MBTI: Type and Retention

I had the wonderful privilege of speaking to the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD) chapter in St. Louis this afternoon. This incredibly talented and engaged group meets monthly to discuss a variety of training and development issues facing the workforce today. They asked me to speak about an issue facing every organization today: Retaining the best and brightest employees.


When it comes to retention, there is no simple solution. Employees become dissatisfied and disengaged for a variety of reasons. The issue of retention is a serious issue for any organization. The only thing more costly than high turnover is low turnover of your disengaged/low-performing employees). Disengagement costs $300B annually in the U.S. (The Gallup Management Journal, 2005).

The key is focusing in the diverse needs of your employees. One approach is using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).

The MBTI tells us:
- Different tasks and rewards motivate us.
- We prefer different organizational cultures.
- Our values are not all the same, nor do they hold the same weight.
- Money alone is not enough to retain us
- The number one reason people leave is because of the relationship with their supervisor.

Your organization has a type too. Does the organization's type meet the cultural needs of your employees?
E - rewards people who work well on teams.
I – rewards people who can work well alone.
S – builds on past experience of the employees.
N – builds on ideas and possibilities out of the box.
T – focused more on the task than on the people.
F – focused more on the people than the task.
J – structured and decisive.
P – open to new approaches and opportunities.

Now, how do you stop the high-performing employees from leaving your organization? First, find out which ones are leaving by:
1.Chart each person on the type table.
2.Use available records of employees who have given you permission to have their data.
3.Highlight those names of people who are no longer with the company.
4.Gives a quick visual demonstration of whether you are losing people of certain types.
5.Keep in mind this is only a partial picture.

Use this information to diabnose if the issues are based on the kinds of rewards that type wants to receive, management issues, role/responsibilities, career opportunities, etc.

Each type has a very different set of values based on their preferences. The #1 reason employees leave their organization is due to their direct supervisor.

Perhaps looking at the MBTI preferences of the departing employees will show an issue of mis-match between the management style of the manager and needs of the employee. For example an Extraverted employee may have trouble with an Introverted manager who is rarely able to talk face to face and communicates primarily through memos or email.

If you have been delivering the MBTI through a SkillsOne account (the online platform for delivering CPP assessments), then there is another way to diagnose the personality type of your organization (and the personality type of the high turnover group). CPP can help you create an aggregate report from the assessments taken on your SkillsOne account that will show the most frequently occuring MBTI preferences of your employees. You can even look deeper by distinguishing between employees in certain departments.

This information is only your first step though, the next is to make changes to accomodate the preferences and needs of your employees to create higher retention.

How are you using the MBTI to increase retention in your organization?