Organizational Development related post: MTBI and possible usage in the workplace.

During an Organizational Development class, it was asked about our take on the Meyer Briggs test within a corporate environment and during the class we needed to interact via an online discussion. Every once in a while, we have to pose questions to one another, in this post I have posted the question and my response to that question. I hope the interactions below assist in research, or even understanding the concepts of MTBI and what from some academic sense future practitioners think of these concepts and the arenas it can be used in.

Question: I have been an avid reader and fan of Carl Jung 's work. Over the years I have taken the Meyers-Briggs Test to satisfy my own personal curiosity and consistently I have been typed as INFJ.  I took the test recently and my result was personality type ENFJ. I attribute the change to work experiences that have forced me to be more extroverted. Do you think that an individual's personality type can change? Do you think the personalities of individuals can be adaptable to a workplace environment? How does the MBTI compare to other personality assessment tests administered to employees in the workplace?

It has been my experience that people do change aspects of their individual personality that they exhibit in the workplace. It is what I like to call a “workplace mask” in which individuals adapt (as you stated) or change their attitudes and responses to match certain instances or events. Usually I see this change in attitude is evident when managers or onsite directors are visited by out-of-town CEOs or COOs, they become positive and outgoing trying to interact with their employees, when otherwise they try to avoid those same employees at all costs.

To answer your question about administering personality tests at an organization, it has also been my experience that the organizations are not interested, whatsoever for understanding employee personality types. Organizations are more concerned for conformity to the culture that is present within the workplace, and any personality traits one exhibits that run counter to that culture must be eliminated or suppressed. A personality assessment test like MTBI is unfortunately not even on the radar for organizations like this.