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Team Building with the MBTI Step II Thinking-Feeling Facets

There is just so much depth with the Thinking–Feeling facets that many people only begin to explore. During the MBTI® Certification Program, I take participants through several decision-making stages—T–F facet by T–F facet.
A participant asked me this week how I keep things from getting out of hand when I go through this process with working teams. She realized that it can be a powerful experience for teams and things can get a bit heated. While I don’t feel especially comfortable with conflict, I replied that sometimes you want to encourage getting those uncomfortable words out in the open so they can finally get addressed.

As the facilitator of such a team-building experience, I need to work hard when conflict erupts to keep each side as open as possible to hearing what the other side has to say. I need to call out both verbal (disrespectful comments) and nonverbal (eye rolling, dismissive nodding, arm crossing) communication from team members and challenge everyone in the room to find productive ways to understand and appreciate the differences we all bring to the table.

This doesn’t mean that I always succeed in getting people to completely agree. However, if I can get team members to start to hear each other’s decision-making differences, then that team is moving in the right direction. The MBTI Team Report can also come in handy here because it provides a good checklist of things for teams to keep in mind whenever they make decisions, as does drawing a team type table.