The Value of MBTI in Manufacturing Organizations

In August of 1998 I was hired as the engineering manager for a large manufacturing firm in
Cary, IL. The firm had been in the same small town for approximately 50 years and had large
numbers of employees with significant amounts of tenor, several in my department had been
with the company for over 20 years. My predecessor had been described as ineffective,
reclusive, incompetent, and lacking leadership or interpersonal skills, in addition he had been
gone more than 8 months when I arrived. The engineering organization overall was described as
having a high degree of technical skill, yet their effectiveness was limited by a tense, adversarial
relationship with the production department.

Several of the engineering department employees abrasive behavior had escalated to a point
where they had been reprimanded several times and were on the verge of being terminated,
despite excellent technical skills, intelligence, dedication to the company and our operational
objectives, and extensive seniority. I began discussions with them to understand the motives
behind their behavior.

The common theme underlying the problem employees behavior was a high level of frustration
with the production employees inefficient methods of working. This frustration would manifest
itself initially as a comment or suggestion to various employees on manners in which they could
improve their performance, however the persons on the receiving end of the suggestion would
take the suggestion as a personal criticism, and the discussion would frequently erupt into a
shouting match.

I concluded that part of the reason the relationship between the two groups personnel was bad
and getting worse, was a lack of understanding of the other persons perspective. Engineering
and technical personnel are typically all trained in one manner. Technical career training tends
to teach a person to think very logically, to regard problems as having right or wrong answers,
and optimal methods for achieving the correct answers, essentially stressing achieving a high
level of efficiency. Technical persons are taught in a manner that does not attach emotion or a
strong interpersonal relationship to being effective or successful.

My observations from my professional experience led me to believe that many production

supervision and management personnel who have been promoted from shop floor employees
have among their above average skill set a significant orientation to strong interpersonal
relations.

As a degreed Mechanical Engineer I had been trained in exactly the manner I described above.
Fortunately I had the opportunity to attend a management development course in which the
Myers Briggs Personality Type Index was taught extensively. My personality type was
evaluated by this method and compared with my strengths and successes versus my failures and
weaknesses. The understanding of this concept was, for me, equivalent to having an epiphany.
For the first time I realized that everyone else did not see things the same way that I did, and that
probably explained why they would not do things in a logical, efficient manner.

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After listening to my employees frustrations with their coworkers in the production department, I
realized they could benefit from the same exposure to MBTI. Upon investigation I determined
that none of the personnel in these departments, that were required to work together, had ever
had any exposure to MBTI. I contracted a local expert in the subject matter to provide 3 days of
training on the subject to a joint session involving both production and engineering personnel. I
remember vividly, at one point in the training the instructor had every person in the class line up
along the walls in order of their score on the T-J index. The discussion that ensued this activity
demonstrated that the same epiphany I experienced was occurring in several of our employees.
For the first time their eyes were opened to the possibility of more than one way to see a
situation, and how their behavior, comments, and actions could be seen to have an intent
different than what they intended.

Team performance change dramatically following this training. The work environment became
much more cooperative, with both department focusing more on the objectives rather than
fighting each other. The individuals who had previously been reprimanded and who were near
termination improved their performance over the next several months to a point where they
received excellent performance appraisals, with no further incidents of reprimands or shouting
matches since the training.

As you can see, I place I high value on the concept of MBTI, regardless of it’s scientific
accuracy. The exposure to the concept that people can be very different in their personality, and
therefore in their perceptions and actions, is very beneficial to enhancing organizational
behavior. I believe the subject should be taught not only in work settings but even earlier, as a
required high school subject, so that it reaches not only college educated professionals but also
trade professionals.

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