August 19, 2009    

A Recipe for Teamwork or Just Alphabet Soup? Are you a member of a team? Unless you’re a hermit living in a cave, you’re undoubtedly part of a number of different groups – work, social, religious, family. Does everyone always see eye-to-eye? Probably not. That’s because each of us views the world a little differently.

Using the research of Carl Jung, Katharine Cook Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers, a mother-daughter combo, developed an instrument to measure16 personality preferences, which they designated with letters, such as ISTP, INFJ, ESFP, ENFJ, and so forth. The initial questionnaire, designed during World War II, grew into the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), first published in 1962.

The duo described two ways a person can react on a set of four dimensions.

• Extraversion vs. Introversion (E or I) — how you interact with the world; where you prefer to focus your attention
• Sensation vs. iNtuition (S or N) — how you gather information; what you pay attention to
• Thinking vs. Feeling (T or F) — how you prefer to make decisions and reach conclusions
• Judging vs. Perceiving (J or P) — how you structure your thoughts and attitudes

For example, suppose you are an ESFP. The “E” means you like to talk out loud in meetings to build on your ideas, while the “S” suggests you prefer evidence to be presented first, before discussing broad issues. The “F” part of your personality makes you want to be personable and in agreement with others and the “P” implies you’ll postpone decisions while searching for all available options. Your team mate who is an INTP will be entirely different in his/her thinking and potentially a thorn in your side. And visa versa.

Knowing the personality traits of fellow team members can be a real enabler of teamwork. I have experienced this firsthand. A client of mine regularly employed Myers-Briggs to help strengthen its group dynamics. Before its strategic planning sessions each year, anyone new to the team would fill out the MBTI and have his/her results posted in one of the 16 squares.

With this updated team profile, members were better able to interact with each other. And, the process allowed for a “team profile” to be created. In the case of my client’s team, we were collectively an ESTJ, meaning we liked to share ideas, preferred a continuation of “what is” with just some fine tuning, used logical analysis to reach conclusions and concentrated on task completion.

If you’re reading this post and were a member of the team I am describing, you know how accurate this assessment was! You also know how much we accomplished because understanding each other promoted and fostered acceptance, laughter and occasionally, good-natured teasing.

To learn more, Myers-Briggs (http://www.myersbriggs.org/) has a comprehensive site. If you’re interested in taking the assessment yourself, there are a number of options. FaceBook has an application. I’d also suggest checking out Team Technology, online publishers of quality resources and articles, whose aim is to improve business performance through better teamwork. A free test for individuals and excellent examples of how to work and play well together are at http://www.teamtechnology.co.uk/mmdi-re/mmdi-re.htm.

By way of full disclosure, I am a ENFJ…

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