Looking at Type in the Workplace
I have been an MBTI (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) user for almost 10 years. Although I don’t come from a psychology background, I’ve always been interested in psychology since college, where I took Information Technology. I can’t remember the exact reason for my interest in psychology, but AFAIK I was trying to understand other people better.
Like many introverts, I didn’t spend much time with people. Being alone was my favourite activity. But I was always curious about why people do things, why they behave like that, why they become cruel, what makes them soft, etc. I tested myself against MBTI when I saw it posted several times on Facebook. The result was quite shocking, how accurate the result is — at least from my POV. I learned more about it, which led me to ask several friends about their MBTI results. Almost all of them said it was accurate.
In 2017, I had this crazy idea: “So, based on MBTI, every person is UNIQUE. It makes people can do many things very well, as long as it is suitable to their characteristics. If I can use it very well, then I can transform people to their best performance. If we apply it to education, we can teach them according to their TYPE. If we apply it to the workplace, we can guide them to achieve the goal of the job with an optimised result and still feel happy”.
So I bought two books. One is for education and one is for workplace. I will talk about one of them, Looking at TYPE in the Workplace.
TYPE in the Workplace
The workplace is a dynamic environment. Even though I said I learnt a lot from the book, in reality it is not enough. I have to consider various other references, trial and error, company culture, policies and some adaptation. However, understanding the talent of the team, starting from the recruitment process, onboarding and during the work, it really helps to shape the strategy.
The company has rules, of course we have to follow them, but how to communicate the rules, how to apply them to the team, how to handle them case by case so that they can follow the vision, mission and policy and still maintain their satisfaction, we can cook and formulate with the help of MBTI.
One of the workplaces I implement MBTI is a cybersecurity company producing cybersecurity product. In Indonesia, cybersecurity talent itself is already rare, software developer who can produce cybersecurity product is almost impossible to find. So there is no other way but to create them, to transform them from “ordinary” software developer to understand cybersecurity so they can produce cybersecurity product.
I wouldn’t say that MBTI covers 100% of the process. There are so many strategies formulated and implemented for the last 3 years, understanding MBTI probably took about 20%, but it really give the impact.
The result? This is from my POV, but I think other people who see the result will have to admit that it was a successful attempt. I had countless hours of thinking, accepting and modifying many things while correlating the MBTI type of each talent in the team to produce the product. Understanding each and every one of them.
For me, it is also satisfying because I finally have my own recipe for transforming the team. As for them, in the future they will be able to say that they have experience in producing good cybersecurity products, which I hope will be great for their careers.
Today, AI and technology are replacing humans in the workplace. In my opinion, it is just another history repeating itself like the industrial revolution. While AI is great and scary, I don’t think it can beat human. Human who can use AI as a ‘tool’ will be better than human without AI. But human has talent that if cultivated properly, it can produce even better results with the AI.
This is a classic story, if human can’t adapt, then they will lose and difficult to find good job in the workplace. As for the company or the management team, understanding TYPE can help improve the team’s performance. We can transform them into their best form, and then you will see how bright and shiny their talent is.
