 How useful is Myers-Briggs personality test? You might also be asking when in your career is the Myers-Briggs test useful to take? Personality tests are a form of feedback, helping you become more aware of your own preferences, personality traits and so on. Taking Myers-Briggs will benefit some of you a lot more than others, and this video will give you an idea if Myers-Briggs will help you. In this video we're going to cover firstly what is the Myers-Briggs personality test, secondly how and when Myers-Briggs can be useful to you and your team, and third a rundown of each of the eight Myers-Briggs type indicators, a bit about the Myers-Briggs explained. When you understand what you're getting out of taking Myers-Briggs either for yourself or with your team you can make a better choice on taking it or not. My name is Jess Coles and I've had a 25 year management career in corporates and household names all the way through to SMEs and from professional level all the way through to board director. I took the first Myers-Briggs personality type test when I was working at Innocent Drinks and I've taken quite a few other personality tests by this point so it was quite interesting to compare. And if you're new to this channel enhance dot training shares, business and people management expertise to help you improve your performance and that of your team and business. And if you like this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe. Firstly a bit about the Myers-Briggs personality types test. The Myers-Briggs test was created in the 1940s by a mother and daughter team, Catherine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers based on theories by the famous psychologist Carl Jung. The Myers-Briggs test consists of 90 plus forced choice questions which means you have to choose one answer out of two possible options. Based on your answer the Myers-Briggs test puts you into one of 16 personality types with associated characteristics. The Myers-Briggs test compares four different preference pairs. Each preference pair is an opposite. Extroverts paired with introverts is the first pair as an example. Your preferences are assessed between the extremes of each pairing and you're given a position on the line between the two extremes. You are then given a letter depending on which preference you are closer to. These preference pairings are extrovert to introvert, sensors to intuitives, thinkers to feelers and judges to perceivers. You get a letter label for each pairing which gives you the four letter combination that Myers-Briggs is well known for and many people who have done the Myers-Briggs test will quote you their four letter combination. The preference pair combinations give you one of the 16 different personality types each with associated characteristics. And with that summary in mind let's discuss how useful is Myers-Briggs personality type for an individual. The first point to really emphasise is that we use the attributes of both preference pairs every day. The Myers-Briggs test shows you how strong your preference is for one of those pairs over the other. As mentioned at the beginning improving conscious knowledge of your preferences is really useful. With conscious knowledge you can work at adapting how you show that preference to others or how your preference affects your decision making and actions. What preference pairs you fall into gives you a high level insight about yourself. What is even more useful in my view is how strong your preferences are. For instance if you are towards the middle point between the preference pair then you will find it easier to flex your style and approach because you don't have such a strong preference. If you have a strong preference towards one of the pairs say thinking as opposed to feeling being conscious of that might lead you to focusing more of your time on considering the feelings of others in your decision making to balance your strong preference for thinking. For another example if you are very energised by being around people and extraverted Myers-Briggs terms then choosing a job with lots of people interactions will be a good choice. A job with lots of time stuck in spreadsheets might leave you feeling unmotivated and unhappy. Use the Myers-Briggs test to understand the strength of your preferences for example between the two pairs of extrovert to introvert. On the downside the output you get from Myers-Briggs is pretty high level so as you might expect from a questions based test. The more self aware you are the less value and knowledge you will get from Myers-Briggs. This makes the Myers-Briggs test more useful towards the beginning of your career my view. As you get into the middle management ranks and onwards you are more likely to get a lot more value out of say a mentoring or a coaching program than personality tests. In Myers-Briggs is fairly low cost and most of the 2 million people taking it each year take the test as part of a team. So let's talk about how useful is Myers-Briggs personality type for a team. The insights and increased understanding of team members preferences is where Myers-Briggs and other personality tests become particularly useful in my view. Getting to know 5, 10 or 20 people or more in a team takes time and effort. Using Myers-Briggs can speed up that learning process at least as far as their high level preferences go. You can also look at the team as a whole and see how balanced that team is, where the strong preferences are and what mix you have. I think this gives useful insights that you can then use in your job of managing the team overall and individuals within the team. Knowing preferences helps you correctly flex the communication and management style that you use with different team members and perhaps the whole team. If you had a very introverted team you might create quieter areas on which team members could use to explore their ideas. If you had a very extrovert team you might organise more team end events, meetings and activities so more time is spent together. When choosing project teams to solve specific problems you might combine those with strong thinking preferences for instance with those with strong feeling preferences so you cover the full spectrum in the output of from that project. Knowledge and awareness give you more conscious choices and should help you improve how you communicate and manage your team and help the team overall with their output and enjoyment. Use Myers-Briggs and other personality typing exercises to learn more and understand more about your team. And quickly going through what each Myers-Briggs preference pair means. The first preference pair of Myers-Briggs personality types is extroverts and introverts and this is about how people respond and interact with the world around them. Extroverts typically are energised by being around people, enjoy a variety of tasks and are action orientated. These descriptors probably apply. I'm a people person. I like working in groups. I jump quickly into activity. I just want to get things done. Introverts tend to feel recharged from having time alone to think through their ideas. I'm more thought orientated and enjoy deep meaningful social interaction. These descriptors probably apply. I like working on my own or with one or two others. I like to reflect and think before jumping into action. I like exploring different ideas and possibilities. The second preference pair of Myers-Briggs personality tests is sensors and intuitives which focuses on how we gather information from around us. Sensors, as the name suggests, use information they gather from their five sensors. Tend to be quite realistic people who focus on facts and details and apply common sense and past experience to come up with practical solutions to problems. These might apply. I like to see the application of things to learn best. I like working through the facts before deciding. I trust experience over ideas and concepts. Intuitives pay more attention to patterns, impressions and the big picture. They enjoy thinking about possibilities, abstract theories and seek creative solutions to problems. These statements might apply. I'm interested in new possibilities. I like to understand the big picture then work out the facts. I focus more on the future than the past. The third preference pair of Myers-Briggs tests are thinkers and feelers which is about how people make decisions from the information gathered. Thinkers place more emphasis on facts and objective data. They tend to be more consistent, logical and impersonal in their decision making. They value honesty and fairness. And these statements might apply. I notice inconsistencies. I believe telling the truth is important. I can be seen as uncaring or indifferent. Feelers tend to make decisions based on their personal values while considering how the feelings and emotions of others will be impacted by their actions and decisions. These statements might apply. I like to maintain harmony in the team. I am tactful and caring. I make decisions with my heart. I can be too indirect at times. The fourth preference pair of Myers-Briggs tests are judging and perceiving which is about how people tend to deal with the world around them. Those are the preference for judging, lean towards structure, planning, firm decisions and sticking to the rules. Statements you might make include I like things organised and planned. I like to do lists. I appear task and goal orientated. Perceiving tends to be more open, spontaneous, flexible and adaptable. Statements you might recognise. I don't like being too organised. Deadlines spur me into action. I prefer to go with the flow. I enjoy spontaneity and responding to what happens. So there you have the main aspects of the Myers-Briggs Explained. Hopefully you have a better idea of how useful is Myers-Briggs personality tests for you. Use Myers-Briggs personality types to give you additional insights into yourself and your team. Use of Myers-Briggs and other testing is really useful to speed up the learning about your team and surface the less obvious preferences. And the more self aware you are, the less you're likely to get from Myers-Briggs and other high level personality tests. Keep this in mind when setting your expectations. And if you have any questions about how useful is Myers-Briggs personality test, then please leave a comment below and I'll get back to you. Thanks very much for watching and I look forward to speaking to you again soon.