Identité erronée
I’ve spent the last 20 years traveling the world teaching audiences how to adapt their communication style to others based on cognitive preferences and the core values baked into their Temperament. I’ve gotten pretty good at spotting the different preferences and temperaments in action, even when they come from different cultures.
What’s the most frequent case of mistaken identity? When someone pense they are one four-letter code, when in fact they are something totally different?
ENTJ tops the list.
Pourquoi cette confusion ?
There are lots of hypotheses for why this is, but for the most part I take it as a simple reflection of the bias that exists in many contexts where cognitive preferences and temperament are introduced. Organizations have gotten better about this, but there is still an expectation that leaders come across as high energy, strategic, logical, and closure-oriented. These attributes are, of course, things that anyone can do but match up with the characteristics we associate with Extraversion (E), Intuition (N), Thinking (T) and Judging (J)… ENTJ.
And so, when people go through a leadership course and they take a traditional questionnaire-based approach to personality, it’s quite common for them to steer their answers towards these preferred norms and end up with a different 4-letter code than their actual best-fit type.
But wait a second, who am I to say they’ve landed on the wrong type? Aren’t the results of their questionnaire like the results of a blood test?
In other words, if they came through the questionnaire as an ENTJ, isn’t that the final answer?
Pas. Même. Presque.
Best Kept Secret: Your Best-Fit Type
There is actually a well-established process for helping people find what we call their “best-fit” type. And yet, this process seems to be the best-kept secret in the whole field. There are tens of millions of people wandering the earth thinking they’re an ISTJ, ENFP, and everywhere in between, even when that was just the answer thrown back to them by some questionnaire.
The hard truth is that before we built our own online platform, we found that anywhere from 30-50% of people would “switch” their type from the results of a questionnaire once we properly explained the cognitive preferences and they had a chance to consider different options.
30-50% is a lot. And it wasn’t just people switching on one of the preferences… it could be 2 or 3 of the 4 preferences. Which begs the question, what is the value of the questionnaire if it comes out with the “wrong” answer so frequently?
Pour répondre à cette question, voici quelques éléments clés à prendre en compte :
#1 : Le questionnaire n'est qu'une première étape
The questionnaire approach, popularized decades ago by instruments like the MBTI®, was never intended to stand alone. To meet the standards of ethical use, before you see the results of a questionnaire, someone is “supposed” to explain the different cognitive preferences to you, and then allow you to make an informed selection about how you see yourself on each preference. However, I put the word “supposed” in quotes because of how infrequently it actually happens that way. In our experience, the vast majority of people going through a questionnaire process are simply handed their results and told “this is what you are” with no other opportunity for clarification. And, this is why we have so many people walking around thinking they’re an ENTJ (or whatever), despite the fact that a significant percentage of them would have ended up with a different type had the process been followed correctly.
#2 : Réduire à 2 options
L'objectif de l'animateur ou du coach est de passer en revue chacun des différents aspects du type de personnalité et de permettre au participant de se situer du bon côté. En règle générale, un des quatre aspects reste la préférence "la moins claire". C'est ainsi qu'il faut procéder la plupart du temps. À partir de là, le participant doit lire les deux descriptions entre lesquelles il doit choisir. Je sais, cela semble très différent de l'obtention des "résultats" d'un "test". Pourquoi permettre au participant d'être celui qui évalue, de manière subjective et à travers sa propre perception ? C'est pourtant ce que l'ensemble de notre secteur estime être la meilleure façon pour les gens de trouver ce que nous appelons le type qui leur convient le mieux. Nous sommes tout à fait d'accord avec ce principe.
#3: It's Up to Sabrina to Decide her Best-Fit Type
If someone, let’s say Sabrina, is going through the process of determining her 4-letter code, it is going to come down to the moment when she reads at least two type descriptions and decides which one she thinks describers her best. However, it’s common for Sabrina to get to see herself on both sides and be a little confused if her own determination is different than the results of her questionnaire. Which one is “right?” The answer is that the questionnaire results can be set aside in favor of what Sabrina has chosen for herself.
Du questionnaire aveugle au vérificateur TypeCoach
At this point, you may be wondering why people use the questionnaire at all if the “real” part of the verification process is when the participant goes through the process above and has determined their own best-fit 4-letter code. That’s the exact question we asked ourselves.
What we did instead, and it is still a core component of what we do with all clients, is to replicate the verification conversation someone would have with a trained coach. That “conversation” is now delivered through videos and animation that explain the different aspect of personality type and which then allow the participant to make an informed selection based on how they see themselves. Before the exit the process, they are required to read at least 2 descriptions – and if they need more they can read as many as they like – before picking the best-fit f-letter code for themselves based on which one they feel describes them best.
Landing on Your Best-Fit Type
While we find that about 90% of people will stay with the results of our Verifier process after a further opportunity to learn and clarify their type, we actively encourage people to keep an open mind about their own 4-letter code. The 10% who later switch to a different 4-letter code typically tell us that they were thinking of themselves in a specific work context and had to let that go to find the best results. We find that it is very rare for people to adjust more than one preference from their Verifier results.
If you’re among the large number of people who have been through a questionnaire but never had the preferences properly explained, we strongly encourage you to make sure you’ve correctly found your true best-fit 4-letter code by following the suggestions above.
If you are a practitioner who has perhaps skipped over some of these steps above with your clients, you are not alone! We strongly encourage you to make sure that people have the opportunity to move past the questionnaire results as described above.
In addition to our own lignes directrices éthiques, the Association of Psychological Type International (APTi) has published lignes directrices éthiques cohérente avec les points soulevés dans cet article.
And remember… the next time someone tells you their 4-letter code, take it with a grain of salt!
