If you're interested in developing yourself and your skills, then personality questionnaires will provide you with some useful information. A well-designed and validated questionnaire will give you some helpful feedback on your self-awareness - how accurately you perceive yourself and your strengths and weaknesses. For most people, these ‘tests' don't result in great ‘a'has' - moments of lightning personal insight. Rather, they confirm some things you've known about your strengths and weaknesses and therefore usually emphasise some areas for development. They can be most provocative by stimulating questions about how you behave and feel, providing you with an opportunity to think about yourself and how you interact with people around you – what's going well and what things you'd like to do more effectively.
The psychologist, Carl Jung, developed an interesting theory of personality. He recognised that people can, and do, continue to develop their personalities and skills well into adulthood – so we don't have to be stuck with the same old behaviour we developed as young people, but can learn more about ourselves and develop some less prominent aspects of ourselves: so, there's hope for us all! Jung's theory challenges you to think about how you like to operate in the world in a way which is easy to understand, and yet respects the complexities of human beings and our personalities.
Jung's work is most commonly applied using the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), a questionnaire measuring Jung's dimensions of personality. A recent development has resulted in the creation of an instrument which focuses entirely on people's behaviour at work so as to allow individuals to concentrate on their effectiveness at work without being distracted by discussions about ‘home' or ‘non-work' dimensions.
Known as The Jung Work Type Indicator (JWTI), it measures the same dimensions as the MBTI but restricts the questions it asks to your behaviour and preferred approach at work. It takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete (electronically) and after being scored objectively, you receive a standard report (about 10 pages in length) which tells you:
How do the hundreds of people who have used JWTI respond to their reports and the information it contains? Well, by far the majority are impressed with the ‘perceptiveness' of the report – frequently people say “That's just like me – how did you know that from my answers to just a few questions?” More importantly, people find the report constructive and practical because it helps them focus their efforts on areas where there will be some payoff – both personally and organisationally. It helps them improve relationships at work. It helps them become more effective.
The JWTI is in the final stage of development and validation. We have negotiated an agreement with the author, Robbie Macpherson, whereby readers (up to a maximum of 50) of e-seven can take advantage of this final step, by completing the questionnaire for free and receiving the report of the results, together with the opportunity to discuss the results with a trained occupational psychologist, by phone, if you so wish.
To participate, just send an email to Robbie@mcweb.co.uk saying you'd like to take advantage of this opportunity. All results are confidential – the only person who will see your results is you – unless, as many of our clients do, you choose to share them with colleagues and see how you can help each other with your development.
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