What’s the Best Team Building Personality Test?

Here’s why DiSC® is the New MBTI

Are you an INTJ?  How about an ESFP?  If you’ve ever taken the world’s most insanely popular team building personality test you’ll know what I’m referring to with those cryptic letter combinations.

More than 2.5 million people take the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) every year.  It’s used in almost every single one of the country’s top companies, and it’s been this way for decades.  It’s also popular worldwide: it’s been translated into over 20 languages¹.

The MBTI has been the gold standard of personality tests for going on half a century now.  But is it really the absolute best team building personality test in the world?

Lots of people say it’s far from the best.

Critiques of the MBTI

We’ll skip over all the scientific problems researchers have with the Myers-Briggs test.  They range from issues with validity and objectivity to the general criticism that the terminology it uses is very vague and general.

One huge problem with the MBTI is reliability.  Studies have shown that when people take the MBTI more then once, they wind up  with a different type classification each time!  And it’s not just some of the people who seem schizophrenic with radically different MBTI results…it’s half!²

Why then does the MBTI persist at corporations everywhere, from Baltimore to Beantown, Orlando to Oregon?

Why is the MBTI still so popular then?

One professor, Professor David J. Pittenger who is Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Marshall University and a known expert in social science statistics, thinks he has the answer.  He says it’s simply because it’s so popular.

MBTI has been aggressively marketed for decades, and thousands of people have invested in becoming certified in MBTI.  It’s simply the status quo, in other words.

Break the mold and consider a new team building personality test.

Rather than forging ahead with the status quo, many companies are finding that a new personality assessment works better for them.  It’s DiSC®, of course.

They find DiSC® easier to understand and much more relevant for today’s workplaces.  Transitioning from taking the test to making use of the results happens much more easily and way faster, too.

After a DiSC® workshop, participants come away with tangible lessons and an action plan for improving communications at work.  You can’t say any of this about the MBTI.  Sorry MBTI, you’re not the best team building personality test any more.

References

• CPP website.  Retrieved 1/24/2016 from https://www.cpp.com/products/mbti/index.aspx
• Moffa, Michael.  A Critique of The Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)—Part I: One Expert’s Review.  Recruiter.  Retrieved 1/24/2016 from https://www.recruiter.com/i/critique-of-the-myers-briggs-type-indicator-critique/