MBTI for Dummies

Prior to mid-2015 I had only the vaguest conception of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Like most folks, I’ve only heard of the mystifying 4-letter labels – ESTJ, INFP, etc. – and had only a passing interest in the framework.

But I was hired to be a trainer so by late-July I was certified, a process that takes about four days, 60 exam questions and about 6,000 documents. Since then I’ve had the fun privilege of facilitating and explaining this profiling system to many hundreds of people (and counting). As an educator who has cut my teeth with classroom teaching for more than a decade, I gotta say that I’ve had few classes more engaging than the MBTI (which is saying a lot).

What follow is a basic intro (see Note 1) to, well, generate interest and spur the uninitiated to find out more herself.

E (Extraversion) or I (Introversion) – the direction in which we focus our attention and energy

The MBTI framework claims that we can understand our core personalities via four binaries. This is the first.

‘E’ individuals prefer to focus outwardly. Their compasses are primed towards interaction and community. They need to physically be with people to re-charge. Yeah, it’s an energy thing. These guys could box ten rounds with Mike Tyson then go straight out and join the Standard & Chartered KL Marathon to release stress.

‘I’ people, on the contrary, are the loners. If they spend too much time with others, their energy gets sapped. If you’re supervising an extreme ‘I’ workers, he may take Emergency Leave for no other reason than to hang out at GSC alone (where, believe or not, you can find many solitary movie-goers).

‘E’ folks are the talkative bunch who can’t shut the hell up to save their lives. If they were spies who got caught, their captors would have to torture them to say less, not more.

If you get on a plane, you’re tired, but almost the first thing you wish to do is chat with the (merely) average-looking stranger next to you? That says a lot. 120% ‘I’ personalities like me would stick the headphones in my ears and/or go to sleep even if it was Jennifer Lawrence next to me.

Dogs are ‘E’. Cats are ‘I’. Go figure.

This binary itself would indict our Malaysian education system, which obviously favors kids with an ‘I’ profile: Study by yourself, take the exam as a loner, don’t make noise, etc. Even to this day, group discussions and peer-to-peer assessments are seen as novelties.

S (Sensing) or N (Intuition) – the kinds of information we prefer

‘S’ is about hands-on, sensory information. ‘N’ is about imagination, patterns and relationships. In a nutshell, ‘S’ folks prefer to work with things which can be applied to their five senses. ‘N’ people prefer to, uh, see what cannot be immediately seen. You know how Lim Goh Tong first looked at the mountain and ‘saw’ a world-class highland resort? That’s classic ‘N’ stuff.

‘S’ loves facts, details, numbers – they’re the Excel worksheet folks. ‘N’ adores connections, innovation, fantasy – these people hate SOPs’ with a vengeance.

If you love going to IKEA and following the ‘sequence’ simply because there is a sequence, that’s very ‘S’ behavior. ‘S’ is into step-by-step, don’t-mess-with-the-flow process. Want to convince higher authority-figures inclined towards ‘S’? Give them solid facts and as much as information as practically possible.

The ‘N’ IKEA-goer, on the other hand, will a) spend more time eating beef-balls in the restaurant and b) take as many short-cuts as he can along the route to reach the energy-saving light-bulbs. For proposal purposes, don’t bother your ‘N’ boss with lots of information. Give him the Executive Summary (or the Value Proposition), focusing on future possibilities and the ‘big picture’.

T (Thinking) or F (Feeling) – the way we make decisions

Recall the movie Crimson Tide starring Gene Hackman and Denzel Washington? That major dispute in the submarine more or less boiled down to this binary. Hackman was an absolute ‘T’ – use absolute logic and avoid ambiguity as much as possible. Washington was fighting for those things ‘F’ personalities care about – people people people…even if it messes up the rules a bit.

‘T’ folks prefer to use rationality and abstract principles. They may thus appear machine-like at times, but if you want fair and logically sensible decisions, they’re what you need. ‘F’ folks prefer to make decisions which contribute to relational harmony. They could come across as unnecessarily emotive, but without these people the world would be cold. Politicians, of course, have to walk that tricky line between doing what’s right and doing what’s loved.

In Captain America III: Civil War, you can tell that Steve Rodgers is making a major decision with his heart, whilst Iron Man is taking the law-and-fairness route. Hence, the title of the movie.

Life, of course, demands both forms of behavior. So if you tend to make decisions like a Web router, maybe it’s time to act like a Teddy Bear? And if you find yourself overly influenced by sunsets or sick children, it wouldn’t hurt to map out the pros and cons of your next move?

J (Judging) or P (Perceiving) – our attitude towards the external world

Finally, the ‘J’ woman seeks control of her world. She loves deadlines, checklists, closure – she’s essentially the female embodiment of the Transporter. The ‘P’ man, on the contrary, gets a rush from barely missing the deadline. He’s the type who books hotel rooms the night before (or sometimes the day after?), who tends to run for his plane, and who doesn’t mind ‘Open’ relationships.

The ‘J’ individual requires an itinerary; Mr or Miss ‘P’ tend to be open to anything. If your girlfriend has a ‘J’ personality, for the love of God do not spring last-minute changes on her. If your husband is a ‘P’ person, learn to appreciate his relaxed and non-OCD nature.

You can rely on J people to deliver way before the 11th hour; you should admire the way that ‘P’ folks keep their options fully open until the last second. Negatively, ‘J’ people tend to be more stressed up and the entire lepak culture has the ring of ‘P’ around it.

You’d want your production team to be ‘J’-oriented, but your Sales team to be most ‘P’ with the client. If you’re serving a ‘J’ customer, don’t second-guess his deadlines. But if your vendor is a ‘P’, you may need to remind him to send you his invoice?

All together now

Select the letter which best fits your preferences, and you get the magical 4-letter personality type. There are, obviously, 16 types (just Google them) all of which align with normal, non-traumatized, non-criminal, non-immoral and non-stupid behaviours. Put another way, you’ll get both saints and sinners from any one personality type; no type is more prone to producing a pillar of the community or an ISIS combatant.

According to MBTI theory, our core preferences do not change. Whilst the above polarities are wired inclinations, they are not hard-wired ones. People learn to adapt, to develop. ‘I’ folks learn to be more sociable, ‘N’ people develop an eye for detail, ‘T’ persons grow to understand that 1+1 can sometimes be 3, and ‘J’ personalities sometimes have kids (so much for control).

But hasn’t the MBTI been debunked?

Do a Google search for ‘MBTI is false’ and you’ll see quite a few articles tearing apart the test. Do yet another search for ‘debunking anti-MBTI arguments’ and you’ll join the debate (see Note 2). My personal take is that the MBTI is like nasi lemak: If it tastes good and contributes to your physical growth, so what if some people say it’s “proven” to be unhealthy? Yes we know it’s fattening, but that doesn’t mean we issue a national ban on it. Yes, it’s oily and may cause more strokes but we’re not gonna shoot every nasi-lemak seller on sight. Yes some people HATE the taste but, heck, they don’t have to eat it – duh.

At the end of the day, a nasi lemak still ‘makes sense’ as far as I and Malaysian society (see Note 3) are concerned. We’ll keep eating nasi lemak and we’ll keep training our best cooks to keep up its quality and variety – cholesterol be damned (see Note 4).

Likewise, nobody’s forcing anybody to ‘believe’ in the MBTI. But many organisations find the test helpful if for no other reason than to have a few hours of fun and warmth getting staff to talk to each other about the kind of people they are (see Note 5). And many people find that MBTI helps them improve their relationships, if only just a little bit.

The MBTI is a tool to aid self-understanding. Not much more, but nothing less.

Finally, have I mentioned it’s fun as hell?

Note 1: Whilst I can’t stop you from taking a free MBTI test online, it’s far better if a certified trainer facilitates your self-assessment with you (and maybe your team, professional or otherwise). This is because there are numerous caveats which must be explained, not to mention the inevitable FAQs’ like, “But can my MBTI type change over time?”

Note 2: Personally, I’m more of a Freudian. And Sigmund’s views clashed heavily with those of Carl Jung’s, on which the MBTI is based. One thing both agreed on, though, was the power of the unconscious to make us go ape-shit. I kid you not. Important: If your team is undergoing an MBTI workshop, ensure your trainer includes a portion on the 'inferior function' (or what I like to call the 'Monster' in all of us).

Note 3: The MBTI test remains relatively new to Malaysian organisations. Surely a key reason is because, whilst the test is available in 22 languages, it still hasn’t been translated into Bahasa Melayu.

Note 4: Of course, if you eat nothing BUT nasi lemak 24/7, you obviously need help.

Note 5: The MBTI is best included as the opening part of a workshop on leadership, team-building, sales, etc. Obviously, the objective would be to develop a working understanding of personality-types, their strengths and pitfalls, etc. Ideally, a session will last about 4 hours and each test costs SGD50.