PEOPLE will sometimes say so-and-so “doesn’t have any personality”. What they really mean is that they do not find the person being referred to socially desirable. But there is a deeper and more useful understanding of personality when you examine its scientific meaning.

What can understanding personality do for you?

If you understand personality types, you will better understand you. You will understand what drives you, what restricts you, what it will take to make you the best person that you can be. At the same time, it will help you with the critical choices in your personal and professional life.

You will also be able to understand your co-workers, employees, business associates, friends and family better. You see the patterns in yourself, your partner, your children, the people you work with. If you think about it, you will see that various types of people with various personalities make up our social landscape.

Personality Type is a scientific construct

Everyone has a personality and a personality type. First, it is a scientific construct from the discipline of Psychology, which is the scientific study of human behaviour and mental processes.

Personality examines the “how and why” of individual differences. We note the unique and consistent patterns that people display as they respond to their environment. There are many schools of thought, and many different theoretical approaches to understanding personality.

One of the most consistently researched and verified approach over the last 60 years is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). When psychologists talk about type, they are actually talking about something that is hidden beneath the collection of traits and behaviours that the general population thinks about when they use the term ‘personality’.

It is generally accepted that there are 16 different personality types. Carl Jung, Isabel Myers, and Katharine Briggs did substantial work in this area and the MBTI is the personality system that they developed. We have worked with this model for the last 20 years and have found the constructs to be valid and reliable.

How I became me

My first and lasting introduction to the power of personality profile occurred a little more than 30 years ago when I was an engineering major at the City University of New York (CUNY). Why was I an engineering major? Good question. In our education system, if you excel at physics, chemistry and mathematics then it is assumed and expected that you should either be a medical doctor or an engineer. Since I knew that I did not like touching lab specimens and disliked the sight of blood, medicine was not it. So by default, the choice was engineering.

One Monday morning a classmate asked “what did you do for the weekend?” I thought that this was a stupid question because my assumption was that everyone did what I did on weekends – party, party and party! Well, that is not what he did. He had done 200 Math problems and 300 Physics problems.

After having a good laugh, a thought occurred to me, ‘How come he enjoys the courses so much that he spends his free time doing more work, while I can’t wait for Fridays to abandon the books? Why am I in this course? Is there some course, some profession that could attract and excite me in the way that engineering did him?’ I cautiously and with much reluctance went to see the guidance counsellor.

I was introduced to the world of personality profiling. I answered a long list of what I thought then were stupid questions. I was asked to return in one week for my results. Naturally, I did not return. I could not see any benefit from this pointless list of questions. I tried my own method. This involved trying all kinds of courses until I accidentally found one that gave me the same excitement that I saw in my engineering classmate’s eyes. I discovered Psychology.

On the last day at CUNY, I went to the student affairs office to make sure that all was in order for my graduation. I found an unopened letter from the guidance counsellor. In it was the report of my assessment. Based on my personality he has given me a list of career options. At the top of list was psychologist! I was fascinated. I had taken the long route of trial and much error to come to the same conclusion, which I am still enjoying almost 30 years later.

Using personality profiles

Personality profiles can be used to determine the suitability of job applicants, to help people guide their future career development, to diagnose conflict areas in organisations, to provide advice and career counselling for students at the secondary and tertiary levels, and to help persons understand their partners and their children.

You too can benefit from the power of understanding personality type. More next week!

Dr Semaj is a frequent facilitator for strategic planning retreats, cultural alignment and organisational restructuring. He conducts staff selection and development programmes for different business sectors across the Caribbean.