Advice to Prospective Clients Regarding the MBTI
(This is a cross-post of a message I recently shared with a coaching message board.)
There are a lot of practitioners who perform what we call “test-and-tell,” which consists of little more than handing a person back their MBTI results, which violates the practice mandated by the ethical body that oversees MBTI practitioners. This is deplorable because the assessment is only 70% accurate according to its own user manual. (Don’t even talk to me about those knock-off free online quiz things. I wish they were illegal.)
In the past couple of years, I have met huge numbers of people who have been mis-typed by assessments. It takes due diligence to find one’s best-fit pattern, and some people take years to identify theirs. (I like to think I have great tools to find it faster than that, but hey this my niche and that’s my perspective.)
As far as CTI coaches go, I’m encountering an astonishing number of coaches in the programs who claim ESTJ preferences who are clearly mis-typed, and it’s obvious from 30 paces away. (Other mis-typed codes show up too, but ESTJ seems to be “up” a lot right now for some reason.) There is an empirical aspect to type, and clues to the pattern are embedded in one’s needs, values, talents, and behaviors. It’s not a random and mysterious game of “Pin the Tail on the Donkey.”
Just like coaching, there is a “fine art” to working effectively with type. And, truthfully speaking, the whole concept is pretty lame if you don’t get your pattern right. 
(It’s a little like having a coach who doesn’t “get you.” The experience won’t leave you feeling very good.)
If you’ve already done an MBTI but weren’t impressed or it doesn’t feel good (or you just plain have doubts), you might want to consider doing it again with a different practitioner. 
Is it worth it?
I guess it’s only worth it if you genuinely want to understand who you are. 
In my time on this planet, I have found no other models that are more rewarding or told me more about myself than these (yes I am using a plural since in my practice I employ 5 models of personality altogether that match at the four-letter MBTI type code; it’s a very complex system on the other side of an assessment). The journey has been fascinating, affirming, ever-unfolding, awesome, invigorating — and every day I discover something new about myself using only these models.
I feel like one of those old TV ads — not only am I a practitioner, I’m also a customer. ~grin~
I coach people to identify and develop their natural personality strengths in order to maximize their potential.
July 1st, 2009 at 10:32 pm
As a very satisfied customer to date, I can’t express my gratitude enough at those tools you use. I think I could be a poster child for the problems with the “test-and-tell” approach. Whether done by practitioners, on my own for a fee or with those free online thingies, the results have always been the same with two notable exceptions: INTJ.
Thanks to your detailed way of approaching the subject, and despite my own incredible misunderstanding of myself (which still embarrasses me, BTW; I apologize for my stupidity in dust and ashes), I found out that I am SO not an INTJ. Mirablu dictu, my “best fit” is ENFP, what Dr. Kiersey calls the mutual Pedagogue with INTJ — and my lifelong fictional alter ego (through whom I have lived so much) is my Shadow or Contrast, INFJ. There’s just no way I could’ve learned this without your help and that of the fine workbooks by Linda Berens et al., although some excellent Web sites (to me anyway) set me on the road to your directed self-discovery course. (5 models? What are the other 2?
)