While consulting for Marine Midland Bank, I came across a human resources manager who was a certified analyst in the Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Unfortunately, I came across him while he was obtaining responses from an executive vice president that the latter surmised would have come from his deceased mother, had she had the opportunity to answer the questions.

Who could make this up?

I found out later that the executive had been convinced by the analyst that he could develop a profile of the former’s mother which might explain why she treated him the way that she had. This was psychobabble pressed to the limit, and unethical to boot.

I’ve seen a major utility place managers’ "profiles" on their coffee cups, presumably so that visitors could better understand the "type" to whom they were speaking. (I guess this was pretty dangerous when someone borrowed a colleague’s cup…)

Personality profiling is too often used to explain away behavior, rather than to try to help us understand it. Even among the validated instruments—and many of the instruments available are not valid and are little better than horoscopes, even though in widespread use—a trained professional is required and the recipient needs to know that the analysis is simple one tool among many. Nothing, for example, beat observed behavior, especially since most people are capable of significant behavioral spans.

Before we endorse statements such as "What do you expect from an INTJ" or "Well, there’s a driver/driver" let’s take a moment to appreciate the intricacies and beauty of human performance. Elements such as context, environment, and the nature of the other performers all heavily influence situational behavior.

Let’s take the time to really try to understand each other at the moment, rather than predict what will happen in the indeterminate future based on creaky instruments and weak analyses. There are palm readers who can do that well enough.