Clear as Mud

7/12/12...Muddled. This word seems best when trying to describe me in the context of workplace personality tests. I both cringe at these and in some masochistic way enjoy taking them. Here are some of the ones I have taken, both in personal life and in workplace life:

Meyers-Briggs

Personalysis

True Colors

Spiritual Gifts

DISC

Strengthsfinder 2.0

Work Teams

Now that is alot of personality testing going on, trying to figure me out and supposedly offering me insight to help me figure my own self out. Alot of figuring. I figure there has been some worth to these. Spiritual speaking from The Toil perspective, the Spiritual Gifts test and Strengthsfinder were immensely valuable. Both of these I have taken over the last five years and the insights really helped me affirm who I am, and to embrace how God created me versus lament over what I am not. I use to focus more on trying to improve what I was not versus focusing on what I was. Very liberating day when I realized the Holy Spirit uses me more for what I am, instead of me striving to be something I am not.

With that said, I also figure when it comes to employers trying to use this information, it is not such a good thing. Employers seem to want to always work on what I am not versus celebrating what I am. I not only see this happening to me, I also see it happening to others around me. Because none of us are the "be all" or "end all", there is always deficiencies in us. And this is how business sees us, or at least in my experience. And so now I have to work on a "development plan" to strengthen my weaknesses. Whatever. Now me and the other someone will spend 80% of our time to improve my weaknesses by 20%. Why not spend 20% of our time harnessing my strengths and getting 80% more results. After all what comes easy to me are my strengths. They are natural.

Some more rambling...the other issue with all these tests from a work environment perspective, is in general they stereotype everyone, but each of us are really complex. There are so many factors influencing us, it is therefore difficult to truly "peg" someone with a personality test. Humans are complex. I think back to my elementary and middle school days when we had to break plants and animals down into classifications, i.e. plant or animal, mammal or non, etc. I think when God created us, a beautiful complexity is what He had in mind. When employers or even myself ask others to take these tests, what happens is not an appreciation of the beautiful complexity, but a realization we really cannot define people in such a simple way. We "muddle" up God's beautiful complexity, trying just like scientists do, to figure it all out.

By the way this is who I am as a result of these tests:

A "C"

Connectedness

Maximizer

Belief

Ideation

Intellection

A "Barney"

Feeling

Warm up to Change

Confronter/Glad Hander

Ideas

A "Green"

A "Gold"

Creative Communicator

Knowledge

Giving

Encourager

And lastly elements of Controlling, Understanding, and Authoritative at the Instinctive Level, elements of Questioning, Involve and Direct at the Socialized Level, and elements of Self-Directed and Structured at the Rational Level.

So there you go...clear as mud.