Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

The one benefit of personality surveys that I have always seen is that people gather and talk.

I have been part of organizations, yes, several of them, that initiated big projects wherein everyone answers personality questions. MBTI is one such set of questions; strength finders is another. I have yet to be part of an organization that completed its grand plan for the use of such sets of questions.

Regardless of plans and lack of success, there is one benefit to these question sets that I have seen in every instance:

Persons gather and talk.

Persons learn that their colleagues are persons, too. They learn that someone else likes german shepherds, roses, or Sherlock Holmes. They learn that their fears and dislikes don’t exist. They learn that they can work with that odd person across the room who always had that funny look on their face and wore the wrong kind of shoes.

Anything that helps persons understand the other persons will help an organization in its endeavors.