Myers Briggs vs Predictive Index: 4 Reasons Why Myers Briggs Sucks

My Dad and I have always like discussing our personality profiles on the Myers Briggs personality test. We don’t 100% believe everything the Myers Briggs has to say, but we think the test is a good starting point.

I myself (at least from the last time I took the test) was placed in the INTP category. Supposedly the “Philosopher”, it was a profile that for a long while I was pretty happy with, I liked reading books, thinking logically, and tended to expend energy interacting with people rather than being recharged by it.

My father on the other hand was INTJ, the “Engineer”. Which suits him pretty well as his job descriptions have been pretty much as close as you can get to being an engineer without having an engineering degree.

We would discuss together the pros and cons of the test, how our last letters were different and how that made us different.

But something about the test just never seemed right to me. Comparing notes on Myers Briggs profiles just seemed too much like comparing zodiac symbols.

Recently I had the opportunity to take a different personality test called the Predictive Index. My entrepreneurship mentor, who is the CEO of a company of 160 people uses the test to hire and manage every single employee on his team. When he was describing the test, I was instantly intrigued and a little skeptical (totally INTP I know), and I asked him to send me a link.

A week later I had completed the test. Which only took 10 minutes tops. I went to his office to have him interpret the results for me. Testers complete something like this twice, once for how you see yourself, and once for how others see you. It looks like this

From such a simple list of keywords I was extremely doubtful that any meaningful data could be gleaned.

Your result will look something like this.

Now if you think this thing looks wacky, you’re not alone, so did I. For those of you interested in taking a demo test click here . For those of you interested in how you would interpret a test click here.

After my mentor explained the results I was hooked. Maybe it was just confirmation bias, but the test totally “got me” more than Myers Briggs.

Now these are the 4 reasons why I think Predictive Index is totally better than Myers Briggs:

Spectrum vs Box

PI has the advantage of allowing to see just how far on either of the end of personality spectrum that you lie on. One thing that bothered me about Myers Briggs was not knowing if I was only a little bit INTP or a whole lot INTP. PI gives you a mean score from their years of collecting data, and shows how far you deviate from it. I don’t like just being placed in boxes, but that’s what Myers Briggs is all about.

Changeability

If you do take the full PI test you will receive three scores like the one above. The first is self which is your core being, the second is a measure of what you are reflecting within the past 30–90 days, and the last is how others perceive your personality by how you synthesize the first two. What I found really intriguing is that PI tries to capture the variability of our personality within our day to day lives. Mine showed that I was more impatient than normal (trying to graduate from dry, boring world of college classes), and that I was forcing myself to be more extroverted (I work as an RA in the dorms now, and have to interact with 100’s of people daily). I was glad that a test at least took a crack at displaying how humans are much more complex than four letters, which bring me to my next point.

Myers Briggs Letters Suck

I won’t claim that PI scores are easy to interpret. I had to have my mentor go through it step by step, and he’s been through a week long course on how to use the test. But Myers Briggs letters are possibly the dumbest, least sticky, seemingly arbitrary measures of personality. Which ones are opposites? Perceiving and Judging? What does that even mean? Isn’t there an Empathy one? What does N even mean? I consider myself an LMNOP. I’m probably just biased now, but I felt like PI factors, once explained are pretty easy to get. Whereas Myers Briggs just feels so beige and wishy washy. Sensing and N-tuition, are you kidding me?

Managing

PI is meant for the workplace. Of course our work lives and personal lives are intertwined. But PI, if you take the full test, does a great job at generating suggestions for how to manage someone with the profile (or manage yourself). For example my suggestions were that I am not suitable for routine, or repetitive tasks, as I will get bored (yes). It also suggested that I be given more independence and flexibility in task than the norm.

In the end I think every personality test is going to be flawed. There is just too much human for a test to capture. But I really felt like PI captured who I was and how I worked far more than Myers Briggs did. Hopefully you can try out PI too. The test is proprietary, so I’ve only been able to find a free demo version. Good luck and happy testing!

Follow me next time as I compare my PI test vs my dad’s as we delve further into the world of personality.