Work It Out, Revised Edition: Using Personality Type to Improve Team Performance

Okay -- everyone has taken the MBTI assessment, knows his or her four letter type, and can identify the introverts and extroverts and thinkers and feelers. Maybe everyone understands himself and his colleagues a little better. But the team is still dysfunctional. There is conflict and misunderstanding, and the most well-intentioned colleagues drive each other nuts. How can you use the MBTI results to help resolve the conflict and enhance not just individual performance, but team effectiveness?This book provides superb guidance on how to use MBTI preferences as a tool in identifying and resolving work-related issues. Using plausible, realistic examples drawn from their own experience, the authors provide step by step guidance on how to detect issues that stem, in part, from type differences, and suggest approaches for addressing the issues. The examples show conflicts related to the introversion/extraversion dichotomy, the sensing/intuiting dichotomy, the thinking/feeling dichotomy, the judging/perceiving dichotomy, and from a new manager's efforts to behave in a manner inconsistent with her preferred type. None of the examples are overly simplified, so they provide tremdous insight for the reader.The authors also provide an excellent introduction to type preferences, and summaries of each of the 16 MBTI types, noting strengths, typical areas for growth, and suggested coaching approaches for each. In the appendices, the authors provide an outline for conducting a team-building and coaching sessions. Overall, an excellent choice for anyone interested in applying knowledge of type preferences to enhance team or individual performance. Although the authors do provide an excellent overview of type preferences, the book is not an introduction to MBTI and may be best-suited for those already fluent with MBTI and type preferences.