How to use personal assessment for good, not evil
It seems silly, right? Someone using a personal development assessment for “evil,” but as someone who has facilitated over one hundred MBTI and TKI assessments, I have seen many ways that the tools can be used for negative personal or professional reasons.
As a personal development strategist, I thrive seeing clients or workshop participants get the most out of a session. Few things fill my heart more than seeing someone have an “aha” moment about themselves due to an assessment.
On the other hand, I have seen folks misuse a personality or skill assessment in a negative way that impacts their ability to be able to process the impacts of the instrument or use it for active self-development. Below are some recommendations on how to not use this new-found knowledge for personal evil (also known as self-sabotage).
Do not pigeon hole yourself and others.
When we participate in a personality assessment, it is easy to get wrapped up in which Harry Potter character we are based on our MBTI type or who we are most compatible to end up with based on our Enneagram type.
It is easy to jump onto these websites and start to type the folks around us. You read a website that says individuals who type as an ESFP are the Ron Weasleys of the world, so you beg your partner to do the assessment to see if your guess is accurate. I’ve been there!
As a Coach and Practitioner, I encourage folks to have fun with the tool in this way when they have a solid understanding of it. It contextualizes the tool with our lives in other avenues, and I think this is awesome. It can become harmful when we do not have the context that there is a significant variance between folks in the same type. This is due to life experience, upbringing, social context, etc. — the factors are endless.
What we do not realize is that if the tool is not adequately explained to someone and they rely on these websites to help them make sense of their personalities, it can be damaging.
A personal example of this for me is with the enneagram. Even though I know it is best for personality assessments to be interpreted with a practitioner, I still jumped online at the height of its popularity to figure out what number I would be.
When I read that I was a type three, I was horrified! Everything about my type seemed to be so unaligned with who I wanted to be. Some words that describe type threes, from the Enneagram Institute, as charmers with a fear of being worthless, workaholics, or highly driven by advancement.
I drilled in on this and completely disregarded the tool because it was telling me something that made me uncomfortable with no context. Was I the same type as Rachel Hollis, Bill Clinton, or Madonna?
What I failed to read and digest from the Enneagram Institute was that at their best, threes can be exceptional role models that inspire others, authentic and ‘get-it-done’ people. These are all qualities that I admire, but why didn’t they resonate with me? It was because I had no context on how this tool can be used for my development, and it felt bruising to my ego to be seen in an unfavorable light.
Due to the variance within each type and the impact of life experience on presentation, there is no set way that folks of any type will be able to behave predictably. Sure, it is fun to make these connections, but do not become too attached, as there is always more than what meets the eye.
Not everyone will love the assessment like you will.
You might take an assessment and be absolutely enamoured with it. I often feel like this after assessments and am so keen to see how it all fits within my world view. I will read anything I can on the topic, listen to podcasts, and try to connect with others who know a lot about it to become more informed.
When I first got into the MBTI, I was surrounded by a community of folks who loved it as well. It was not uncommon for the letters to be tossed around without any previous context and for there to be a shared understanding. When I left this community, and now more deeply in my profession, I recognize it is not as common as I once thought for the average person to be ‘in the know’ on personality assessments.
According to a piece in the New Yorker, 2 million people take the MBTI assessment each year, and even within those 2 million, there are many skeptics of the validity or impact of the assessment. It is commonly compared to astrology by strong critics, although MBTI practitioners like myself cringe.
Not everyone will love the assessment like you will, and it is essential to find folks who want to learn about it with you, rather than to thrust it on the people around you. There are countless forums and Facebook groups dedicated to those passionate about these assessments, and the individuals in there are typically very eager to digest it with others.
Use it with a plan.
Most folks will take the assessment, hear their letters or number and move on without a care in the world. Often these assessments are done in the workplace as a form of personal team development to find a common language to engage with one another in more personal ways. This is extremely valuable, and I have seen these assessments transform teams.
Take some time with your assessment afterward and engage in some critical development about what it means to receive these results, what they might mean to your personal or professional life, and find ways to create meaning for yourself.
I typically take my assessment results, digest them, and see what I could learn from them. As I mentioned earlier with the enneagram, although my results hurt me, I have tried to take learnings and apply them to my life to better myself long term for those around me. This has meant an in-depth personal development plan with critical milestones for the year and habit tracking, but that will look different for everyone.
Do not let this personal data go to waste. Use it to make meaning.
The long story short on this piece is that although personality assessments and various indicators can be so helpful to our development, it is all about how we use it to better ourselves and our impact on others that matters.
