting as a predictive tool.

As making predictions about how a person would perform on the field is the most important factor for drive team selection, I wouldn't use those test results as a part of the selection process.

[*Rachelle*]

Pertaining to robotics personalities a lot of my team has taken this one: http://www.nfty.org/_kd/Items/action...ion= ShowItem

Stats from all people show green as the least common, but in robotics (for our team), most of us are either green or a combination of green and some other color (I'm green-gold for example).

[JesseK]

INTP-A this time, 'borderline' ISTP-A, but I & T are way more solid they the last time. The last time I did this test about 5 years ago I was INTJ. It's interesting to see how things have changed, in particular given the life events that have happened since the last time I took it. Individually I think it really helps to understand our own types so we're more self-aware of our interactions with other personality types.

The brains of our students are still highly developmental, so it's important to remember to not judge them based upon initial impressions of their personalities (especially freshmen). It only takes a little patience, imo.

[dubiousSwain]

ENTP-T

It changes every time I take the test, so i wouldn't put too much stock in it

[techhelpbb]

Originally Posted by dubiousSwain

ENTP-T

It changes every time I take the test, so i wouldn't put too much stock in it

I have the same issue and always have.
One is asking subjective opinion about themselves.

When I was younger I was frequently considered introverted but now I am considered extroverted. Question one should be asking: what was the social situation you were in that made it easier to be introverted than risk being extroverted?

On several occasions I was passed by on job interviews where these sorts of metrics were used.
Given the trajectory of my career any time an HR person rolls out this and a Google search to fit a job:
I start to question why I am using HR to hurt myself and my business

It has been said elsewhere the questions themselves are introspectively valuable to get you to ask what kind of person you want to be, you think you are currently and maybe where you came from. I think if you want to be consistent you will be subconsciously consistent on this test but if you are honest it will drift.

https://www.quora.com/Can-a-persons-...ty-type-change

I have found this to be a valuable management tool: in breaking conflicts in which both parties express themselves poorly.
Sit them down and have them take the test then share with each other so you let them walk a mile in the other person's life experience. Just don't judge as the manager but use it as a guide. A person that doesn't mind hurting another person's very sensitive emotions is still a person themselves but perhaps all parties need to understand the team impact.

[Edxu]

Somehow I get the feeling that the distribution of tests will show that CD is highly skewed towards INTP/similar...

[cadandcookies]

I've taken a decent amount of personality tests over the past year or so in my university leadership courses, and I think one of the biggest benefits of taking them isn't that they're some sort of predictive measure of behavior oreven a good way to assign roles, but more that they promote self-awareness in how one shows up in a community, which, while something that comes intuitively so some people, is something I don't think many people take the time to actually think about. For students specifically, I feel like it might also be an interesting sort of formative tool-- for ones like MBTI or StrengthsFinder, answering and thinking about the questions the test asks you can serve as the basis for some good self-reflection, and can help one answer more thoroughly the question of "who do I want to be?"

Anyhow, I digress. Personally, I'm not a fan of institutional personality testing. I feel like having a test gives people far too much confidence in something as a predictive measure, especially in this case where you're taking an extremely complicated and multidimensional property ("personality") and trying to boil it into something useful using binary or stepped preferences. It's a compressive task, and you lose a lot of important stuff in the process.