Myers-Briggs (MBTI)

The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is the oldest and most respected personality assessment used throughout the world. It has been translated into more than 30 languages and over 2 million assessments are routinely done here in the United States each year.

Why is it so popular?  People find their MBTI results helps them understand themselves and others in a new very powerful way.  These insights are not only reassuring – we’re all quite normal – but they also helps us understand and deal with others particularly with the common misunderstandings and miscommunication we all often experience.

The benefits of taking the MBTI benefits are many . . . you walk away with a real appreciation of the “gifts” you bring to the table in both your personal and work life.  And you also identify what motivates you, what drains/boosts your energy, how best to communicate with others and even “blind spots” that can get in your way unintentionally.

Kit has been certified in the MBTI through Type Resources, Boston since 1997.  She has extensive experience and expertise in offering the MBTI to both individuals and to corporate work teams and work groups. While living in Norway, she had the unique opportunity to offer the MBTI to a cross-cultural multi-national audience.

Taking the MBTI with Kit

Kit welcomes both individuals and groups to take the MBTI with her.

• Individuals – you can either take the MBTI on-line or in-person at Kit’s office (plan on 2 sessions/2 hours total).  After receiving your results, Kit prepares a packet of MBTI materials that addresses exactly what you want to address.  It may be around a career transition; positioning yourself for a promotion; communication with your boss or colleagues; managing stress or focusing on your time management skills.
• Groups – The MBTI is an excellent team building tool because it is positive, self-affirming and gives your team members a common language to understand each other.  Kit customizes all her corporate training to ensure that you receive the maximum benefit of investing in the MBTI for the company (plan on 2 session/3 hours total).

Fascinating History

The history of the MBTI is fascinating . . . originally developed in 1942 by a mother-daughter team, Katharine Briggs & Isabel Myers, the MBTI was designed to describe normal healthy differences in people. Briggs & Myers based their work in part on the work of the Swiss psychiatrist, Carl G. Jung (1875-1961) who was researching and developing a unique theory of psychological types. Jung’s initial personality typology was surprisingly similar to Katharine’s research which she had actually started in 1917.

This belief in “normal behavior” was quite radical in those days especially for two American women not affiliated with academia and without scientific credentials. What is so interesting is that these women believed so strongly that if we simply understood each other better and appreciated our differences as normal then we would move closer to world peace.  They took their ideas further during WWII advocating that women entering the industrial workforce for the first time should be matched with jobs that they would be “most comfortable and effective”.  So the first use of the MBTI was in career development where it is still used for that same purpose now 65 years later!