The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)
For those not familiar with the MBTI, it is based on the work of Jung (and
others, circa 1920). However, Keirsey and Bates show that the concepts bear a
marked similarity to Hippocrates' views some twenty five centuries earlier. Hippocrates
spoke of the four gods Apollonius, Dionysus, Epimetheus, and Prometheus, each
having distinct personality temperaments.
Thus Jung, reverting to Greek mythology, diverged from the
twentieth century notion that people are fundamentally alike in their motivation,
and postulated instead that people are fundamentally different in their personalities.
What is important, he suggested, is people's preference for how they "function"
and so may be "typed" accordingly.
Interestingly, by latching on to Hippocrates' four temperaments,
the MBTI has developed into a lucrative consulting business. The consulting
literature dealing with MBTI team building seems to suggest that every personality
type has a contribution to make to teamwork. From a consulting practice perspective,
this is no doubt highly prudent. However, common knowledge of certain undesirable
types in society who, by definition of the MBTI must be found somewhere in the
classification, suggests that universal contribution to teamwork is patently
For purposes of this paper, it is worth describing the MBTI
structure in more detail. The MBTI postulates that the four "temperaments"
give rise to four separate but interrelated ranges of personal preferences or
natural tendencies in a given situation. These ranges may be characterized as
"information gathering", "focus", "decision making",
and "orientation". The combination of these four ranges results in
sixteen possible "characteristic types".
Presentation is typically in the form of a 4x4 grid, each cell containing descriptive
text. Underlying this layout is a primary X-Y cruciform formed by the first two
ranges with each quadrant containing a secondary x-y cruciform formed by the
second two ranges. The primary quadrants are mirror images of one another. The
two sets together result in the sixteen types as shown in Figure
The personality styles and their preferences represented by each cell in the grid reflect the interaction of various combinations of temperaments, rather than the individual temperaments on their own. The descriptions provided
by the MBTI give valuable insight into the differences between normal, healthy
people. These differences can be the source of much difficulty in understanding
and communication, attributes that are so important in project teamwork.
Keirsey, David, and Marilyn Bates. 1984. Please Understand Me: Character and
Temperament Types. Prometheus Nemesis Book Company, CA: 3-4.