Psychometric Tools – MBTI and FIRO-B

Many people are cautious when it comes to psychometric questionnaires

People often shy away from completing a psychometric questionnaire honestly. I often see very odd results due to people wanting to be seen in a particular way. They bend their answers into how they think they ‘should’ answer rather than answering truthfully.

The two that I use the most are MBTI® and FIRO-B®.

These tools are incredibly helpful when people in organisations are going through any sort of change initiative and team building.

MBTI® helps

• aid individual development
• identify leadership style
• develop managerial potential
• introduce organisational change
• understand and deal with responses to rapid change
• understand team culture
• improve communication
• develop selling and influencing skills
• identify learning styles and motivations
• improve teaching and training methods
• increased awareness of others
• identifying ‘blind spots’ in teams
• understanding reactions to stress and change

As someone who likes ‘models’ I see the benefits of using Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI®) as part of executive coaching and team sessions. This tool has been around for over 50 years with over 4 million questionnaires completed annually in over 35 different languages.

FIRO-B®

FIRO-B® has also been around since the 1950′s. It was first used for sub-mariners in the American navy to look at behaviour of people in closed confined spaces. Great for helping understand team dynamics and how people operate in today’s hectic life. Also useful to increase self-awareness and look at whether an individual’s needs are being met.

FIRO-B® helps

• team development so as to identify the likely sources of compatibility or tension
• identify leadership style
• effective decision making
• improve communication, openness and trust
• resolve conflict
• identify individual stress points
• increase self awareness and inter-personal effectiveness

If you are interested in developing yourself or your team, have a look at some other psychometric tools and models that I am qualified to administer.