Asha Treacy

Great job on the website, you selected some very nice pictures. Recently I went back to school for fun and took this same personality test. Did you cheat off my paper?????!!!! OMG we have VERY close scores. Can you image two shy girls like us!! :)

Thanks Teri, so we're very similar eh, why does that not surprise me though..especially about us being sooooo shy..lol :)

*wince*
I don't want to be a party-pooper but there is not much value in identifying your personality type. MBTI is often grossly misused and it is highly unlikely that if you took the test again in a different (perhaps more accurately framed) context, you would get the same result. Further, as the results are strongly influenced by Jungian psychology (which in turn has been questioned for its dichotomous representations of logic and emotion), its application can at *best* only be considered as an oversimplification of complex human responses.

It's important to remember the MBTI was designed as a way of determining career choices, and was designed for a *moment in time* and not as a lifelong measure of personality. Further, the success rate even of this application of the test has been highly questionable. Indeed some skeptics argue that the popularity of the test is entirely based on the Forer Effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_effect).

Have a read of the very useful analysis by Matthews (2004) in the British Medical Journal here: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/eletters/328/7450/1244. Or for a more extensive response, read Annie Paul's book, 'The Cult of Personality: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves'. It goes through this in much more detail.

I know you're doubtful of personality tests. Please just treat this quiz as a mild distraction rather than anything that is actually indicative of your personality.

Hey Jo thanks for the feedback. It's really interesting to get people's different opinions on these kind of things. I'm not a big fan because these are tests of things of our personality that we should already know as individuals..shouldn't we? And then we take that into everything we do i.e. team building, tests, interviews etc and not the other way round..

I did enjoy the day very much with my team and think it was useful and fun comparing etc and while it may be different if I took the test again, this time MBTI wasn't too far off for me. However that does not mean I would keep referring to that.

Thanks for the links, I'll have a little snoop :-)

Hey Asha... good job on the blog again!

Have to say i know little or nothing about personality tests never having taken any! Will have to have a read on those links you provided and see how they work :-)

I've been at my company for over 2 years now and unfortunately had no team building days of any sort... is a pity as if anything sounds like from your experience it does seem a good way to get to know how your team ticks from the inside. Like you said about getting to know the different personalities and how you fit in and adapt yourself around them... and with our teams being cross site, including India, if anything is good to meet the people at the other end of those emails and phone calls! Maybe you have some ideas on how i could convince my seniors to give us a team training day(s)?? ;-)

Thanks Krunel. So many companies don't do these days. Apart from this one we had recently I can't even think when I was involved in one before (apart from Uni). Think it was years ago in Macs when all of HR around around the contry were brought together in Tring for a residental team building day. I vaguely recall outside activities, treasure hunt, food and drinks!! Pretty cool..

I know others do simple things such as bowling and meals. I guess it does not matter what you do, it's what you're trying to get out of them. For my boss he obviously thought this particular model would best suit the day. Next time it may be something else. I don't really know any other models apart from this one, which I had never heard of until now.

I can give one idea, maybe you can speak to your seniors about how hard everyone has been working there, staying late and going over and above the norm to see those projects through, all to add to the organisation success. A simple team training day, just to show some recognition sounds well overdue. Maybe give some ideas, that are cost effective to begin with too..

:-)

couldnt make any sense of yr blog...but i think yr great no matter wat xxxxxxxxx

Lol..you're too funny Ms KK.. x

Hey Asha! I've done MBTI a few times and it's really interesting to hear you're an ESTJ - I've come out at that each time I've done it too. Have you done Belbin's? They are more relevant to good teamworking and it is very useful to know you're light on, say, a plant or a completer-finisher in a team when it comes to recruiting. I'm not in agreement with jj about these things being of no use. If you use MBTI as an exercise with a group on a facilitated event you find people start to view colleagues in a different and more understanding light and it does build synergy in teams - did you not find it opened the team up amd got you interacting more after you did it? MBTI cannot predict how someone will perform in a given task or respond to given situation, but it does have other uses.

Hello Jon..That's interesting that you have done MBTI a few times and come out the same. Yes I remember doing Belbin at Uni. It was used to group us up for some presentation work. I think I was a team player and a completer finisher, can't recall the rest.

I wasn't too surprised of what MBTI I was but the reason why I enjoyed the day was because it was interesting to see how others came out and how we saw our relationships with the rest of the team. I think that was a good exercise for us.

I don't go out of my way to do these kind of personality tests myself, I'm not huge fan but happy to play game for teamworking exercises. The one thing I did notice when I completed the questions was 'what if I'm both of those answers or not either' I wondered whether it would be a accurate reflection of me as I was unsure looking at a couple of the questions..others felt the same too.

Thanks for your comment :-)

yet again you have done a very very good jiob on your blog.I am glad you enjoyed your day regarding the MBTI its good that you had a day of team bonding this is always important in any job I feel.
Anyway sweetheart well done and looking forward to seeing you guys very very soon.x

Thanks Si..you're right it is important, as we do spend alot of time at work with our colleagues.

See you soon xx

Dear Asha, I liked your BLOG. Its very nicely done. I read the MBTI. I am going to get to that now. I have heard about it but i have never tried it out.

Hi Sushil

Thank you, glad you like my blog :-)

Let me know what you come out as and see if we're similiar!!

All the best

Asha

Hi Asha

Sorry it's taken me ages to reply!
Interestingly, we were just talking about Myers Briggs at work the other day. I haven't done it, but I have done Belbin, as you know, because we both did it as part of Toby's team. I was a Plant then, and a Team Worker now! You were right about yours - team worker and completer finisher - that one is in my bottom three, surprise surprise! The interesting thing about Belbin is that apparently your bottom three always stay the same - you have to realise that they are your weak areas and use other memebers of the team to help, and offer them your strengths in return. It was definitely true of mine - my bottom three were the same after 7 years, and in a differnet job! A lot of people at work have been doing a 'colours' profile recently. Not sure exactly what it is, but you do a questionnaire and end up with a colour aligning you to a personality type - but you each get an individual report. My colleague said what was in the report could have been her PR, it was so accurate. I hope I am going to get to do it myself. I do think that these tests have their place - but only if you use them to enhance how you work with others around you. I agree that you should know your own personality, but where it has helped me in the pst is seeing my worth in a group situation, especaially as the team I work in is not particualry close - due to the nature of the job we work quite independently. Apparently the colours one also gives advice on how to communicate with the others in the team - and how they should communicate with you. One girl said she was going to show her boyfriend as it said what anooyed her! So, I don't think you should get too hung up on these personality tests, but I agree with Jonathan, in the right context they can be very useful.

Great blog!!

H xx

Hey Helen, I remember that team building day with Toby..oh the good ole days!! Team worker and completer finisher came up for me again when we did Belbin at Uni. I think I know the colour one too, done that in one of my licence retail days. It was done on alot of training sessions. If it's the right one from what I can recall I was sunshine yellow.
I agree these tests can be useful if used in the right content, but that's about it...they do also take up quite a bit of time.

Now who the hell is your completer finisher, now you don't have me eh eh ????

Hi Asha,

Very well written, I must say i enjoyed reading the entire blog ! everything summed up in a nutshell.

That was an amazing blog, as ever brillian stuff .
Roma sounded amazing and having seen the pictures I know it was.
Well done girl!
Loads of luv
Si xx

Please take it easy!