A Deeper Look at the MBTI® ThinkBox - Opening The Box
posted by agammy
As I mentioned in my last posting, I will be taking a week to explore the Myers-Briggs® ThinkBox and discuss several of the features in this blog. Today’s entry is about getting into ThinkBox for the first time and providing a general overview of the tool.
Day 1 - Opening The Box
I just logged into my MBTI ThinkBox. When I first logged in, I noticed a bar on the left side of the screen called Getting Started. Within that bar, there are several other tabs you can select that take you through the beginning phases of setting up your ThinkBox. This seemed like the best place to begin, so I clicked one of the tabs, the Quick Start Guide, to get an idea of what to do first. The Quick Start Guide had a lot of helpful tips for exploring the content, charting my team, and creating a personal plan. I was definitely ready to explore, so the first thing I did was go to My Account to set up my preferences, and start reading about my type.
In My Account there are the usual setting options - First Name, Last Name, Password, MBTI Type - and then you have an option to share your type with your team. I don’t have a team set up yet, so I just selected “keep my type confidential,” figuring I could deal with that later. I set my type as ENTP, changed my password, saved everything, and went back to the home page so I could begin the real exploring.
On the home page, my type was displayed all over the screen, along with key descriptors and 4 columns of information titled: “Snapshot,” “Resources,” “Key Descriptors,” and “Working With.”
At the top of the page there is a grid that could I choose to expand. When I expanded the grid, I had the option of looking at key info for all the types. I immediately looked at my info and checked out the types of close friends as well. Right away I saw how you could easily get sucked into looking for resources, recognizing common type challenges, and listening to videos.
I have to say I spent a couple of hours going through the videos, and looking for solutions to problems I have with current co-workers (where I know our issues are due to conflicting types.) My favorite video I found was “Right or Rude?” by Dr. Marshall Goldsmith. The description under the video said, “Understand that success does not always mean being in the right” (which DEFINITELY applies to me.) From his first sentence “It’s difficult for smart, successful people to not always be right all the time” I found myself identifying with the video - it provided helpful feedback and suggestions for improvement without being insulting. Most importantly, the video was entertaining while useful. I actually showed my boyfriend this one while asking “Aren’t you glad I’m working on this?” (he was.)
One thing I liked about the resources I viewed today were the printable materials and pdfs for coaching applications. I could see how it would be useful to have some of these printed out and in front of you during a client session.
Well, that’s all for today. Tomorrow I will discuss my time using the Team Building Application!
