What CPP, Inc. says about the MBTI® assessment:
The MBTI® Step I assessment is a multiple-choice personality questionnaire that looks at how a person perceives the world and how they prefer to interact with others. The MBTI® framework helps people to improve their working and personal relationships in a positive and constructive way.
The MBTI® Step I assessment does this by identifying an individual's psychological 'type', made up of four basic preferences that are represented by the letters, E-I, S-N, T-F and J-P. Once a person has identified and worked with their Step I four-letter type, they can explore this in greater detail by moving on to the MBTI® Step II questionnaire.
How it works
You need a licence from OPP to use the MBTI® assessment. Once you have your licence, you can either buy hard copy question books (re-usable) and answer sheets (very low cost per person) or get the client to do the whole thing online (more expensive but looks professional). Once the questionnaire is completed and scored, client and coach will have a structured discussion to identify the MBTI® type that fits the client best. Having done that, the “answer” from the scoring of the completed questionnaire will be looked at and any differences between that and the type arrived at in the coach/client conversation will be discussed. Finally, coach and client will use the client’s MBTI® type as a framework to take the client’s development forward.
Why I use the MBTI® assessment
- The MBTI® questionnaire is based on good quality research so it’s easy to talk about it with confidence to a client, even those who are in industries that are highly skeptical of anything even slightly psychological (or what they would class as “touchy-feely” or “flaky”)
- It has been around for decades and is demonstrably more than just this year’s fad
- More than 3.5 million people take the MBTI® assessment every year – this gives the tool a lot of credibility
- There is a huge amount of accessible and useful material written about the MBTI® assessment to help a client to understand what it means to be one type rather than another
- It is supported by high quality training for the licensee and practitioner
- Some client organisations already use it and so the language is familiar to many clients
- It is non-judgmental – there isn’t a best type to be
- Type diagnosis is done in a structured conversation between coach and client. The client decides which type is his/hers and therefore understands how he/she got to that result. There is no mysterious “black box” answer that just drops out of a questionnaire
- The MBTI® assessment recognises that we’re all different and that each of us will interpret our preferred type in a slightly different way. This helps clients to feel confident that they are not being categorised or squeezed into a narrow box
- The MBTI® assessment helps clients to understand the differences between personality types and to work more effectively with other people, changing approach to improve communication and reduce friction
- It helps to determine a client’s likely strengths and identifies those qualities that can produce challenges for the client and for the client’s colleagues
- It helps clients to think about the preferred style of others and produces great “aha” moments when a client suddenly realises why he/she finds a particular colleague or situation difficult
- It helps clients to think about how they might need to adapt their style when they’re seeking to influence somebody who is a different MBTI® type to their own
- It helps me to adjust my coaching style when I’m working with somebody whose MBTI® type is different to my own.
MBTI® is owned by CPP, Inc. and distributed through OPP Ltd.
CPP, Inc.
1055 Joaquin Road, 2nd Floor
Mountain View, CA 94043
T: (650) 969-8901
F: (650) 969-8608
E: custserv@cpp.com
www.opp.eu.com
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T: +44 (0)845 603 9958
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E: enquiry@opp.eu.com
® The MBTI logo is a trademark or registered trademark of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Trust in the United States and other countries.
® MBTI and Myers-Briggs Type Indicator are registered trade marks of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator Trust. OPP Ltd is licensed to use the trade marks in Europe.
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