Teams Blog

I thought I had finally found it: scientific evidence that the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is worth the time and money for team building. You see, in all of my research, not once have I seen such evidence. I have heard people talk about how they improved their communications with one or two other people on their team after an MBTI exercise, and I believe them. Others have said it was “pretty accurate,” to use the most common phrase (not “completely accurate”). But the only unabashed support I have heard comes from the people who sell MBTI services, and managers who invested in them. Neither are very objective sources, and no one had return-on-investment (ROI) figures.So I went looking through two databases of peer-reviewed journals. “Peer reviewed” means the article was reviewed by anonymous experts in the field. One database focused on business and the other on psychology and related sciences. Together they cover hundreds of journals going back decades. The number of articles I found referring to MBTI in a team setting: 2. 

When I came across the first, I thought we had a winner: “Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: A bridge between counseling and consulting.” But then I came across a second from the same journal which turned out to be a response to the first. Both are now summarized in TeamResearch News. It turns out the author of the first article, Mary H. McCaulley, co-founded the Center for Applications of Psychological Type with Isabel Briggs Myers, co-creator of the test. None of the references in her articles were tests of the effectiveness of the test. 

The study summary has the details, but there are many problems with the MBTI. The test itself is not as respected as other personality tests used by scientists. One problem is that its scoring pushes people artificially into extreme labels rather than recognizing people can fall in the middle. (Initially it did, but that neutral position was later dropped.)  

To illustrate, if you created a scale from 0 to 100 measuring how much someone likes bananas, the scoring method used by the MBTI would say you don’t like them if you scored a 49 and you do if you scored a 51. But two people who scored a 2 and a 98 are a lot more different than two who scored a 49 and a 51. Scientists would say the latter two are identical, while the MBTI would say they are different. 

It also does not provide reliable results. Even one of the MBTI manuals reports a 35% change in type over four weeks, and another study reported 50% over five weeks. Since you can’t be sure whether the first test or second is closer to the truth, you would have to take the test a minimum of three times, and preferably more, to nail down an accurate type reading. Even then, the article says, you have to be aware that personality is a relatively small contributor to work performance, and that behaviors differ according to the situation. No one who has seen me do a presentation or training would think me an introvert, but that’s what I am. I treat my public work as a performance to make it interesting.

Ms. Briggs was not a psychologist: she had only a bachelor’s degree, in political science. And the MBTI was based almost exclusively on the theories of Carl Jung. Though an influential theorist right up there with Freud, and the guy who came up with the terms “introvert” and “extrovert,” he is controversial within the scientific community and much of his theory work remains untested. Personality tests preferred by researchers are based on evidence guided by theory, not theory alone. 

Even if the MBTI consistently helps most takers get along better with two teammates (the highest number I hear people say), it would be aiding less than half of the total number of communication channels within a team. Within roughly the same time taken by the typical MBTI exercise, and for free, you could draft:   

• a communication plan covering who needs what information from whom by when, and in what form, and
• a set of group-created rules for how you will talk to each other, and what to do if someone breaks a rule.

These two tools, if backed by team and manager self-discipline, will eliminate the majority of your team’s communications issues. Well-supported by research, they also meet the standards of adult learning by providing concrete, relevant information. With MBTI exercises, you end up with abstract type information and general suggestions that users must try to project into the future, instead of clear behavior-based guidelines. 

In the movie Jerry MacGuire, a client of the title character makes him scream into the phone, “Show me the money!” I would say the same thing to the next MBTI practitioner who claims the test is a good way to spend your money for team building.

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If you would like to have a hard-working, loyal team member, consider hiring an ex-criminal. At the very least, it may keep you out of trouble.

No, I’m not joking on either count. We’ll start with the latter. An article published this week by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) states that "pre-hire testing and background screening of applicants’ credit reports and criminal histories have come under increased scrutiny…" Recent U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) hearings and its first lawsuit against these practices are evidence.

The EEOC asserts in its lawsuit that the plaintiff company used credit histories and criminal background checks to unlawfully "deprive a class of black, Hispanic and male job applicants of equal employment opportunities and otherwise adversely affect their status as applicants because of their race, national origin and sex."

A "policy guidance" page on the EEOC’s Web site explains, "the use of arrest records as an absolute bar to employment has a disparate impact on some protected groups, (so) such records alone cannot be used to routinely exclude persons from employment." Only if the crime is "job-related and relatively recent" can a blanket ban be justified.

If you are hiring an accountant, an embezzlement conviction is probable a valid reason not to hire them. A conviction for a bar fight probably is not, nor is an embezzlement conviction for someone who will have no access to money. (Usual disclaimers: I ain’t a lawyer, contact yours for legal advice, just reporting what I’ve been told.)

The logic is, since minorities and males are more likely to commit crimes, criminal history can be used as a dirty trick to discriminate against otherwise qualified candidates. Don’t want to hire a male into your all-female office, but a male is the most qualified candidate? Check his criminal history, and refuse to hire him regardless of what the crime was or what he has done to make up for it. Since males commit more crimes than females, the odds favor your bias. But the EEOC does not.

What about increased risk to your company or workforce, both valid concerns? Two relevant statistics are bizarre in their similarity given that experts in different fields presented them. In the ethics presentation I blogged about last month, Jacob Blass reported that 93% of ethical violations are committed by people with no prior record. On Feb. 2, a column in the Raleigh News & Observer by a social work professor stated that 96% of sexual crimes are committed by first-timers. As someone said from the audience at the Blass talk, you are only increasing your risk by 7% (or less) when you hire an ex-offender.

Furthermore, Blass said, ex-offenders often are excellent workers because they are so grateful for the second chance. Logic indicates an ex-offender knows he or she is being watched and thus is likely to toe the line even more carefully than workers who feel more secure about their career options. A “blanket ban” on ex-criminals may well harm your company by cutting out the best possible hire without reducing your overall risk. If you consider yourself an ethical or religious person, you have plenty of other reasons to respect each individual on a case-by-case basis.

Do make the person explain their crime, when it was, what the circumstances were, and what the person has done to make up for it. Listen to the words they use, to see if they accept responsibility. Make sure the explanation matches the background check results. Consider how long ago it was, and how similar the situation was to anything they will face in your workplace. Then use your best judgment, lest even in these times of worker surplus, you miss out on hiring the best team member for the job.

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“You get what you pay for.” We often tell ourselves this when rationalizing the “need” to buy a BMW instead of a Hyundai, a Halston suit instead of one from JCPenney. Yet most companies seem content to pay people just for showing up.

In 1948, controversial psychologist B.F. Skinner published a utopian novel titled Walden Two, referring to American philosopher Henry David Thoreau’s book about living by Walden Pond in the 1840s. Skinner is a behaviorist, believing the right combination of incentives and punishments can mold anyone’s behavior as desired. More recent research into the effect genes have on our personalities disproves the basic premise, I believe, but many of his ideas are used successfully to help people function despite their inherent dysfunctions.

In a journal article, psychology Assistant Professor William Abernathy of Southeastern Louisiana University looks at how some of the principles applied in the fictional world of Walden Two could be used to change behavior in business. The article caught my eye because I read the novel in a college philosophy class. In the article, the idea some managers have that people should do something “because that’s what they’re paid for” takes a big hit.

Abernathy writes, “wage and salary payments… are based on time on the job during the pay period rather than performance during the pay period.” He adds, “When you pay for time, you get time. When you pay for results, you get results.” Where people are not paid for results, the typical method of behavior control is what he calls “aversive control. People work to avoid criticism, suspension, or termination. They do not work for their wage or salary but rather to avoid losing it.” In this environment, “escape and avoidance behaviors (tardiness, absenteeism) are likely.”

Straight wage-and-salary pay systems also make payroll a fixed cost that cannot vary with the times. In today’s economy, it forces layoffs that might have been avoidable if a greater percentage of pay was based on company performance. Some companies have responded in the past year by requesting big cuts in base pay from their employees in exchange for fewer layoffs. In every case I heard about, the employees agreed, making sacrifices so their colleagues could keep their jobs.
Aversive control also needs more supervisors, one for every 4 to 7 workers.

Abernathy says Skinner points to a better way, which is having employees directly feel the impact of external events rather than putting bureaucracy in the way. He quotes Skinner from the book: “You can’t foresee all future circumstances. You don’t know what will be required. Instead, you have to set up certain behavioral processes which will lead the individual to design his own ‘good conduct’ when the time comes.”

The best-known method for this is profit-sharing. But profit-sharing with no tie to personal performance encourages what economists call the free rider effect, as Abernathy says. He describes a method similar to the “work credits” system in Skinner’s novel, in which people are paid by the task—piece work on steroids. The article includes an example employee scorecard that:

1. Rates performance based on measurable goals,
2. Adjusts the worker’s base pay accordingly, and
3. Uses profit results to modify final pay.

For example, if you earned a 5% bonus by maxing out your individual performance, that 5% is all you would get if profits were flat. But it might get doubled to 10% if profits were strong. This would eliminate a concern I address in my teamwork book about setting goals that could hurt other performance measures if achieved. A goal to cut costs is great unless the team reaches it by cutting quality.

In a sample scorecard for a salesperson from other researchers that Abernathy presents, there are four measures:

• Gross revenue
• Gross profit margin, as a percentage
• “Milestone completion on a sales project,” as a percentage
• The “salesperson’s average customer satisfaction survey rating”

These are weighted according to company priorities. To this example company, the milestones are most important. Those results equal 40% of the grade, so to speak, and the other three 20% each. For each rating, there is a minimum acceptable result equal to zero on the scale and a goal equal to 100. To prevent the salesperson from focusing only on the measures he or she wants to do, negative scores are possible (-10 and -20). In other words, failing to meet the minimum on one measure could cancel gains on others.

To ensure alignment of each employee’s scorecard with company goals, Abernathy writes, the ideal system would start with the executive team setting and weighting those goals. The president’s scorecard would be based on the goals. He or she would create scorecards with the other executives; they would do so with their direct reports; and so on to the line level. “This process ensures alignment since each ‘designer’ wants to ensure the direct reports’ measures and priorities drive success on his or her own matrix,” Abernathy explains.

Pay for time alone is not a motivator in part because it is expected. Abernathy points out that self-employed people (like me) don’t have a ceiling on pay, but we also don’t have a floor. Hence our motivation comes from both directions. Employees, having a relatively secure floor, are more likely to indulge in free riding. One solution is to take out a few floorboards. Abernathy reports, “Organizations have had success when base pay was allowed to fall to 85% of market with a 145% of market pay earnings opportunity.” This was implemented over a period of years by raising the possible bonus pay annually rather than raising base pay. Inflation would lower the floor.

Walden Two does not mention managers. In nature, a system too complex for hierarchical control is broken into subsystems. Abernathy quotes another researcher who points to the central nervous system. Some body reactions require so much speed that the brain is divorced from the process. When you touch a hot pan, the signal only goes as far as the spinal cord, which in turn signals your bicep to pull the hand back. Another example is behavior that becomes routine, transferred from the higher thought centers of the brain to simpler structures. You have to focus on your balance when you learn to ride a bike, but eventually it becomes second nature.

Along those lines, Abernathy writes, “In place of military-style bureaucracies, organizations should work toward self-managed employee teams that are in direct contact with financial contingencies.” If its income is directly impacted by the division’s or company’s bottom line, you won’t have to force help on a team, he says. They’ll ask for it.

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Source: Abernathy, W. (09), “Walden Two Revisited: Optimizing Behavioral Systems,” Journal of Organizational Behavior Management 29:175.

When I was a kid, my beverage of choice was Thrifty Maid Grape Drink, the house brand of Winn-Dixie stores. The amount of actual grape innards was minimal, and to this day I can recall the slightly acrid taste it presented around the edge of the tongue. But it accompanied every breakfast for years, to the point where the smell was enough to turn my poor mother’s stomach.

One day when I was 8, I bounced down the steps and into my seat in the breakfast room, tossed back half a glass, and gagged. My throat and nose burned and eyes watered. “Mother, something’s wrong with my grape juice!” I yelled into the kitchen. My loving mother’s response was cackling laughter.

The date was April 1: April Fool’s Day. The “juice” was red wine. In today’s vernacular, I had just been “punked” by my mother.

She meant well, and could not have predicted the effect it would have. Already a sensitive kid, I lost all remaining joy at being on the wrong end of a practical joke. As an adult I have not practiced anything more than the mildest of forms. It took me longer to realize the damage of “put-down” humor, an art form I unfortunately mastered, to the detriment of a number of friendships. Many people truly suffer before if not after the “reveal” of practical jokes, though usually in private afterward. Upon seeing some new research, my position has hardened against these forms of humor when used without explicit permission or after a first strike by the target.

A psychologist at the University of Zurich, Willibald Ruch, led a massive team that surveyed 23,000 people in 73 countries (using 42 languages). The team found that anywhere from 3% to 30% of people in these countries had gelotophobia, defined in Science News as the “inability to distinguish ridicule from playful teasing. For them, all laughter is aggressive, and a harmless joke can come across as a mean-spirited assault.” Gelos is the Latin word for laugh.

Considered a personality trait, not an illness, the fear can nonetheless have profound effects on the person suffering from it–and therefore, one presumes, those around them. According to the study article (cited below), it shows up by causing the person to lose self-confidence, avoid situations in which they have felt laughed at, and assume that laughter in their vicinity is directed at them. Finns were the least likely to make that assumption (8.5%), while around 80% of Thais did.

Another pair of studies confirmed that “gelotophobes are less cheerful and characterize their humor style as inept, socially cold, and mean-spirited. They report less frequent use of humor as a means for coping and indulge less often in self-enhancing and social humor.” They also found things less funny overall. The report on those studies makes the point that gelotophobes are perfectly capable of being funny. They just don’t try, or don’t see their own humor the way most others might.

For the record, I’m not among the estimated 11% of Americans who are gelotophobes. Although I don’t like being the butt of jokes, I’m not easily embarrassed. Humor is a critical part of my presentation, training, and coaching styles, one of the ways I try to differentiate my services. And I’m a black belt, so no one ever laughs at me. (Yes, that’s a joke.)

At the same time, I am very careful these days to gauge the type of humor my audience can take. The more people there are, the less likely I am to tease someone or point them out individually, especially if I don’t know them. By directing humor at myself, I hope to convey that my intentions are honorable even when I tease.

I recommend against the use of “cutting” humor in work situations unless you are sure the butt of the joke can take it, best tested by asking yourself whether you’ve ever seen them use that kind of humor. Good-natured humor is a sign of well-oiled teams; it might even be the oil. But I think there is no place in the workplace for practical jokes. There might be exceptions, such as the small all-male team one of the members told me about where locker-room humor was used to reduce tension. However, there are plenty of ways to be funny with someone without being funny at them. Furthermore, a practical-joking team with a couple of gelotophobes would at best create unnecessary tension, and could at worst earn itself a lawsuit.

In short: Put… the grape drink… down.

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Sources:

• Gaidos, S. (2010), ”When Humor Humiliates,” Utne Reader, Jan.-Feb., No. 157: 74 (excerpted from Science News, 8/1/09).
• Proyer, R.T., et al. (2009), ”Breaking ground in cross-cultural research on the fear of being laughed at (gelotophobia): A multi-national study involving 73 countries,” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 22(1-2):253.
• Ruch, W., U. Beermann, and R.T. Proyer (2009), “Investigating the humor of gelotophobes: Does feeling ridiculous equal being humorless?” Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 22:111-143.