My Blueprint for Building Teams Without Bias: Using AI, Clifton Strengths, and Jung Typology
Cara Harpole
Strategic AI Collaborator & Multidisciplinary Designer | Creative Framework Architect Driving Innovation through Ideation and Context. Launched-AI For Good" campaign.| USAF Veteran
Difficulty Level: Intermediate
This article is intended for readers who are familiar with AI tools such as ChatGPT and psychometric assessments like StrengthFinder or Jung Typology. If you’re new to these topics, a brief understanding of how AI-driven tools can be applied to team-building dynamics will enhance your comprehension.
What you will learn:
1) How to Leverage AI for Team Building
2) The Value of Combining StrengthFinder and Jung Typology
3) How to Analyze and Visualize Team Dynamics
4) The Importance of Role Assignments Based on Strengths and Personality
5) Practical Application of the Model to Real-World Projects
Please note Clifton StrengthFinder is currently called "Clifton Strength."
About
A new methodology for building effective, diverse teams based on individual strengths (StrengthFinder)? and personality traits (Jung Personality Test) using AI.
Have You Been in This Scenario?
Reasons why I wrote this article
Have you ever had to build a team, only to later think, "Oh my God, what did I just do?" Even though everyone was qualified and accomplished, the team just didn’t gel. There were power dynamics, dysfunction, and constant disagreements. Maybe, in secret, you even wished you could swap out a team member or two.
Or perhaps you've been on the other side, feeling confident that you could bring something unique to the table, only to be overlooked. This happens all too often in corporate America, non-profits, start-ups, and educational institutions.
My unique methodology offers a new way to build teams based on strengths and personality types, using AI to guide the process. This approach minimizes implicit bias and ensures a more cohesive and dynamic team from the start.
My Blueprint for Building Teams Without Bias: Using AI, Clifton Strengths, and Jung Typology
Sometimes, innovation finds you in the most unexpected places. Discovering the book Clifton StrengthsFinder at a previous job set me on a journey to design a revolutionary model for team building. This model uses AI to dynamically assign roles based on both StrengthFinder results and Jung Typology, ensuring teams are not only strong individually but also well-balanced in their collaboration styles.
It was by accident that I first came across the StrengthsFinder methodology. I found the book inconspicuously sitting on a colleague's desk, collecting dust. This accidental discovery of the Clifton StrengthsFinder (CSF) led me down a rabbit hole of exploration and holistic enlightenment. The company had introduced the test but abandoned it before acting on the results. One of my team members even became a certified CSF coach, yet the company wasn’t interested in applying his knowledge—a missed opportunity that left me wondering what could have been.
This sparked my curiosity: I wanted to understand how our CSF results might affect the upcoming project. Two of us shared at least two of the same top five strengths, while another team member's strengths were completely different. Would this diverse mix of strengths complement each other, or would it create challenges in collaboration? At the time, I knew of no tools that could analyze our strengths from a scientific perspective and predict how well we could function as a team. ?
A Bit of History:
The Clifton StrengthsFinder (now called "CliftonStrengths") test was developed by Donald O. Clifton, often called the father of strengths-based psychology, in partnership with Gallup. Clifton believed that focusing on a person's strengths—not their weaknesses—was the key to success, both individually and in teams. By collaborating with Gallup, a global analytics and advisory firm known for its data-driven insights, they created a tool to identify and amplify individuals’ natural talents. This partnership turned CSF into a powerful framework used by millions worldwide to enhance team performance and personal development.
Driven by curiosity, I decided to apply our StrengthFinder results to a simple Venn diagram. My goal was to experiment and visualize how our team’s strengths aligned, and to see if we were balanced. What I discovered was eye-opening: our overlapping strengths helped us collaborate naturally, while our differences became our strengths because they created equilibrium and synergy. This insight confirmed the power of strengths-based team building
Discovering the Test and My Own Results:
When I first stumbled across the Clifton StrengthsFinder test, I was eager to see what it could reveal about my own strengths. The anticipation of receiving the results felt like taking a DNA test—uncovering parts of myself I had yet to fully understand. It was also like finding an old map in a cave, leading to hidden treasures. This discovery was transformative, changing the way I thought about team building.
My top five strengths—Futuristic, Strategic, Maximizer, Ideation, Context—helped me better understand how I approach work and how I could harness my strengths alongside my colleagues’. It also allowed me to verify that our roles aligned well for the project we were about to start.
Using the individual results of the StrengthsFinder test created a working model for team building, and I began experimenting with visualizing our team’s strengths. I initially created a Venn diagram by hand, which helped me identify similarities and outliers in a more scientific and unbiased way. This visualization showed how we could balance each other’s strengths and address gaps, while our overlapping strengths helped us collaborate naturally.
How Clifton Strengths and Jung Typology Work Together
After mapping my own strengths, I realized I could apply this process to the entire team. I started by creating a Venn diagram to see where strengths overlapped or diverged. For example, I shared the Strategic strength with one teammate, allowing us to collaborate easily on planning. Meanwhile, another teammate’s strengths in Focus and Responsibility brought a different perspective, helping us balance execution.
Heatmap of Team Strengths and Personality Traits
Here’s a visual that demonstrates how the team’s strengths and personality traits come together:
To illustrate how these tools intersect, the following heatmap visualizes the key strengths and personality traits of each team member. By examining both StrengthFinder and Jung Typology results, we can see how diverse talents create a comprehensive team profile
This heatmap shows how the strengths and personality traits of Cara, Alex, and Sam complement each other. It highlights areas where their skills align and where they differ, ensuring that the team has a mix of strategic thinkers, executors, and relationship builders
Comparing Strengths and Personality Types
The next step was to visualize how Clifton Strengths and Jung Typology results overlapped. Using a Radar Chart, I could better understand how strengths were distributed across areas like Execution, Influence, and Strategic Thinking. This chart also helped highlight where the team needed more balance.
Radar chart provided a clear snapshot of each team member's strengths across different categories:
This visual breakdown helped identify whether the team was balanced across key areas like Execution, Influence, and Strategic Thinking. While Execution was strong, the chart revealed a need for more focus on Relationship Building to improve team communication.
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StrengthFinder vs Jung Typology Comparison
To further demonstrate the alignment between these two assessments, the following radar chart offers a visual comparison between Clifton StrengthsFinder and Jung Typology. It provides a clearer view of how strengths and personality traits correspond in key areas.
The radar chart shows the overlapping areas between StrengthFinder and Jung Typology, such as Strategic Thinking and Introversion vs. Extroversion. This comparison allows us to see how these tools reinforce each other, helping teams achieve a balance of cognitive and emotional skills.
With the combined insights from Clifton StrengthsFinder and Jung Typology, I leveraged AI to dynamically assign roles based on each team member’s strengths and natural tendencies. By inputting team profiles into the AI, we ensured that roles were matched to both the team’s needs and individual capabilities.
Below are examples of how this process was applied to create highly effective teams for different projects. These examples highlight how AI helps balance strengths and personality types, ensuring each member’s role is aligned with their natural talents.
Here's how the process works:
CSF & Jung Team Assignments: Crisis Management Team
Cara (ENTJ) – Crisis Response Lead: Cara’s Strategic and Futuristic strengths allow her to anticipate challenges and lead with confidence. As an ENTJ, she keeps the team focused on long-term solutions and high-pressure communication.
Alex (ISTJ) – Operations Manager: Alex’s Achiever and Focus ensure all logistics are in place. With an ISTJ personality, Alex brings reliability and precision, managing internal processes seamlessly.
Sam (ENFP) – Public Relations Lead: Sam’s Communication and Empathy make them a natural at handling media and customer relations, ensuring a human-centered approach during the crisis.
CSF & Jung Team Assignments: Film Festival Promotion Team
Cara (ENTJ) – Creative Director: Cara’s Futuristic vision and Strategic planning guide the creative direction and marketing strategies of the event. Her ENTJ trait ensures strong leadership throughout.
Alex (ISTJ) – Event Operations Manager: Alex handles logistics with ease using Achiever and Responsibility, ensuring the event runs smoothly, from ticketing to vendor coordination.
Sam (ENFP) – Communications Lead: Sam’s Communication and Positivity drive media outreach and stakeholder engagement, creating an energetic connection with audiences.
CSF & Jung Team Assignments: Technology Product Launch Team
Project: Launch a new tech product, handling development, marketing, and customer support.
Team Roster with CSF & Jung Typology:
Cara (ENTJ) – Launch Strategist: Cara’s Futuristic and Strategic strengths shape the product’s market positioning, with her ENTJ trait ensuring decisive leadership and a well-executed launch plan.
Alex (ISTJ) – Operations Lead: Alex’s Achiever and Focus ensure that the product meets standards and deadlines. Their ISTJ personality adds reliability and precision to the process.
Sam (ENFP) – Marketing Lead: Sam’s Communication and Empathy strengths, along with their ENFP personality, make them perfect for driving customer engagement and building excitement through marketing campaigns.
What Dynamics Did Jung Typology Add?
The Jung Typology reveals how each team member naturally works and communicates, adding depth to how the team handles high-pressure situations.
Crisis Management Team:
Film Festival Team:
Why This Methodology Produced a Better Team:
By incorporating Jung Typology, the team isn’t just based on what each person does well; it also considers how they naturally work together. Jung adds insight into communication styles, decision-making preferences, and how individuals handle high-stress situations. This leads to:
More effective collaboration, with team members playing to both their strengths and their natural work styles.
Closing Thoughts: A Personal Reflection
In my own experience, I’ve seen bias in the workplace, where talented individuals were sidelined because management focused more on external factors than on the true potential of their teams. Too often, biases—whether implicit or complicit—lead to missed opportunities and the overlooking of great talent. This is exactly why I created this model. It’s not just about filling roles; it’s about truly understanding what makes people tick and how they can complement one another within a team.
The model I’ve presented offers a powerful alternative. It provides a fair, data-driven approach to team building that prioritizes capability, collaboration, and potential over preconceived notions. By combining StrengthFinder and Jung Typology, and harnessing the power of AI, companies can go beyond surface-level traits and really understand their people—leading to more innovative, diverse, and effective teams.
And while this framework is robust, it’s also flexible. Companies can always fine-tune it to fit their specific needs, whether they are small startups or large organizations. The key takeaway is that this model is a tool that can adapt to different environments, ensuring that teams are built not just to perform, but to thrive.
Thank you for taking the time to explore this AI-driven approach to team building using CliftonStrengths and Jungian personality typology. If you’d like guided instructions on using these tools, I’d be happy to send them to you. Just let me know! [email protected]. Cara Harpole
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