Questioning Myers-Briggs

According to the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, I’d be classified as an INTJ. Or maybe ISTJ. Could depend on the day.

The Myers-Briggs classification format is widely used in our industry (and many others), but is it really worthwhile? According to this article with a rather provocative title (Why the Myers-Briggs Test is Totally Meaningless), the entire scheme is questionable. I’d encourage you to read the entire article.

Today, I want to focus on one question: is the Myers-Briggs test a good tool for predicting career success – or, for that matter, helping shape career choices?

I am actually a big fan of profiling – mapping out one’s makeup and tendencies and abilities (I often use the terms personal/professional DNA, or internal wiring) to try to see where a person can ideally “fit” career-wise.

But I think a personality test – whether or not it’s resting on a valid foundation – has limits. Because a truer indicator of success is a performance test.

What are you actually good at doing? What does your track record of work indicate is your professional “sweet spot“?

Some of our traits are hard-wired (I, for instance, am an introvert) but can be managed and behaviorally-modified over time (I am an outgoing networker). Looking strictly at my Myers-Briggs personality type, I’m a very unlikely entrepreneur – but there’s more to us than 4 letters and 16 boxes.

We each have unique gifts. We have special (and cultivated) abilities. We act in ways that succeed or fail. We perform, sometimes well beyond what one might expect out of an arrangement of our profile descriptions.

I’ve talked to an amazing array of successful sales people, some of whom are analytical introverts, others of whom are outgoing relationship-sparking wizards. They’ve succeeded by using their abilities, and as they’ve moved into new roles, it becomes evident (sometimes painfully so) where their best competencies truly are.

Performance joined to personality tells the story.

What are your feelings about Myers-Briggs and other such approaches? Helpful? Bogus? Share your insights in the comments!

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Are We Moving from Sales to Account Management?

As the healthcare industry (and the biopharma industry) continues to evolve, the model for drug promotion undergoes ongoing pressure.

How many times have we seen the headline, “The Drug Rep is Dead!”? Hasn’t happened.

But, I do hear more and more emphasis on the growing role of the Account Manager, as end-customers increasingly become, not individual HCPs, but healthcare organizations. Of course, this has a major impact on the emphases in commercial training as we go forward.

But my view is broad and based on anecdotal information. So I’d like to hear from you.

Are we truly in the midst of a major revolution, evolving toward account management as a/the primary way of promoting pharmaceuticals? If so, how do you see this impacting commercial training? Have you already been making changes in this direction?

And, for you who are in the vendor community – are you seeing this as well?

Please share in the comments. I’d like to know if what I BELIEVE I’m seeing is actually happening, and I’d love to create a larger discussion for all of us to think about together.

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