True Colors Personality Test

Last week at work we had a departmental meeting that lasted all day long. The day before the meeting we were sent an email telling us we had some required homework, and attached was a short 'assessment' we were to fill out and bring to the meeting.

This assessment was a True Colors Word Cluster Sort, comprised of 8 rows of descriptive words sorted into four colored columns. We were supposed to rate the word groups according to how much each word group applied to us, arrive at our 'color' (orange, gold, blue, or green), and bring the completed sheet to the meeting.

To my knowledge I was the only employee that refused to complete the sheet. I refused because I thought it was absurd.

The morning of the meeting I sarcastically asked a couple of my co-workers if we were going to have someone come in and demonstrate phrenology to us. I had to explain what that was, but they thought I was just being silly. I mentioned graphology, astrology, and the Forer Effect, and I told a couple more that I had forgotten to bring in a sheep so I could disembowel it and predict the future by reading its entrails. They thought I was being foolish. And, when I produced a printout of an article on how picking your nose determines your personality, I was told I was being disrespectful, and that our meeting was a serious affair.

In any case, I left the nose-picking article behind, and after one of the speakers finished showing us a film about the benefits of emotional intelligence, a facilitator stood at the front of the room and told us they were certified in the True Colors program, and proceeded to show us some powerpoint slides. (obviously being certified makes the program authentic, right?) I was unimpressed, and the more I heard, the more uncomfortable I became. The head manager approached and asked if I was alright, probably because of the sour look on my face. I replied I was not, that I thought what was being presented was nothing more than horoscopes reduced to colors, and that attempting to place each of the very unique individuals in the room (about 40 of us) into four colored boxes was ridiculous. I was assured that it was just an exercise in teamwork, and that it wasn't meant to divide the group.

Yet right after that we were split into our color groups and asked to complete the same task. We were then split into random non-color groups and asked to complete another task. The discussion afterwards seemed to indicated that it's more difficult for some colors to play nice if they're stuck together in the same group.

I guess what bothered me the most was that the whole thing was presented, not as though it were for entertainment purposes, but as though it was some sort of scientific finding that we should embrace.

I mean c'mon, the 'certified' facilitator even showed us a slide showing how the True Colors program was something that could trace its roots back to Plato and Socrates.

Has anyone else been exposed to this colorful claptrap in their workplace?

RayG

I ran across them, believe it or not, in the U.S. Army Reserves. Like you, I refused to participate, though I was polite about it and expressed my concerns to the representatives while others were chatting about how marvelous the results were.

The presenters seemed genuine, but they were not the company founders (who well may be conscious charlatans). When I asked for the clinical demonstration of the effectiveness they pointed me to the website which mentioned some clinical trials. Later I researched those links, and they amounted to claims that the MMPPI works, therefore True Colors does, too.

I sent a politely worded email to that effect to the presenters and to the company. The company did not respond, but one of the presenters sent what, iirc, was claimed to be a study but turned out to be a dissertation draft without significant references and with highly flawed analysis and thinking. My follow-on emails attempting to discuss that went nowhere.

ETA: When I brought it up to the command chain that this was a waste of time and resources, I was told that it was a no-cost visit to the unit and therefore okay. Discussions about it still wasted manpower and time were brushed off.

The Skeptic's Dictionary site shows nothing, and the Wiki entry:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Colors_(personality)

reads like it was written by the company. There are a few references.

Not this specific one, but I have been asked to do a Myers-Briggs test and several exercises that looked more like the color test you've been subjected to.
It is my experience that 'communications trainers' generally do not care about the validity of the things they tell you and try to deflect questions about the how and why of their methods. They just want to do their job and move on. Sooner or later (sooner) others members of your group will start to wonder why you're being intentionally difficult, so being too critical doesn't seem to be very productive. Managers I've asked about this generally say something along the lines of "just play along, if we thought you couldn't do your job you wouldn't be sitting here, and who knows, maybe you'll learn something anyway."

"Vapid, pretentious dreck" are some words that comes immediately to mind after skimming that website a little; unfortunately, "profitable" (for the purveyors of the dreck) is another. Nobody ever went broke underestimating how gullible people can be when dreck is well-dressed.

Astrology can make at least a weak claim to some objective basis, in that you're inarguably born when you're born (though, of course, the personality characteristics attributed to the different signs are left vague enough that anyone can read anything they need to out of their particular grouping). This crap doesn't even stand on that shaky leg; what possible objective or practical use can there be for a system that relies so entirely on self-assessment for its foundation?

We did not have this particular personality test at work, but we had to participate in a "DISC workshop" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DISC_assessment).

I do not like personality assessments which try to put people into "drawers" - I think everybody is a mix of various of these personality types, so any attempt to put someone into a particular category and then claiming "he is a ... type, so he automatically has strengths A, B and C and lacks in X, Y and Z" is bound to fail. Still, some of these assessments are kind of interesting and contain some grains of truth - it's just that if you blindly believe in them (and then act on the assessment results), you will run into problems.

Oh, I forgot to mention that the certified facilitator said that each of us was born with our present personality and that it doesn't change over the course of our life. Of course after the meeting most of my co-workers were positive the color they were assigned was correct, and some even mentioned how it explained the behavior of their orange or gold child/children. One co-worker thought the test was useful in pointing out how people have different personalities, but she didn't like how people were comparing colors afterwards. Not surprisingly I was confirmed as a green. Not sure how they got Mother Teresa to take their test, but one of the slides had her as a blue.

I jotted down some notes before and during the presentation, but had I made them known to the facilitator it likely would have been perceived as an attack, or at the very least an uncooperative attitude.

They gave us sticky name tags to place colored dots that represented our color results upon. One co-worker stuck hers next to her actual cubicle name plate after the meeting, apparently so we would have no doubt about her personality type.

I'm thinking of bringing a printout of that nose-picking page to the head manager. I suspect some interesting conversation would ensue.

RayG

Are the results repeatable? My understanding of similar tests is that a person might score differently on different days or even different times of the day. None of them have any science behind them whatsoever.

I had to go trough this bullcrap for a tech writing course. I tried to source anything they said and it all circled back to company websites. It's the worst kind of MBA-mentality ********.

Yeah, that personality test is transparently inane. My own system is demonstrable superior. I use six categories instead of four. And forget the boring colors, mine uses insects. Everybody can be identified as one of the following:

1) earwig
2) louse
3) dung beetle
4) disease-ridden tick
5) disease-ridden tse-tse fly
6) Bluebottle maggot writhing in a bloated corpse

The purveyors of the color scheme are dung beetles -- feeding off of crap. So as you see, my system is easier to use, more literal, and therefore more scientific.

Anyway, you owe me $59.95 for reading this post.

I'm with you, RayG. I hate those things so much that at work I have tacit permission not to attend such team-building activities, because I can get argumentative and disruptive. That dates from a time when a facilitator drew nine dots on a whiteboard, three even rows of three, and challenged anyone to connect them all using only four straight lines, never taking the marker off the board. I knew the trick and volunteered but connected them all with only three lines (the mark of Zorro, but very, very wide). Then I turned to the chalk board and duplicated the dot pattern and said, "Wanna see me connect them all with one?" and turned the chalk sideways and did it with a very broad line.

The facilitator was red in the face and I said, "I think I've learned the lesson," and walked out. Others later said they wished they had had the guts to follow. I told them "Wait until you get tenure."

I'm pretty sure it's just a simplified Myers-Briggs. The idea is to talk about different people's work and communication styles, which, theoretically, helps you have more understanding for your coworkers different styles of working.

I haven't gone through it myself. My employer did it before I started working here, and were starting to do it again but it kind of petered out before anyone made me attend.

I've been on a number of these types of courses (DISC, Myers-Briggs, Eneagrams (sp?) etc.). They are all pretty much "skins" over the same combination of cold-reading and confirmation bias. And practically worthless.

The last one I attended (with my University Department) nearly resulted in a revolt from my colleagues wanting to rip the facilitator a new one. Some basic decency and a lot of self-control prevented that, but once he had left there were a number of heated discussions with or Head of Department.

One the bright side I nearly got Bingo on my Life-Coach/Motivational Speaker card (which I admittedly created myself).

I was on a course recently where we had to draw a pig on a piece of blank paper. How and where we drew the pig was then revealed to demonstrate various things about our personalities (for example, if you drew small ears, then you need to listen more). The funny thing was that where and how I drew my pig resulted in a personality profile that was entirely unlike me. If I'd drawn the opposite of what I had, then it would have been a reasonable match, albeit still very general.

Plus, I confounded the woman setting the test because I drew my pig with the arse facing the viewer, and the test only has provisions for whether the pig was facing left, right, or outwards.

Squeegee Beckenheim said:

I was on a course recently where we had to draw a pig on a piece of blank paper. How and where we drew the pig was then revealed to demonstrate various things about our personalities (for example, if you drew small ears, then you need to listen more). The funny thing was that where and how I drew my pig resulted in a personality profile that was entirely unlike me. If I'd drawn the opposite of what I had, then it would have been a reasonable match, albeit still very general.

Plus, I confounded the woman setting the test because I drew my pig with the arse facing the viewer, and the test only has provisions for whether the pig was facing left, right, or outwards.

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Well, obviously an ass-forward pig means everything should be interpreted backwards. So equally obviously, the test was entirely accurate!

I never came across this at work, but I had done so in elementary school. It was done with six colors (red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple) instead of four though, but the general idea was the same. So the idea has been around for a while, probably a lot longer than anyone of us have been alive.

When my wife decided on a career change she took a course at the local YWCA that essential told you how to game "psychological" tests. There was actually a 500-page text book with all the tests described and analyzed. The one they said not to mess with was the MMPI because that could get you in trouble.

This thread also reminds me of the episode of the Julia TV show where the teacher was worried about her son Corrie because he only drew his pictures in black crayon. When Julie went to the school and Corrie was actually asked why, the explanation was that, as he was the smallest kid in the class, when the kids were told to go and get crayons and draw pictures, by the time he got there there only black crayons were left.

What always astounds me is that these "assessments" never show any real benefits, but that doesn't stop upper management from being willing to try again and again and again.

The only one of these "team building/cooperation" things I've ever gone to that made any sense was a woman who gave everyone a sheet of paper. We were then told to fold it without specifying how to fold it. And this was repeated several times. At the end she said to compare your paper with those around you. She said a lot of times you can give the same directions to people but that doesn't mean they will all do the job exactly the same way.

A notorious woo co-worker asked, "So what was the right way?".
"Did you follow the directions?"
"Yes."
"Then that was the right way."
"Does that mean that all those who did it the same way think the same?"
"No. They just happened to do it the same way this time. Coincidences happen."
"But what does it MEAN??"
"It means that if you want everyone to do things the same way you need to give them very specific directions. If you don't it doesn't mean they are doing things wrong."

It was the only time I think one of these rah-rah meetings was actually interesting. The woman went on to talk about how there is NO MAGIC FORMULA to work cooperation, you have to work at it each and every day. That part is probably why she was never a big hit, most places want a magic formula.

I've done in the DISC variant. Complete tosh, sadly making inroads into schools in other forms a.k.a. edub****cks

Usually an HR initiative to pretend to be doing something useful, or for management who have run out of ideas.

Ryan O'Dine said:

Yeah, that personality test is transparently inane. My own system is demonstrable superior. I use six categories instead of four. And forget the boring colors, mine uses insects. Everybody can be identified as one of the following:

1) earwig
2) louse
3) dung beetle4) disease-ridden tick
5) disease-ridden tse-tse fly
6) Bluebottle maggot writhing in a bloated corpse

The purveyors of the color scheme are dung beetles -- feeding off of crap. So as you see, my system is easier to use, more literal, and therefore more scientific.

Anyway, you owe me $59.95 for reading this post.

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You called?

Squeegee Beckenheim said:

I was on a course recently where we had to draw a pig on a piece of blank paper. How and where we drew the pig was then revealed to demonstrate various things about our personalities (for example, if you drew small ears, then you need to listen more). The funny thing was that where and how I drew my pig resulted in a personality profile that was entirely unlike me. If I'd drawn the opposite of what I had, then it would have been a reasonable match, albeit still very general.

Plus, I confounded the woman setting the test because I drew my pig with the arse facing the viewer, and the test only has provisions for whether the pig was facing left, right, or outwards.

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In my system, you'd be an earwig. If you want to know why, send money.

MikeG said:

You called?

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Oddly enough, in my system you'd be a disease-ridden tick. (Don't worry, it's a good thing.)


More seriously, these kinds of exercises remind a little of the Blue Eyes Brown Eyes experiment. I know they're not the same, but dividing a group into a few contrasting smaller groups and then suggesting some groups work better together than others (as RayG experienced) strikes me as the opposite of team building. In fact, the exact opposite.

Spindrift said:

What always astounds me is that these "assessments" never show any real benefits, but that doesn't stop upper management from being willing to try again and again and again.

The only one of these "team building/cooperation" things I've ever gone to that made any sense was a woman who gave everyone a sheet of paper. We were then told to fold it without specifying how to fold it. And this was repeated several times. At the end she said to compare your paper with those around you. She said a lot of times you can give the same directions to people but that doesn't mean they will all do the job exactly the same way.

A notorious woo co-worker asked, "So what was the right way?".
"Did you follow the directions?"
"Yes."
"Then that was the right way."
"Does that mean that all those who did it the same way think the same?"
"No. They just happened to do it the same way this time. Coincidences happen."
"But what does it MEAN??"
"It means that if you want everyone to do things the same way you need to give them very specific directions. If you don't it doesn't mean they are doing things wrong."

It was the only time I think one of these rah-rah meetings was actually interesting. The woman went on to talk about how there is NO MAGIC FORMULA to work cooperation, you have to work at it each and every day. That part is probably why she was never a big hit, most places want a magic formula.

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While I doubt that in a real cost/benefit analysis kind of way you could find that these exercises provide a measurable benefit, they do actually do something. Personality tests, Myers Briggs, a zillion kinds of team building courses, even some diversity training programs. They're all pretty much the same thing.

The hook is that they feed on people's ego and desire to understand themselves, as well as our herd mentality (what group am I?) and it's always pretty much complete bullhockey. The takeaway, though, is always the same, and it's the IMO useful part. Other people are different from you, have different values, have different life experiences, and are motivated by different things, and that is a good thing. If you want to work cooperatively with your coworkers, you might need to exercise a bit more understanding and rethink the way you communicate with them.

Work environments often are filled with office politics, cliquishness, bullying, in and out groups, and warring factions between little budgetary or power fiefdoms. The more filled a particular workplace is with this kind of negative interpersonal stuff, the more often an HR person will bring in these stupid little “understanding our team” building exercises. Stupid as they are, they often pull people out of their normal personal interactions, force people to talk to each other that usually don't, and at least for a little while foster some communication and comradery.

meg said:

While I doubt that in a real cost/benefit analysis kind of way you could find that these exercises provide a measurable benefit, they do actually do something. Personality tests, Myers Briggs, a zillion kinds of team building courses, even some diversity training programs. They're all pretty much the same thing.

The hook is that they feed on people's ego and desire to understand themselves, as well as our herd mentality (what group am I?) and it's always pretty much complete bullhockey. The takeaway, though, is always the same, and it's the IMO useful part. Other people are different from you, have different values, have different life experiences, and are motivated by different things, and that is a good thing. If you want to work cooperatively with your coworkers, you might need to exercise a bit more understanding and rethink the way you communicate with them.

Work environments often are filled with office politics, cliquishness, bullying, in and out groups, and warring factions between little budgetary or power fiefdoms. The more filled a particular workplace is with this kind of negative interpersonal stuff, the more often an HR person will bring in these stupid little “understanding our team” building exercises. Stupid as they are, they often pull people out of their normal personal interactions, force people to talk to each other that usually don't, and at least for a little while foster some communication and comradery.

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In my experience, YMMV, most take nothing away from these things because they don't want to be there in the first place. Sometimes it makes things worse. I'm a software developer and I'd have to say we have more than our fair share of eccentrics. Our department pigpen was matched with a marketing woman with no verbal filter. Did not work out well. And the main reason we were there was little to no cooperation between marketing/sales and engineering.

Spindrift said:

It was the only time I think one of these rah-rah meetings was actually interesting. The woman went on to talk about how there is NO MAGIC FORMULA to work cooperation, you have to work at it each and every day. That part is probably why she was never a big hit, most places want a magic formula.

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She probably didn't stay in business long.

One of the benefits of working for a very small company is not having to deal with this kind of crap, since no one has the budget for it.

I've had to do similar stuff with larger companies, and pretty much had the same experiences. Criticism of the program is not met favourably, and I get chastised for not being a "team player".

meg said:

Stupid as they are, they often pull people out of their normal personal interactions, force people to talk to each other that usually don't, and at least for a little while foster some communication and comradery.

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I've found just the opposite. Most often, they just reinforce the idea the problems people have working together, and create an even greater divisiveness. That and they provide a way for management and others to pigeonhole people without any attempt at understanding them (Myer-Briggs is very popular for that), and using it as a bludgeon to force people to interact in certain ways (and thereby blaming them for management's failures to understand how to manage), creating even greater breakdowns in communication, and fostering resentment between management and employees.

meg said:

The hook is that they feed on people's ego and desire to understand themselves, as well as our herd mentality (what group am I?) and it's always pretty much complete bullhockey. The takeaway, though, is always the same, and it's the IMO useful part. Other people are different from you, have different values, have different life experiences, and are motivated by different things, and that is a good thing. If you want to work cooperatively with your coworkers, you might need to exercise a bit more understanding and rethink the way you communicate with them.

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I've never felt that was after these tests. Since they're self-assessment, and I know what outcome I want, I give the answers that I believe come with the result I'm aiming for.

I can't take these tests any more seriously than internet quizzes that tell me what power ranger I am.

Bikewer said:

The Skeptic's Dictionary site shows nothing, and the Wiki entry:
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_Colors_(personality)

reads like it was written by the company. There are a few references.

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Exactly, and a good demonstration of why I have a problem with Wikipedia. The other Wikipedia article referenced by jbm, on "DISC assessment" is very similar. It reads like it could be lifted out of a sales brochure, complete with the "beware of cheap imitations" warning.

Mudcat said:

I never came across this at work, but I had done so in elementary school. It was done with six colors (red, yellow, blue, green, orange, purple)

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No doubt an early experiment in indoctrination with the Gay Agenda in elementary schools.

instead of four though, but the general idea was the same. So the idea has been around for a while, probably a lot longer than anyone of us have been alive.

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Pigeonholing people into different categories based on personality has not only been around for as long as psychology has been around as a recognizable field, it goes back further than that, right to the four humours theory. The colour-coding is probably a twentieth-century American innovation, for people who are simultaneously in need of deep, meaningful insights into other people's personalities, but are unable to deal with labels with words on them, and prefer little coloured dots to stick on people instead. You might as wel have a test that classifies people as either choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine or melancholic. After all, that system was taken seriously for a couple of thousands of years.

And of course, after I typed the above sentence, I noticed that such tests are indeed in existence online.

It isn't just the complete lack of scientific validity about the whole concept that gets me, but the way these things are apparently used by companies on current employees. How badly-run must a company be that they don't have a pretty good idea of the personalities of the people who have worked for them for more than, say, two weeks? We all form impressions about the personalities of people we come into more than superficial contact with, and we don't need questionnaires sold by "facilitators" (just that word makes my skin crawl) to do so pretty accurately, most of the time. I even have ideas about the personalities of the checkout ladies at the supermarket, and sometimes pick which queue to join on that basis.

Another thing that is funny is how these supposed types never seem to have any really negative qualitities. Where is the personality type for the obnoxious, overbearing, bullying bastard, who nobody gets along with, and who could get into an argument with a rock? We've all met such people. Where are "lazy, always trying to get other people to do the work", or "rude, and unwilling to so much as remember someone else's name" as personality traits? The reason is of course that no executive is going to pay for a test that might diagnose him with such traits.

ehcks said:

I've never felt that was after these tests. Since they're self-assessment, and I know what outcome I want, I give the answers that I believe come with the result I'm aiming for.

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In a work setting, I would be more likely to try to guess what outcome my employer is looking for, and tailor my responses to suit.

Yeah, we had an assessment at work when a new department manager joined. It had 20 questions, mainly non-sequiturs, e.g. 'Are you more happy than sporty?' and similar gibberish. The answers were run through a program (supplied) that printed out a detailed A4 size personality profile (down to stuff like 'not suited to travel'). As software developers, very literal, somewhat logic-bound, we had considerable difficulty answering the questions, and knew that 20 nearly random variables couldn't produce anything useful, never mind the detail claimed.

I did some research on such tests overnight, and when called in to discuss my results, told this guy what a crock it was and why. He said it was just a way to break the ice and get to know us better - then told me that my criticism was just what he'd expect given the profile from my form. I told him I'd answered randomly because the questions were nonsensical - and that taking us out for a meal would have been a far better and much cheaper way to break the ice. As it happens, I wasn't the only one to tell him.

This was the same company that thought a good way to reward long service (3yrs, 5yrs, etc.) was to allow you to choose a gift from a glossy catalogue (umbrellas, binoculars, tennis raquets, cheap jewellery, etc). Three of us were due the year they introduced it. We were so pissed off we wrote letters of rejection, calling it an insult and asking for just a signed letter of thanks instead... This time, the dept. head took us out for a meal. They eventually scrapped the catalogue 'reward' scheme.

dlorde said:

Yeah, we had an assessment at work when a new department manager joined. It had 20 questions, mainly non-sequiturs, e.g. 'Are you more happy than sporty?' and similar gibberish. The answers were run through a program (supplied) that printed out a detailed A4 size personality profile (down to stuff like 'not suited to travel'). As software developers, very literal, somewhat logic-bound, we had considerable difficulty answering the questions, and knew that 20 nearly random variables couldn't produce anything useful, never mind the detail claimed.

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That reminds me of another one I've had. It was a bunch of useless questions not quite of the type you describe, but similar, and the goal was to find out how you learn things best. There were three categories of learners and you'd end up with a score in each of the three categories, with whichever category you scored more in being what type of learner you are. I ensured that I scored evenly in all three categories.

And, as it turned out, the tests were completely ignored anyway and everybody just got lumped together in the same group doing the same stuff.

Yes, during one of the many "let's try something new because just like all the others the last one did not actually affect - or effect- anything and we have to show we will try anything to look like we are trying to improve ****......" as an educator. That was over twelve years ago though - a bit after the fish throwing one IIRC.

We were way late for " moved my cheese " - did not have it as inservice until 5-6 years after it had come out.........

RayG said:

Oh, I forgot to mention that the certified facilitator said that each of us was born with our present personality and that it doesn't change over the course of our life. Of course after the meeting most of my co-workers were positive the color they were assigned was correct, and some even mentioned how it explained the behavior of their orange or gold child/children. One co-worker thought the test was useful in pointing out how people have different personalities, but she didn't like how people were comparing colors afterwards. Not surprisingly I was confirmed as a green. Not sure how they got Mother Teresa to take their test, but one of the slides had her as a blue.

I jotted down some notes before and during the presentation, but had I made them known to the facilitator it likely would have been perceived as an attack, or at the very least an uncooperative attitude.

They gave us sticky name tags to place colored dots that represented our color results upon. One co-worker stuck hers next to her actual cubicle name plate after the meeting, apparently so we would have no doubt about her personality type.

I'm thinking of bringing a printout of that nose-picking page to the head manager. I suspect some interesting conversation would ensue.

RayG

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Why was that not surprising?

Ward

fuelair said:

We were way late for " moved my cheese " - did not have it as inservice until 5-6 years after it had come out.........

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I thought "Who moved my cheese" had some good ideas, but then they tacked on a supplement at the end that tried to explain why we should tolerate behavior from management that would never be tolerated from regular workers. "Politics are how things get done" was an actual quote from the supplement. No, politics are what prevents things from getting done.

RayG said:

Not sure how they got Mother Teresa to take their test, but one of the slides had her as a blue.

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So religious frauds with good publicity get blue ?

godless dave said:

I thought "Who moved my cheese" had some good ideas, but then they tacked on a supplement at the end that tried to explain why we should tolerate behavior from management that would never be tolerated from regular workers. "Politics are how things get done" was an actual quote from the supplement. No, politics are what prevents things from getting done.

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I had a president who thought "Who moved my cheese" was the best thing ever. The same guy who bragged about eating the same lunch every day for the past 25 years. Bologna sandwich, yogurt and an apple.

I've taken several of these sorts of tests over the years, in school, at work and for the fun of it and they have never ever told me anything about myself that I didn't already know. It all comes off like a shamelessly obvious cold reading:

"Do you like to draw?"
"Yes, I like to draw."
"I'm sensing you have an artistic temperament."
"No ****, Sherlock."

Now some might argue that the tests aren't necessarily just for understanding yourself, but they are more to help others to understand you. My department once had to read a book and take a test, which resulted in a color-coded personality index. The gist of the book was that a person should seek to expand on their existing innate strengths and interests rather than stress over things they are weak or disinterested in, which seemed reasonable enough to me. My results showed that I was not a leader or management material, something I am totally cool with. A year later, a new policy du jour, instituted by HR people and managers who are trying to look busy mandated that all and I mean ALL employees had to go through management training and by that I don't mean "time management", I mean full-blown, PMP-style expensive and time-consuming management training. I mentioned to my boss that the test I had taken the previous year indicated that I had no interest or aptitude in management and that all things being equal I'd really rather concentrate on improving my technical skills and she looked at me like I had two heads, completely disregarding the book she had been singing the praises of just a year before.

All I ended up learning from the exercise was that the only other team member who shared the exact same personality type as myself was a woman with no technical skills or artistic interests who believes to this day that President Obama is an Al Qaeda sleeper agent. Science!

To sum up: these sorts of tests seem to reveal things that are both true and interesting. Unfortunately the true things aren't interesting and the interesting things aren't true.

RayG said:

To my knowledge I was the only employee that refused to complete the sheet. I refused because I thought it was absurd.
RayG

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They probably marked you down to be blue green colour blind but in denial.

If I got stuck doing one of these tests/workshops I would take out my dice and roll for my answers, just to make it fun. I would also tell the people running it my method for producing my results. If I am going to be stuck doing nonsense I insist on having some fun

luchog said:

I've found just the opposite. Most often, they just reinforce the idea the problems people have working together, and create an even greater divisiveness. That and they provide a way for management and others to pigeonhole people without any attempt at understanding them (Myer-Briggs is very popular for that), and using it as a bludgeon to force people to interact in certain ways (and thereby blaming them for management's failures to understand how to manage), creating even greater breakdowns in communication, and fostering resentment between management and employees.

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That is more in line with my experience: they are used as a tool by the bullies in the company to justify their poor treatment of others. "You're an apricot you thrive on drudgery and wiping asses, you'll love it when I dump this hideous project on you at the last minute." "You're a firetruck, you have poor communication skills, so no one cares what you think." "I'm an Eagle, I can't tolerate losers, like you."

This crap is usually paired with team building exercises, which I actually like. Not because I like building teams, but because I know most of the short cuts, like the Z for connecting the dots mentioned above. The last time we did this I was put with a woman who I didn't know very well and as soon as the clock started I looked her in the eye and asked "do you want to work on this as a team or do you want to beat everyone else?" She touched nothing and we won. She was very happy.

Dr. Keith said:

<snip> "do you want to work on this as a team or do you want to beat everyone else?" She touched nothing and we won. She was very happy.

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Sometimes you get into a team where there is one person who already knows what to do. A good team would accept what they say as true without much debate.