A couple weeks ago work asked us to take a personality inventory: by knowing the different personality types on the team, management can help us work more smoothly, and adjust their own actions and reactions for each person. It was reasonably accurate, about as accurate as the MBTI. Possibly more so, though I'd attribute that to a narrowed scope, since it focuses on work environments. I'm pretty introspective, to say the least, so there weren't any surprises, but these things always give you stuff to think about, and it's interesting to hear another estimation of what you might be like. We went over the results in an individual meeting with a very skilled consultant, who knows how to use the test in a productive and positive way.

When a few of us were chatting about it with my boss, I said, "Oh, I'm always interested in what other people think of me." He said, "Actually, it's what you think, it's from your answers." I replied that "Kind of. They have a model, and this is about what their model thinks I'm like, based on the information I give it."

The bottom line: I'm a creative problem-solver, with a high attention to detail and accuracy, and a balanced attitude to change. I have some leadership ability (a slightly elevated D score), which I don't feel compelled to use (which is true, since I will take charge if the situation requires it, but not any longer than is necessary). I tend to be fairly analytical in decision-making and don't let my emotions out into the workplace much. Most of my problematic traits--a lack of diplomacy and concern for others, difficulty in accepting feedback, difficulty in delegating tasks--have all been pretty well attenuated by maturity and practice. The whole process was overall astonishingly sane in how we're approaching it and how the consultant went over the results with us. There was nothing as presumptuous as "these are the kinds of problems you encounter and here's how you might deal with them"; instead, it was much more like "people with these scores tend to exhibit these traits, and if you don't, we'll just cross that off your sheet". And in general I'm doing a job I'm suited for, though I think everyone knew that already.