I’m doing a little experiment with Myers Briggs analysis and founding teams.  I’d love to hear what others think.

I’ve known about the Myers Briggs personality test for a while. By the way, I’m an INFJ – relatively weak on the I and F but very strong N and J.

I always thought that personality tests in generally are a bit hokey.  But as I’ve seen lots of small teams operate, I’m starting to see the benefits of thinking about these personality differences a bit more.

My big problem is what you do with the information.  But I recently tried to do some analysis with a small team and came up with the following structure.  I’m curious to hear others expand on it and see what people think.

1. Similarities vs. Differences: First, it’s interesting to take a cursory look of the similarities and differences of a team.  These have general implications I think.  If a team is very similar, it means that you should focus more on potential blind spots.  If a team is very diverse, you should focus more on how to create a harmonious decision-making process. 

2. Decision-Making: How you see the world largely influences your point of view and the way you come to decisions.  At the end of the day, I think this is where personality traits for team members really come into play.  I think this is particularly influenced by the S vs. N and the P vs. J components.  If there is a lot of overlap, then the question is how to structure the decisionmaking process to fit and compensate the personalities.  For example, J’s are very good at creating and executing on structure.  But P’s don’t do this as well and would be better served by a less concrete decision-making flow. On the flip side, diverse teams can expect some level of conflict in making decisions, and being aware of personality differences can help prevent these conflicts from becoming emotional or personal. 

3. Blind Spots:  Some teams can work perfectly well and happily, but completely miss things as a group because there are too many similarities.  This is pretty common, because folks tend to gravitate towards working with people that are similar to them.  At Ebay, my department was largely made up of INTJ’s, for example.  It’s important to look at the personality characteristics that are missing from a team and consider what mistakes are likely to happen as a result. 

4. Opportunities: The flip side of being similar is that a team is also going to be very strong in a few dimensions.  Instead of focusing too hard on differences, I generally think you get more bang for your buck by doubling down on strengths (that will be the subject of another post).  So, once similarities are well understood, I think it’s constructive to think about how the team can operate in a unique and competitive way as a result.

What do people think?  Helpful?  Too theoretical? Did I just waste 10 minutes of my life blogging about this?  I’d love to hear more, especially things that have worked or haven’t worked as a result of this sort of analysis.