Recently, I did some research into a company called Cloverleaf, located in Cincinnati, OH, whose goal is to help agile managers follow the first item in the Agile Manifesto: “Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools.” They use a series of complex algorithms that consider input from Resumes, DiSC, StrengthsFinder, Myers-Briggs, VIA, Cloverleaf Culture Pulse Survey, etc. in order to determine the optimum team combinations within a company.
The reason I bring this up is that, as I was listening to the five speakers from the Swift demo that I wrote about titled, Going Swift, the Apple Way, and they all mentioned that it was the person – personality, culture, etc. – that would determine if an employee was hired. I further discussed this in my post titled, Top 5 Things to Do for Successful Job Interviews.
This topic of hiring someone based on personality and culture spoke to me because I believe that people as individuals are the key to a successful business so long as they work well together – something that Cloverleaf also believes. In addition, there is a lot of research that has been done into this topic; however, the main take-away is that a successful business has a unique combination of all different types of people. A melting pot, if you will. The reason being that the best ideas come from mixed opinions. Unfortunately, some individuals don’t mix well with others. This is where “fit” comes in.
Determining “fit” is extremely complicated based on Cloverleaf’s interviews, of which I will do a separate post regarding my findings, and one of the items they use in order to achieve this is the Myers-Briggs test.
The Myers-Briggs test is a relatively popular way of determining a person’s personality type, and I myself have taken it a couple of times over the course of my college career – as a fun fyi, based on my MBTI Assessment, I am INTJ or ENTJ: Introverted AND Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, Judging.
During the discussion prior to the Swift demo, Brandon Peterson from the Desert Research Institute (DRI), mentioned specifically that personality is absolutely the most important item he looks at when hiring. Because of this, I decided to pose a question to the panel, which I’m going to paraphrase because I’m not 100% sure how I asked:
When I was an undergrad, and even now while I’m a graduate, I’ve had to take the Myers-Briggs test. Recently during my research into a company called Cloverleaf, I have seen the use of the Myers-Briggs test as a part of the team assessment and assignment process. Do you consider Myers-Briggs in your hiring process? Is it something that you find relevant?
Brandon, Abbi, and Bryan were vehemently nodding their heads during my question, and each of them claimed that they found it highly useful. I believe Amy may also have been nodding, but I cannot say with certainty. However, Brandon then went on to say that the Myers-Briggs test was something that they were not only using, but that they were combining with other, potentially more recent, tests in order to create a healthy culture. Brandon’s colleague, William Dippel, goes into further detail on this with his post, What are you really good at?
This kind of positive response for the use and consideration of the Myers-Briggs test has caused me to consider the importance of not only taking the test, but in understanding the different results that can occur from that test. More specifically, how the different results that people get from the test can affect each other, and what kind of environment that creates.
Therefore, I believe that the Myers-Briggs test is not only still relevant, but also could become a determining factor in the hiring process as more and more companies strive to have a healthy company culture.
Kiminy Cricket 
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