The Sum Of All My Parts

I have recently been a participant in two separate personality tests. One was required through my employer, that was the Kolbe A Index and the other I chose to take which was the Myers Briggs Type Indicator.

The Kolbe A Index that I took was designed to identify natural talents and skills in terms of a career. Kolbe also does other personality tests, they started out doing child personality typing, and now do all sorts, but the one my boss had me take was work-related (go figure!) It’s a very positive test; there is no right/wrong or bad/good judgment given – even the biggest loser is going have a report spit out that says something positive. As they describe the concept: “we all have an equal amount of quality, it’s just a matter of where our quality lies” (how’s that for a schmooze!) Anyway, the test asks a series of about 30 questions, mostly about how you would approach various problem-solving challenges. It ends up grading you on 4 stages of the process from fact-finding through implementation of the solution. I did not score high in any one of the categories (but remember there is no wrong or bad response! Its all about the combination!). As I read the description of my “type profile” I realized that it had me dead-on. My overall personality type was labeled as “Mediator” which not only ended up fitting me perfectly, but fits the job that I have to a tee (the job that I absolutely love!) There are pages of explanation, I won’t bore you with it all, but here’s a summary: Good at facilitating groups because I can bring them to consensus; accommodate a variety of ways to get something accomplished; effective working on a team but not out front – happier behind the scenes; a knack for bridging the gap between differing approaches; bring out the best from individuals; the glue that holds a group together; prevent projects from breaking down when others become polarized. What was even more interesting to me was that it said the “Mediator” was the rarest of personality types. So this is great – I have the right skills for my job. I have my performance evaluation next week, we’ll see if my boss agrees.

The Myers Briggs Type Indicator was also very interesting; it was developed by Carl Jung, the famous psychiatrist. This test is conducted in two stages. First you answer about a 75 item questionnaire mostly about preferences and comfort zones. Before you see the results of the test you are presented with 4 categories and for each one you have to select which end of the spectrum most closely describes your tendency/approach. They are:
Where do you get your energy? Extraversion or Introversion
How do you prefer to take in information? Sensing or Intuition
How do you make decision? Thinking or Feeling
How do you deal with the outer world? Judging or Perceiving
There are 16 possible combinations of these factors; the combination that fits you is your personality type. The test that you take also scores you for what personality type you are. I am an INTJ (Introversion / Intuition / Thinking / Judging). It was very interesting that the only category that was really hard for me to choose was the Sensing/Intuition, I could relate to both descriptions, and I actually chose Sensing. My test had scored me as a solid Intuitive and after carefully reading the description for the two of them I decided I am an INTJ. I can also identify with some of the ISTJ characteristics, but as a whole it did not describe me as well. Again – there are pages of description – I’ll hit the highlights: likes complex challenges and readily synthesizes complicated theoretical and abstract matters; values knowledge and expects competence of themselves and others; trusts their insightful connections regardless of established authority or popular opinions; dull routine smothers their creativity; tough and decisive when the situation calls for toughness; trusts their own perceptions and judgments more than those of others and applies their high standards of knowledge and competence most rigorously to them self; theory oriented – seeks to understand the principles on which the world and things in it work; trusts logic and reason; skeptical and precise. I go along with all of that. This will confirm it for you if you are in doubt (and if you know me at all) -- there is a little handout that goes along with the MB Types that offers an amusing but apt “prayer” for each type – my INTJ prayer is “Lord, keep me open to others’ ideas, wrong though they may be.”

What does all this mean? In the end, nothing that I didn’t already know mostly, it just put it into words. It’s not a crystal ball; it doesn’t then go on to tell you your destiny. Both of these tests work off of the premise that there are certain strengths/talents that we are born with that we will always have and are not learned skills. They both stressed that what they are uncovering is the “natural” strengths/preferences/talents, but that everyone is capable of developing others, and it in no way should be assumed that if someone didn’t score strongly in one area that it was an indication that they were not or could not be talented in that area (how’s that for a disclaimer!)

It’s funny that I am so fascinated by this stuff (and I am). I am not a person who likes to be pigeon-holed, labeled, categorized – I’m an individual damn it! I’m more complicated then your calculations and test scores! There is more to me then the sum of all my parts! But maybe that’s why I find this stuff so cool – we are all individuals, yet we can take these tests and they spit out some report that describes so much of us so accurately -- it's almost scarey. But then there’s all that other stuff – there’s the stuff these reports could never know about me – that’s the part that makes me, me!