The other day, I was having a discussion with some friends about personality tendencies and how they affect team dynamics. Many of us are "wired" a certain way, which determines how we engage with the world - some think through things out loud, while others need quiet time to process new information; some of us make intuitive leaps, while others need to see it to believe it... and so on.

One of the most interesting tools I've been exposed to for determining your personality "type" is the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). This is a tool that helps you identify your preferences for processing information, interacting with others, and making decisions.

A bit about the model

There are 4 pairs of traits that define the spectrum of personality in this model :

• Extraversion vs. Introversion: Broadly speaking, these deal with how you process information and where you gain energy.
• Extraverts tend to gain energy from action and interaction. They talk through ideas to develop them, and feel energized in social situations involving lots of people and mingling, for example.
• Introverts tend to gain energy during their quieter, thinking times. They tend to be deep thinkers, and often prefer intimate groups over large groups.
• Sensing vs. iNtuition. This pair deals with how you perceive the world - how you gather information and process it.
• Sensors are the "show me" types. They trust facts they can see, feel, touch, taste, and hear and tend to be very grounded in their thinking and are very pragmatic and data-driven. Sensors are skeptical of "gut feel" and hunches.
• Intuitives are more comfortable dealing with abstract data, patterns, and theories. They often have "epiphanies" based on combinations of things they've been exposed to, and trust those flashes of insight.
• Thinking vs. Feeling. These deal with how you make and rationalize your decisions.
• Thinkers are more logical and detached in how they come to a decision. They are comfortable interpreting and using rules, frameworks, and other structured models for processing data.
• Feelers are more apt to consider the human aspects of decisions - they are driven toward consensus, balance, and harmony in the decisions they make and tend to be influenced by compassion.
• Judging vs. Perceiving. The final pair of traits define how you relate and present yourself to the outside world.
• Judgers like to "have things settled" and push toward definitive decisions. They are most comfortable with clear answers and declarations.
• Perceivers like flexibility. While they will make decisions, they prefer the option to change their mind later and tend to keep their options open.

You'll notice that each pair has one capitalized letter. The capitalized letter is used in a kind of shorthand to describe your "whole type." For example, my MBTI type is "INTJ" for Introverted, iNtuitive, Thinking, Judging. There are 16 different combinations of MBTI types, and you're one of them.

You can read one description of the INTJ type on Wikipedia - it's not 100% accurate for me, but it's pretty darned close. Why isn't it 100% accurate? Two reasons: