I did a Myers Briggs several times over my career, I always found it very descriptive of me and it followed the changes in me with time and experience, changing somewhat between the first and last which were many years apart. However, I am aware of the debate around its capacity to describe accurately in some situations.
John
It may be that it worked well for you because you came from the same cultural background as the people who devised the test.
I have always believed that all such tests, including the much used IQ tests, are very culture dependent.
I suspect that's correct, JOhn. Also the tests were based, I believe, on the theories of Carl Jung which in itself must introduce some sort of viewpoint or bias.
I think the success of the test being in huge usage all over the globe indicates its usefulness to those who ask for it and those who take it. I'm no evangelist here, I just found it useful for myself.
Another good use of the test was when I did once administer it to the members of one of my teams during a team building day and the effect was remarkable. They got their results and I observed that the results were private to each individual but, unbidden, everyone started discussing their Myers Briggs profile together and not only did that generate a useful self working session that I had to do hardly anything to keep it primed and on track and back in the office it cured a few ongoing tensions and promoted much more self motivation in the team to organise themselves around whatever task appeared on the horizon, allocating tasks fitted to the various personalities. So again, I think the individual people did recognise themselves in their Myers Briggs profile and were thereby able to take a dispassionate view of their strengths and weaknesses that helped interaction.
John
