Book on Myers-Briggs Personality Test

Though we used it a lot, were always warned it was only useful as a general view, and not to make decisions based on it.

Personality Puzzler: Is There Any Science Behind Myers-Briggs?

Author Merve Emre of Oxford University discusses her new book -- The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Training

Meyers Briggs book The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator has been widely used by businesses, universities, the military and other organizations for decades to assess personality. But there is very little, if any, science behind it. Merve Emre, associate professor of English at the University of Oxford and fellow at Worcester College, delves into the story behind the test with her new book, The Personality Brokers: The Strange History of Myers-Briggs and the Birth of Personality Training. Developed by a mother-daughter team with no psychological training, the Myers-Briggs test is supposed to indicate how people perceive and process the world around them. Emre recently joined the Knowledge@Wharton radio show on SiriusXM to explain why the test continues to captivate our collective imagination as part of the $2 billion personality testing industry.

An edited transcript of the conversation follows. .... " 

Personality Type for Entrepreneur

We used the Myers-Briggs  personality classification frequently in the enterprise to adjust writing and interaction.  But were carefully warned that it was NOT suitable for narrow classifications, or adapted classifications, or use for segmentation of consumers.   But now someone has decided that it is OK:

Myers-Briggs Just Discovered There Is a Personality Type for Entrepreneurs  By John Brandon 

" .... A new study completed this year shows that certain personality types are drawn to an entrepreneurial mindset. For the Myers-Briggs fans out there, you may already know the Intuition and Perceiving (N and P) personality types. The study found those folks have more of an entrepreneurial nature than the Sensing and Judging types.

From the study: "The entrepreneurs in the group showed a significantly higher orientation for creativity, risk-taking, impulsivity, and especially autonomy than did non-entrepreneurs. Competitive ambition did not distinguish between those who were or were not entrepreneurs, but did relate to those who saw themselves as more entrepreneurial. People with a preference for extraversion, intuition, thinking, and perceiving tended to show greater levels of entrepreneurial orientation." .... " 

Comments on Myers-Briggs

In the enterprise we used Myers-Briggs personality testing.   It was always cautioned that the method was not precise,  and at best allowed us to understand that there were definable differences between people.  Adjustments in management style might be called for.  A Wired article on the topic.  The article makes the most sense if you know something about Myers-Briggs.

Wearables in the Enterprise

Will wearables be widespread in the enterprise?  Well not too many years ago I could not have imagined hand held computer-phones there.    An interview with Bill Briggs of Deloitte.  " ... Deloitte Digital, a mix of ‘ creative, strategy, user experience, and engineering talent, and technology services to help clients harness disruptive digital technologies to redesign “business as usual” – to engage differently with customers, change how work gets done, and rethink the very core of their markets’. He seemed like my kind of human. ... " 

Myers-Briggs as Assessment

We never used the well known Myers-Briggs personality test for specific decisions.  But it was promoted as a means for self-understanding.  I was convinced it was useful for broad brush analyses, but the results were  frequently over analyzed.   We like to know about ourselves.   A piece in the WP.

Introverts and Innovation

In the HBR Blogs:  Although Myers Briggs tests are not technically meant to label introvert-extrovert, we did experiment with it broadly to help people understand styles of both customers and colleagues.  It was commonly thought that an extrovert would more likely be able to push an innovation to value.   While introverts were more likely to think through alternative options more closely. Though some internal research only weakly supported that.   This article provides some worthwhile thoughts about the value of both styles.

Testing Your Code with Myers-Briggs

In ReadwriteWeb: You can test your code's  Myers-Briggs score. Does this have any real meaning?

Top Salespeople Born or Made?

Mostly born based on personality tests, says an article in the Harvard Review.   We showed this years ago with something as simplistic as Myers-Briggs tests.

Myers-Briggs Skeptically Viewed

In my years at the big enterprise I took the Myers-Briggs test at least a half dozen times. The results always interesting, largely self-affirming. I always had my doubts about it's generality, brought up my doubts in meetings even read some of some of the criticism at the time. Now there is much more criticism you can easily get to. Here is a good example in the Skeptoid. Still looking for other examples, especially in its actual use. Update: In the comments I am pointed to a Malcolm Gladwell article in the New Yorker on this, you do have to subscribe to read the whole thing.

Jung and the Unconscious

In the Sunday Times: The Holy Grail of the Unconscious. Most of what I know about Jung is the Myers-Briggs tests we used in the enterprise.

Blog Typology Analysis

Archetype analyze a blog. This blog is classified as INTJ (Introversion, Intuitive, Thinking, Judgemental), not surprising, a classic Jungian-based Myers-Briggs typology. Though I never heard these called archetypes. In the enterprise we participated in this kind of classification any number of times to better 'understand' each other. Was interesting the first few times, but overplayed. I see that this is powered by UClassify, which I previously covered here.