Insights from listening to Dick Thompson, PhD

Insights from listening to Dick Thompson, PhD

During the most recent eChapter teleconference “The Link Between the MBTI® Instrument and Other Popular Instruments,” Dick Thompson, Ph.D. discussed how he uses the Element B™ (FIRO-B), EQ-i® MSCEIT®, and StrengthsFinder® alongside the MBTI tool. In this lively session, Dick gave a brief overview of each of these instruments, shared data on how they correlated with the MBTI preferences and most importantly detailed the value-added that comes from approaching client issues from multiple vantage points.

Because a rebroadcast of this teleconference will be available soon (information on how to access it will be on the eChapter website), I’m going to focus here on what Dick shared about the practical aspects involved when introducing clients to several instruments at once. Firstly, he stressed the importance of obtaining a qualification for and experience in any instrument you intend to use in order to understand both its unique attributes and how it the concepts it measures relate to psychological type. He also advised that in most cases you should begin by introducing type concepts and determining best-fit type. Then, so as not to overload people and provide time for these ideas to be absorbed, take a break before presenting the results of another instrument. Finally, Dick suggested that when you review the patterns you see in client results, you share how knowing about type can help with interpersonal development and knowing about interpersonal skills can assist in type development.

In addition to getting some useful ideas about how I might effectively combine each of these four instruments with the MBTI tool, I also admired how Dick crafted his session. For instance, it helped me engage with the material on the Strengths Deployment Inventory knowing that these were Dick’s own results we were viewing. When a workshop leader or coach is willing to be vulnerable and share his/her own results, this can go a long way toward making it safe for clients to follow suit. Moreover, self-disclosure such as Dick modeled can be a key means for building trust and overcoming Lencioni’s first and most basic team dysfunction – Absence of Trust (see Lencioni, P. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2002).Furthermore, Dick’s willingness to share how he himself had used these two assessments in tandem helped bring their synergies to life for me as well as building credibility for the multi-instrument approach with a concrete example.

In closing, I’d like to use this post as an opportunity to invite those of you with experience using multiple instruments with your clients to write about the benefits of such an approach for the APTi Bulletin. Articles should be between 500 and 1000 words in length and the deadline for submission is November 1. Contact me, Katherine W Hirsh hirshworks@gmail.com, and/or Gayle Veltman bpteditor@cox.net, the Bulletin editor, with your ideas!

Katherine