Team building activities come in all sizes, lengths, and levels of complexity—from icebreakers like “Two Truths and a Lie,” to games like scavenger hunts, to outdoor adventures (I wrote a newsletter about one that went very, very wrong).
But whatever the activity, its purpose is always the same: To make the real work go more smoothly.
For this to happen, team building must:
- Provide personal insights,
- Help people understand their colleagues, and
- Show them how to manage differences in styles.
And that’s where the MBTI comes in!
The MBTI’s History, and Mine
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) is one of the most widely used personality assessment tools in the world.
- First published in 1943, and based on the theories of psychologist Carl Jung, it was the result of 22 years of work by a mother/daughter team of self-taught psychologists, Katharine Briggs and Isabel Briggs Myers.
- Since then, the assessment has been reviewed and updated numerous times, to make it as clean and bias-free as possible.
- Today, more than 2 million people take the MBTI each year. Over the past 20 years, I’ve personally administered it to more than 1500 clients.)
I’ve seen first-hand how the MBTI can provide “better self-awareness for better self-management,” as my certification trainer put it. So naturally, my team building is based on—and begins with—the MBTI.
Before Team Building Begins
When you sign up for a Team Building Workshop, participants are asked to fill out an online MBTI assessment. (This takes 10-15 minutes, and can be done any time.)
Next, they find out which of the 16 MBTI personality types they chose “on paper,” and get the support they need to validate or change that choice.
The final result places them into one of four groups, or “public speaking personalities,” which I call:
- Reliables — disciplined, responsible, and traditional
- Improvers — questing, challenging, independent thinkers
- Helpers — intuitive, idealistic, and empathetic
- Experiencers — spontaneous, practical, and hands-on
Now for the Fun Part!
We already know a lot about your people—and we haven’t even done any team building yet.
We know:
- The range and balance of types on your team,
- Whether a particular group dominates
- What strengths and blindspots your team may therefore have, and
- What factors may be working against smooth collaboration.
Now we put everyone in a room and walk them through a series of hilarious, hands-on exercises that illustrate and clarify their differences—and then we talk about it.
To Learn More about MBTI Team-Building Workshops, Contact Me
And yes, arts and crafts are involved. 🤩
