A Road Map For Success: How the MBTI Step III Can Lead the Way

The Rationale: Most of us are  using only a fraction of our talents and gifts. In addition, we are frequently dissatisfied with home life, career choices, and relationships.  This can lead to burn-out, lack of motivation, or resigned acceptance that we are about as good as we are going to be in this lifetime.  With self-knowledge, energy is released and new paths and solutions are unveiled.  The MBTI Step III is a personalized road map  to begin this journey.

The Design : The MBTI Step III is a questionnaire that has 222 forced choice items that not only uncover an individual’s psychological preferences but also examines type development. How effective are psychological preferences being used so they are manifested as strengths in everyday life?  How are environmental factors influencing opportunities to use and develop psychological type? Ultimately overall satisfaction with career, relationships and home life hinge on effective use of psychological type. The MBTI Step III instrument generates both positive statements about what is functioning well  in an individual’s life and statements that might suggest a need to improve in a certain area.  While knowing your strengths and continuing to use them effectively is the best way to use mental energy, it is also helpful to know which areas need increased self-regulation, development, or assistance from others to optimize an outcome. The Step III is written in everyday language and serves as a springboard for discussion between a coach/counselor and clients seeking to uncover their potential.

The Theory: There is a finite amount of mental energy that one has available to take in information (perception) and draw conclusions about those perceptions (judgment).  How that energy is allocated, according to type theory, is based on psychological preferences.  The dominant function has access to the most abundant and readily available energy, followed by the auxiliary or assisting function, then the tertiary or third function, and lastly the inferior or 4th function (everyone uses all of the functions: sensing, intuition, thinking and feeling but at different levels of  frequency and competence, hence the terms: dominant, auxiliary and so on).   Effective use of type preferences insofar as perception and judgment are concerned  is often dependent on both the opportunity to use a a natural  function and support from the environment to foster it’s development. According to type development theory, “good type development”  is comfort and effectiveness in the processes that come most naturally to your verified type AND the ability to use the processes that go against one’s natural tendencies.  Knowing which process is most adaptive to the task and the ability to shift among preferred and non-preferred functions is also critical.

The MBTI Step III is a comprehensive inventory covering your approach to:  Yourself and Your World,  People and Relationships, Responsibility and Work, and Problem Solving and Decision Making.  It is newly released and unique in it’s scope and capability to illuminate what is working well for you and what isn’t and what to do about it.   It has the potential to streamline the coaching/counseling experience especially in the early stages of the alliance.