Speaking specifically about the Myers-Briggs personality test, Mark Manson recently called it a “horoscope for smart people” on his podcast, Solved. And… I’ve got to agree.
Let me give my own experience with these. First, up front I’ve never taken the Myers-Briggs test, to my recollection, and have zero intention of doing so. But I have been through others.
Two employers ago, close to the end of my tenure there, the company decided that everyone should be put through Gallup’s StrengthsFinder 2.0 – also known as CliftonStrengths. And to facilitate this, they gave everyone a free copy of the book – mine went into the giant locked shred bin on my way out – which had a unique code inside it for taking the online eval. And I eventually relented despite tons of resistance. Though that resistance fell short of outright telling my manager a staccato No.
Not sure what the ramifications of doing that would’ve been. Probably would’ve been little more than a write-up for not wanting to go along with the corporate mission… Which would’ve been interesting appealing that through HR… Anyway…
But I knew it was also nothing but pseudoscientific bullshit. Like the Myers-Briggs test. But one thing that sets some of these corporation-promoted tests apart from Myers-Briggs is the coaching session with a “certified” coach.
When ours came around – and I’ll bet she never did this again – she asked the group what everyone thought of the book.
Queue a long pause.
Then I broke the silence saying it read like a marketing statement, that it was made to sell StrengthsFinder, not justify it. Had a 1-on-1 with my manager the next afternoon – regularly scheduled – and he said that it looked like I “put her on the spot”. Umm… oh well…
Moving ahead a few years to my last employer. Not sure if it was the company doing this or if it was just this one Director’s idea, but she wanted us to do the Smalley-Trent test put out by the Smalley Institute.
Though given what I discovered about that test and the organization behind it, I doubt this was a corporate initiative. Since the Smalley Institute is… a Christian organization. Founded by the late Gary Smalley. And when I discovered that little tidbit, which took some digging, red flags popped up in my head. Since that has the potential to run afoul of Federal labor laws in the United States.
Several in my team got to talking about it out loud in our quad in an open floor layout, and I talked about the Strengths Finder as well along with discovering that the Smalley Institute is a Christian organization. And the place had a bit of an echo – we called it the “dev floor” since that’s where most of the development teams were. We tried to stay somewhat quiet because the person pulling us into this was also seated on the “dev floor”.
About an hour before we were supposed to have our coaching session, the meeting was canceled with the message saying it would be “rescheduled due to a conflict”.
It never was.
Around the time the cancellation came in, I nearly sent an email to the coach, CC’d to my manager, saying that since the Smalley Institute is an overtly Christian organization, I would be excluding myself from participating. Which is my legal right. Even though the personality test itself is not a religious exercise, that it was created and marketed by a religious organization is enough to run afoul of Federal labor and civil rights laws.
I wish I’d kept a copy of that draft before leaving.
