I, The Absolute

It has been my strongest belief that each individual is unique and classifying individuals under types is first not possible and next not acceptable. Hence, my disregard towards sun signs. Now what do you do when you have a widely accepted psychology model which proclaims that there are only 16 types of people in the world. I cannot wish this model away as the authors derived their model from the writings of none other than Carl Gustav Jung. More importantly and increasingly, many a recruiter is using this model, known by name MBTI, to understand the type of the interviewee and thereby his or her fitment into the role he or she is seeking to join. MBTI is built by a daughter-mother duo and takes it name ‘Myers-Briggs’ type indicator from it.

Today, I took the test which led me to the conclusion that I am but one type of the sixteen types than can exist. My being refuses to accept that I can fit into a type. I am myself. How can someone define me or know me just by knowing the result of a test which I took over 10 minutes. The test and its results raise some existential questions to me. MBTI also claims quite presumptuously that my type was formed by the year 7 of my life. There is little that I can do to change my type, the attributes of which are called preferences. What I can to compensate do is to build competencies, which certain contexts demand. It is better if I worked on my competencies with my preferences behind rather than against me. MBTI further claims that I will be a better people manager if I knew what type of people I have in my team and deal with each according to his or her type. Putting to question whether I have been a good people manager at all uptil now.

While I refuse to be fit into a type, I will deal with this model and its results as the implications are quite deep, while being annoying. The employers who are going to come to the campus will put me in the psychological laboratory to know the type I belong to and upon the results will brand me fit or unfit for the job. For the year, I will do further research on this model and see if I can convince myself to buy this theory. I will also learn to effectively manage and use the model to my benefit.

Once I am in an organization, then I will deal with people as though each one is an individual and a type by himself. And that if I cannot convince myself in the next one year that these types are indeed possible.