Reading People

by Anne Bogel

  Putting This Information to Work in Your Own Life

  The MBTI is focused on personal growth. At its core, it assumes that self-understanding leads to growth. The MBTI makes you feel special, and at the same time it makes you feel as though you’re not alone.

  The MBTI assessment is a staple of colleges, corporate America, and career counselors, precisely as Briggs and Myers envisioned in the World War II era.

  Many individuals first encounter the MBTI in their school days, since colleges and universities around the world use the assessment. Not many twenty-year-olds know what they want to do with their lives, even though they’re in school to prepare for exactly that. That’s where the MBTI assessment comes in. Understanding your type can be a huge shortcut to important decisions such as choosing a field of study and finding the right career path. The instrument helps students deliberately assess who they are, what they want, what they need, and how they are apt to succeed before they have to decide whether to study law or medicine; if they’d be happier moving to Chicago or Los Angeles; or if they should accept the start-up job offer or the corporate gig. The very process of wrestling through the inventory’s questions forces people into a useful posture of self-awareness and self-examination. It’s helpful on a personal level too. So many young people may feel they’re a mess, especially if they’re one of the rarer types. When a person identifies and learns about their type, they discover it’s okay to be themselves.

  The MBTI is a favorite workplace tool for similar reasons. Career counselors use it because when a person understands their personality, they can better identify which fields they’d probably be effective and happy in. This is because a person’s work is so intimately connected to their talents, needs, and gifts.

  Eighty-nine of the Fortune 100 companies use the assessment.10 It’s not unusual for potential hires to take an MBTI assessment as part of the employee vetting process. Corporations use it with the goal of helping their employees be the best they can be and aiding groups in working more effectively together by drawing on each individual’s unique contributions to the organization. A broad distribution of type strengthens an organization and prevents it from being lopsided. Without all the types working together, an organization will have points of weakness. Using the MBTI mediates weaknesses by bringing the right people—and their accompanying strengths—on board.

  Marriage counselors often lean on the MBTI because it helps people better understand themselves and their spouses. It gives them a neutral lens through which to view the ways they interact—both the wonderful ways and the stormy ones. As marriage expert John Gottman says, most conflicts in marriage aren’t solvable; the best we can do is learn to manage them and live with them.11 The MBTI has a similar assumption: a person’s personality can’t be changed, but it can be cultivated, and a variety of skills can be learned to facilitate better communication. Because the MBTI promotes empathy and understanding between individuals, it is an excellent tool for helping married people manage those unavoidable conflicts.

  It’s a valuable tool, but it’s also frequently misunderstood and misapplied. Let’s change that.

  How (and How Not) to Determine Your Type

  A shocking amount of confusion exists about the best way to go about finding your type in regard to the MBTI.

  Online assessments abound, and many people attempt to determine their type using one of the copious unofficial assessments available. People love these because they’re fast, free, and easy. And while they are a good starting point, don’t put too much faith in your results.

  Why? Because it’s amazingly easy to mistype yourself. I’ve spoken with many people who say they get a different answer every time they take an online test, leading them to believe their personality type changed. That’s not what’s going on. The truth is, like me, they didn’t type themselves correctly in the first place. The Myers & Briggs Foundation requires the official instrument to be administered by a trained professional to ensure that you get what it calls your best-fit type, and it strongly suggests a follow-up conversation with a knowledgeable MBTI expert.12

  I took the official MBTI assessment just a couple years ago—long past the point when I knew better—and typed myself completely wrong. It was the official instrument, but the person administering the assessment was a lay enthusiast, not a trained MBTI administrator, and I’m positive that made a difference. I tested as an INTJ, when I’m really an INFP. You might remember I made this same mistake when I took the official assessment back in college. Back then I made the mistake of answering the questions based on what I wanted to be like, not what I really was like. When I screwed up the test recently, it was because I answered the questions according to my learned behaviors, not according to my inborn preferences. These learned behaviors do not affect my MBTI type.

  The error rate of people who are mistyped is caused by several factors. First, as a self-reporting instrument, it’s only as accurate as a person’s answers. Second, the official instrument’s questions are quite straightforward, almost misleadingly so. It can be hard to understand exactly what the assessment is asking. Takers often don’t understand that they need to answer with their gut-level reactions to generate an accurate result. You want the response that best captures who you are at your core—without molding, shaping, or training. For the test to be accurate, you need to pinpoint your innate behavior, not your learned behavior. By the time you have a few decades behind you, untangling the two can be difficult!

  Vocabulary can also play a role in incorrect results. The assessment uses familiar words (extravert, perceptive, sensing) in unfamiliar ways, and this understandable vocabulary confusion can generate inaccurate results.

  Environmental factors can also skew your results. Your mood and fatigue level at the time you take the assessment will affect its outcome.

  A paid version of the official assessment is, of course, available on the internet,13 but if you want to take the official instrument, the easiest way may be to get in touch with your closest career counseling center. You’ll be able to significantly close the 20 percent error gap by talking over the instrument with a trained MBTI administrator, both before you take the test and after you get your results. (Hopefully reading this book will also improve your odds of getting an accurate result!) You should have the foundation you need to understand your type after reading this book and talking things over with someone who knows you well.

  If you prefer to figure out your results on your own, tread carefully. Some MBTI experts specifically advise against reading the various type descriptions available online and elsewhere to help you determine your type. They believe those descriptions are misleading and confusing, more like horoscopes than diagnostic tools. I’ve found the descriptions useful myself; they’ve helped me build a framework for understanding the different types of personalities, making it easier for me to perceive the wide variety of healthy human behavior at work in me and the people around me.

  When trying to identify your type, remember that no one MBTI type description will perfectly capture everything about you. The question to ask yourself is, Which type fits me better than any of the others?

  If you want to go the free route, I prefer the short, simple test at www.16personalities.com,14 but remember—as we discussed earlier—your results are only a starting point.

  A few guidelines for taking the self-test:

  Answer each question quickly. Give it five to seven seconds. If you don’t know the answer, move on and come back to it later.

  Give your gut-level answer. No overthinking.

  Be honest with yourself. Give the true answer, not the answer you wish were true.

  If you’re not sure how to answer, ask yourself what you were like as a child. Select the answer that best applies to your grade-school self.

  Do the best you can for now, because we’re diving into more information on getting your type right in the next chapter.

  Get Comfortable with Your Type Description


  Once you have your type description in hand, it’s time to read all about it. I’ve listed my favorite books in the Recommended Resources section. There’s a huge amount of information online, but not all of it is good, so proceed with caution. My favorite MBTI descriptions on the internet can be found at personalitypage.com.15

  You won’t see yourself in every part of every description—I sure didn’t. You may not even like parts of the descriptions. (I’m an INFP, and I hate the thought of anyone calling me a “healer,” yet that’s how my type is often described.) But don’t skip this step, because it’s a quick and easy way to see what your MBTI type could look like in action. After you read about common patterns of behavior for each type, you’ll be able to more easily identify similar behaviors in your own life or in the lives of the people around you.

  How (and How Not) to Use Your Type

  Our types should never dictate who we are or what we do—not to ourselves or to anyone else. Maybe you’ve heard people say things such as, “I’m an ENFP, so I couldn’t possibly _____.” That is not the point of diving into the MBTI framework. Instead, we can use our MBTI types to gain clarity about aspects of our personalities that we have felt lingering beneath the surface but have never been able to articulate. Once we bring these things into the light, before our conscious minds, we can actually do something about them.

  Some of these action points are practical. For instance, after my methodical friend helped me realize I wasn’t a planner at all, I was able to face the fact that I wasn’t great at managing my calendar and actually do something about it. I had been struggling in this area for years, but because I thought of myself as someone who was good at this, I was blind to my struggles. When the blinders came off, I was free to get the help I needed, which mainly meant asking friends who are natural planners to help me put systems in place.

  Some of the actions I’ve taken are more personal. As I’ve learned about what it means to be an INFP, I’ve been able to recognize myself in descriptions of common but unhealthy behaviors. For example, INFPs are at risk of idealizing their important relationships and then getting really disappointed when the other people in these relationships inevitably disappoint them—not necessarily because they did something terrible but because they’re human. Looking back over my life, I can see this pattern at work in ways that are much too embarrassing to put in the pages of this book.

  Try this for another example. As an Idealist type, I can be quick to get caught up in the moment and say melodramatic things that I’ve learned the hard way I’ll feel really stupid about later. I’ve discovered that even though this is my natural tendency, I don’t have to go with it. I can bite my tongue and avoid feeling like a schmuck later when my easily enflamed emotions have died down.

  The Good and the Bad about Your Type

  I’ve hinted at the fact that each type has its strengths and weaknesses. Different types have different needs and differing expectations from life and people and bring different things to the table.

  Let’s say you are an ISFJ. The odds of this are pretty good; it’s one of the most common types. You probably already know you’re people-oriented and that you hold tightly to your core values. You’re probably friendly, upbeat, and tradition-minded. You’re responsible, practical, and family-oriented.

  That’s all good news, and a lot of MBTI talk stops right there, with the good stuff. But let’s harness that information about your ISFJ type to take a look at your weaknesses—your blind spots. Blind spots are the problem points in our lives we never worry about because we don’t even know they exist. When you learn about your type—the good and the bad—this knowledge can serve as your guardrail. It’s much easier to keep from falling off the edge of the road if your eyes are wide open and the path is lit.

  Potential blind spots for the ISFJ include: you’re likely to be uncomfortable with change, whether that’s a change of career or a change of apartment or a change of relationship, like a break-up. You care about the way things look, which can be a strength—until you cross the line into becoming overly status-conscious. You care a lot about what others think, and compared to other types, you may need more positive affirmation to feel good about yourself. If you’re in an unhealthy place, you may not take good care of yourself, sacrificing your needs for those of others. You may catch yourself guilting others into doing what you want.

  This is where the MBTI can help. If you’re convinced you’re not the kind of person who would ever manipulate someone into doing what you want, you won’t even notice when you do it. But if, as you learn about your type, you shine a light on that blind spot, you’ll be able to catch yourself in the act and stop doing it (well, at least some of the time).

  As I’ve learned more about my type over the years, I’ve gotten comfortable with my strengths . . . and the weaknesses that go hand in hand with them. Just as you can’t simultaneously be short and tall, whatever strengths each type has are offset by corresponding weaknesses.

  As an INFP, I do ideas really well. I’m terrific at coming up with new concepts and possibilities. The flip side of this is that I’m not so great at the follow-through. But that doesn’t mean INFPs never finish their projects. In their wonderful book Creative You, David B. Goldstein and Otto Kroeger explore the different styles of creativity among the sixteen MBTI types. The way they articulate the INFP’s creative process has helped me. For my type, they write, “The possibilities are usually more exciting than the actual doing, and INFPs leave projects unstarted and unfinished. So you must step back and take a moment to consider how your ideas can be put into practice while focusing on deadlines and sharing; this amplifies your strengths.”16

  Ideally, interacting with the MBTI also will help you better understand how to interact with types who are different from your own. Once you learn how other types see the world, you’ll find it easier to accept them for who they are and know how to respond when you interact. By learning more about typing, and the sixteen personality types, you can see how traits you once perceived as weaknesses may actually be strengths, and vice versa. There are two sides to every coin—each type has strengths and weaknesses, which result in wildly different careers, leadership styles, and more.

  Working through Communication Breakdowns

  When we bring different personality types together, communication breakdowns are inevitable. Communication is the main challenge we face when we interact closely with people of different types because each of us interprets, understands, and acts in different ways.

  Thinking types may feel they’re being considerate by getting straight to the point in a conversation, unaware that their feeling friends perceive them as uncomfortably blunt. Intuitive types may think they’re contributing by sharing their grand plans in a team meeting, unaware that the thought of making so many changes at once completely stresses out their sensing colleagues. Extroverted types may feel disappointed when their spouses don’t immediately respond with enthusiasm to their ideas, ignorant that they just need time to think the ideas over.

  Because we have so much invested in our relationships, it can be enormously unsettling when they seem to go “wrong.” Understanding the MBTI helps us see that misunderstandings are inevitable. When we don’t see eye to eye with someone else, it doesn’t mean things are going wrong—it means they’re normal.

  Conflicts that arise due to personality differences can be troublesome but fairly innocuous, as long as we’re able to diagnose what’s happening. Not all relational conflicts are personality conflicts, of course, but many are. And those can often be effectively managed when we enlist the aid of a good personality framework to see the world through someone else’s eyes for a bit.

  More than Meets the Eye

  Many people find the MBTI to be an extraordinarily useful tool for understanding themselves, their work, their habits, and their relationships.

  But for this type talk to be helpful, you need to get your type right—which, as we’ve covered, is difficult to do. Th
is is the bad news for all you armchair MBTI geeks, because to really “get” framework, you have to understand what the cognitive functions are and how they operate. If you’re confused about your MBTI type, this is probably why. In the next chapter, we’ll dive into the lesser-known but extremely important cognitive functions, the heartbeat of the framework.

  7

  The Deck Is Stacked

  the mbti cognitive functions

  My friend Kim and I sat at my kitchen counter with an open laptop, two iced coffees, and a yellow legal pad.

  Kim threw down the gauntlet. “I’m not getting up until you tell me my Myers-Briggs type once and for all.” She’d taken every free test on the web and kept waffling between the types. “I just can’t decide if I’m the entertainer or the entrepreneur,” she said.

  “What types are those?” I asked.

  “One is Madonna and one is Marilyn Monroe.”

  “I mean, what are the letter combinations?”

  Kim had no idea, so we fired up the website she’d been relying on. It turned out she was wavering between ESTP and ESFP.

  “All the descriptions start to sound the same after a while. Are you sure I’m not both?” she asked. “How do I decide?”

  I reached for my pen. I strongly suspected that Kim was struggling because she hadn’t identified her cognitive functions. When you skip over the cognitive functions—and most people do—the MBTI info won’t be as helpful as it could be. It might even be grossly misleading. That’s because the only way to truly determine your MBTI type is to identify your functions and the order you use them in.

  What You Need to Know about Cognitive Functions

  I know the term “cognitive functions” sounds fancy, but it’s just a short way of describing all the different ways our minds are capable of working—the ways our brains are wired. The functions identify the specific ways we process information and make decisions, depending on our individual personality types. Learning about cognitive functions is like learning a new language. It might sound like gibberish at first, but before long you won’t have to give the shorthand notations a second thought. If you push through, you’ll get the hang of it. Your understanding of the MBTI and how it works will grow exponentially, making it a much more effective and fascinating tool. Understanding the cognitive functions is not super simple, but it’s worth it.