Team Formation: Using MBTI Results to Form Teams in the Army
CCLKOW is a weekly conversation on military affairs jointly hosted by the Center for Company-Level Leaders (CCL) at the US Military Academy at West Point and the Kings of War (KOW), a blog of the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. The views expressed here are the author’s alone and do not reflect those of the US Army or the Department of Defense. Read the post and join the discussion on Twitter #CCLKOW
We are no strangers to discussing the importance of the role of effective teams in mission success, but one thing we haven’t deeply considered is how teams are formed. Anyone who has taken a week or longer course on group performance probably knows a little bit about Bruce Tuckman’s stages of group development. In Tuckman’s model, he believes that groups go through a forming, storming, norming and performing phase, followed with a phase for adjourning (Tuckman 388). You may have reflected on your time as a platoon leader or company commander and considered the different emotions your team experienced during each of these phases. The storming and performing phases probably are even more engrained in your memory and these phases are what makes each of these positions “key developmental” by the Army’s definition. However, what if you could have avoided Tuckman’s “storming” phase? Is this even be possible? I, for one, have wondered how much more developmental my platoon leader experience would have been if my team and I were able to bypass the storming phase. Although I don’t think it’s completely avoidable, I do believe it’s possible to dynamically shift the amount of time you spend in the storming phase and channel that energy into the performing phase. We can do this by using the Myers Briggs’ Type Indicator (MBTI) scores of group leaders (Co CDR/1SG, PL/PSG/SLs, and OIC/NCOIC) to pair company-level leaders with teammates that harmonize better with each other.
If you’re reading this, this probably isn’t the first CCL/KOW article you’ve read. That being said, I feel comfortable sharing with you that I myself am an “ENTJ”. I’m proud of who I am and must say that this assessment of my personality is pretty on-point. It wasn’t until graduate school that I even heard of what the MBTI test was and I’ve heard little mention of it in the Army. Before MAJ Silk retired, we had a lunchtime discussion about how awesome it would be if command teams were paired up by MBTI scores and what this could do for organizational effectiveness (OE). Imagine an organization that is so in-tune to each other’s values and strengths that they are able to accomplish tasks and set like-minded goals for their organization/team. This would, of course, require a Battalion Command team and personnel section who understand the importance of positive relationships as they relate to OE. That’s just the problem, though. At the company level, the level that CCL is most concerned with, the much of the leadership likely hasn’t heard of the MBTI, nor are they certified in such testing and usage. I have heard murmurs in passing about it being used at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC), but have never seen a discussion about using MBTI as a team building tool at the Company level.
The benefits of using MBTI scores to form teams are vast. Having spent much time reflecting on how I could have been a better platoon leader (I’m not bashful about admitting that I could have been a better platoon leader), the mojo between my platoon sergeant and I simply wasn’t there. I was an out-going, loquacious, and energetic platoon leader, while my platoon sergeant was more comfortable engaging with the platoon only when it was necessary. I preferred to act and do so immediately, while he preferred to quietly make decisions when the time felt right. As a platoon leader, I was (and still am, but not nearly as much) task-focused and my platoon sergeant was very concerned about the friendships he had cultivated with the squad leaders. This lack of synch between my platoon sergeant and I translated into a rocky relationship between the two of us and likely wasn’t beneficial for the platoon. By Army standards, we were both successful leaders, though. My platoon sergeant moved on the serve as a Command Sergeant Major and I went on to Command a Company. I haven’t kept in touch with many of my Soldiers, but I can’t help but think how much more we could have accomplished if the platoon sergeant, squad leaders, and I were able to spend less time in Tuckman’s “storming” phase and more time performing.
While it’s easy to fantasize about how great it would be to have truly “like-minded” leadership, I realize there are a number of concerns that go along with this sort of task organization. Being Jewish and in the military, an organization whose ranks are filled with an estimated less than one-third of 1% of Jews (approximately only 1485 Soldiers in the active Army), I can appreciate the value that diversity brings to an organization. (http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2011/12/01/jews-are-underrepresented-in-the-u-s-military-and-its-leadership) There are certain concerns raised, specifically threats related to group think, when an organization isn’t diversified. This includes diversity of thought as diversity is not limited to gender, race, age, or religion. Since much of today’s Army Operating Concept is driven by the “human dimension” (ADRP 3–0), having leaders with diverse thought-processes could surpass the temptation to align leadership based on psychometrics such as the MBTI. Given that I personally have struggled with this idea, it only feels right to offer it up for discussion in this week’s CCL/KOW. So here’s what we’re wondering:
- Should the Army use personality indicator results to pair leadership teams?
- What are some of the potential benefits and threats that you could see as a result of such personnel policies?
- Should we be training our leaders to recognize personality traits in their formations?
References
Merwin, Ted. (2011). “Jews are Underrepresented in the U.S. Military and its Leadership”. Veteran’s News Now. 28 Feb 16. <http://www.veteransnewsnow.com/2011/12/01/jews-are-underrepresented-in-the-u-s-military-and-its-leadership/>
Tuckman, Bruce W. “Developmental sequence in small groups.” Psychological bulletin 63.6 (1965): 384. <http://web.mit.edu/curhan/www/docs/Articles/15341_Readings/Group_Dynamics/Tuckman_1965_Developmental_sequence_in_small_groups.pdf>
United States (2012). Unified Land Operations, Army Doctrine Reference Publication 3–0, Washington, DC: Headquarters, Dept. of the Army.
Additional Reading
