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Full disclaimer, I work in HR, and I am a MBTI practitioner. So in writing this review, I acknowledge I am somewhat biased in that I do like the tool a lot, but that is all down to the proper ethical way the tool can and should be used to help individuals and teams celebrate, embrace and leverage their diversity and differences to ultimately achieve better outcomes.
This documentary is about how personality tools are being mis-used. I will start with what I like about this film; the cautionary message that personality tools, particularly MBTI should NOT be used to predict if someone is the right fit for a job, based on their reported type.
Sadly, in this documentary, we learn about a young man who has bipolar disorder and is rejected from jobs over and over when he fails the personality pre screening recruitment tests. He is an insightful person, well aware that while he may not naturally enjoy certain jobs like customer service (I mean let's be honest how many of us truly love dealing with upset customers), he's still capable of flexing to demonstrate empathy, and this is what MBTI aims to raise awareness about. So it was really sad and disturbing that he thought of himself as "broken" having continually being rejected during pre-screenings because of the discriminatory manner in which these tools are being used for pre-selection.
It was disturbing to learn how organisations mis-use these tools, and it's good to be reminded about the implications of how if left unchecked, the use of personality tools for pre-screening can be discriminatory and may exacerbate a society that further pits the haves against the have nots. It also raises a good point that personality tools discrimate when used for the wrong purpose- for example, particularly in America extroverts are viewed more favourably than introverts, which really says nothing about their ability to do the job. For example, I coach and train leaders for a living all day and am one of the clearest introverts you will ever meet.
There was somewhat of an attempt to make this a balanced documentary, but the set up definitely felt like it was leading viewers down a path. It starts out by focusing on the MBTI tool and explored the origins of the tool, questioning the biases that Myers Briggs may have inadvertently built into it, and then it seemed to escalate to wholesale judgment about the character of the people who invented the tool. It seemed to also frame MBTI type dichotomies as "either/or" (you're either an introvert or extrovert) when in fact our preferences are actually scaled, which means we tend to lean one way based on whichever way is least taxing.
What the documentary fails to emphasise which is the most important aspect of personality is that we are all capable of exhibiting ALL preferences and this should be the focus of these tools for self discovery, for developing all aspects of who we are and to consider how we might be able to flex aspects of ourselves that may serve us in certain situations. For example, social skills can be harder to develop if your preference is spending time alone, however developing social skills is an important part of functioning in society.
However it is not until the end credits where we learn that MBTI personality tool was in fact not even the tool used for the young man who thought of himself as "broken".
The fact that writers had to put that in the end credits I think highlights that even the writers of this show were aware that this was where it was leading viewers thoughts.
I gave it 4 stars for shedding light on the importance of ethical use of personality tools, but it lost 6 stars because as far as documentaries go, it wasn't exactly gripping, and it wasn't well balanced in its exploration of the benefits of personality tools. I thought overall it was misleading and a little sloppy in its execution.
score 4/10
Schmoopie1 6 March 2021
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw6665557/ |
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24-3-2021 12:05:26