Top tips

How personality type affects team performance and job satisfaction

current blog
Posted 16 November 2023 by
Global Marketing, The Myers-Briggs Company

New research sends clear message to team leaders

Can you pick up three bits of rubbish?

current blog
Posted 10 August 2023 by
Kevin Wood, The Myers-Briggs Company

How micro habits are key to the environmental mission of our new charity partner, Take 3 for the Sea

Were you asked if you wanted to go back to the office?

current blog
Posted 24 May 2022 by
Kevin Wood, The Myers-Briggs Company

If not, you might be part of a hybrid strategy that’s about to fail.

Social contracts, returning to the office and retaining your people in the new hybrid workplace

current blog
Posted 20 May 2022 by
Melissa Summer, The Myers-Briggs Company

As employees return to the office, they’re expecting more flexibility in their social contracts with employers. How can HR help?

Available now: Psychology of change in the hybrid workplace

current blog
Posted 23 March 2022 by
by Melissa Summer, The Myers-Briggs Company

Change is inevitable. And as the hybrid workplace becomes a new normal for many organizations, it brings specific benefits and challenges to managing uncertainty and successfully implementing change initiatives.

Top 10 Leadership Development Books

current blog
Posted 05 March 2020 by
The Myers-Briggs Company

Our recommended titles for you this World Book Day

Six things managers and executives can do to improve company culture

current blog
Posted 26 June 2019 by
Jeff Hayes, President and CEO of The Myers-Briggs Company

6 things managers and executives can do

The colourful world of personality type

Colour guide
Posted 07 June 2017 by
John Hackston, Head of Thought Leadership, OPP

How you can gain instant insight from colourful MBTI type resources.

Improving business results using the MBTI instrument

Leadership accountability
Posted 24 May 2017 by
Sharon Richmond, Principal, Richmond Associates Consulting

How to use research to create MBTI solutions: this post looks at leadership accountability gaps

Are you an entrepreneur? Knowing your MBTI type could be useful

MBTI Type and Entrepreneurship thumb 220317
Posted 22 March 2017 by
John Hackston, Head of Thought Leadership, OPP

John Hackston explores recent OPP research. 

Top MBTI and Type books

Top MBTI and type books
Posted 01 March 2017 by
Collaboration - MBTI experts and practitioners

Which MBTI book will you add to your collection this World Book Day?

10 top tips – add depth to coaching with the MBTI framework

Top tips for using MBTI with coaching
Posted 01 December 2016 by
Katy Lyne, Principal Consultant at OPP

Get the most from the MBTI assessment when coaching individuals.

Using MBTI Type to get to grips with email – quickly

MBTI Type and email guide
Posted 25 October 2016 by
John Hackston, Head of Research at OPP

Research based tips for more effective email communication between different MBTI personality Types.

Using Type to 'get' email

MBTI Type and improving use of email
Posted 20 September 2016 by
John Hackston, Head of Research at OPP

How do different MBTI Types use and feel about email? We explore some recent research to see what we can learn

Breaking the ice

OPP Icebreaker Exercise
Posted 12 September 2016 by
Penny Moyle, CEO OPP

Looking for an easy to implement icebreaker? Bingo!

Le Tour de France – it's all about high-performing teams

High performing cycling team
Posted 13 July 2016 by
Claire Bremner, Senior Consultant at OPP

Cycling-inspired tips for team and leadership development

Persuasion people and personality

Posted 04 February 2016 by
John Hackston Head of R&D at OPP

The power of persuasion in the context of MBTI Types - how do they differ?

What will be hot in 2016?

predictions feedback thumb
Posted 14 January 2016 by
Penny Moyle, CEO at OPP

What should we look out for in 2016? Here are our predictions...

Type tips for coaching and development

Coaching conversation
Posted 20 November 2015 by
Aidan Millar - Human Development Consultant for Psychometrics Canada

Aidan Millar explores how coaches can help clients flex between operating with their natural MBTI preferences and outside them when necessary. 

The 5 most common ways to lose a good manager

Ways to lose a manager sandwich
Posted 12 November 2015 by
John Hackston Head of R&D at OPP

Why do managers leave their jobs? We've looked at the research to bring you a summary

Stress - it is personal

Stress is personal
Posted 02 November 2015 by
Penny Moyle CEO at OPP and John Hackston Head of R&D at OPP

Quick fixes are great, but what about a long-term solution to managing stress?

Are open-plan offices bad for your wellbeing?

Type and work env
Posted 01 October 2015 by
John Hackston - Head of R&D at OPP

No-one likes open plan offices, so what can we do about it? Check out this research-based advice.

Five most common ways to alienate your staff

thumbs down for managers
Posted 23 September 2015 by
John Hackston - Head of R&D at OPP

The employment market seems to be improving, which is good news for jobseekers but not necessarily for employers; having more jobs available means that there are more opportunities for workers to leave. All the more important, then, that managers don’t give their people that extra incentive to start looking elsewhere. Here are five of the most common ways in which managers can (and unfortunately do) alienate their staff.

Top tips for increasing the impact of your team coaching - part 2

team coaching cropped
Posted 10 July 2015 by
Katy Lyne - Principal Consultant at OPP

In my previous blog post, I set out five top tips for increasing the impact of team coaching based on my experience as an OPP Consultant. I’m aware of the increasing pressure on clients’ budgets and the need to ensure that investment in team coaching inspires permanent change and makes a lasting difference to performance. With this in mind, I offer five more tips.

Top tips for increasing the impact of your team coaching – part 1

teamwork
Posted 18 June 2015 by
Katy Lyne - Principal Consultant at OPP

As an OPP Consultant, I work with many teams across a wide variety of sectors and industries. I was recently talking to a client, herself an L&D practitioner, who asked me about my approach to team coaching – in  particular what my ‘top tips’ were for ensuring that the work had impact and made a real difference to how the team functions. This got me thinking about the key elements involved.

Did Little Red Riding Hood have an S Preference?

Red Riding Hood and wolf
Posted 21 May 2015 by
Aidan Millar - Human Development Consultant for Psychometrics Canada

Well, not necessarily. But it is true that her demise could have been attributed to an all-too-common Sensing blind spot: a failure to quickly and accurately recognise how facts and present realities connect to a bigger picture – and often, a very meaningful one.

Five tips for conducting effective job interviews

Interviewing
Posted 20 February 2015 by
Robert McHenry - Chairman at OPP

Whether you need to hire staff for your own business, or you conduct interviews on behalf of a client, it’s important to get the most out of every job interview. As a business psychologist, I have studied selection methods carefully and practised them throughout my working life. Here are some tips on how to maximise the effectiveness of your next interview.

Goal-setting and resolutions – five top tips and five probing questions

Resolutions
Posted 07 January 2015 by
Claire Bremner - Senior Consultant at OPP

It’s that time of year again... having reflected back on 2014, many will now be looking ahead to 2015 and identifying their self-improvement resolutions and goals for the year ahead.  Although I don’t personally set New Year’s resolutions, goal setting helps focus my intention, effort and actions. It seems timely to reflect on how we set goals, as many in organisations will be in the midst of reviewing performance against targets or key performance indicators (KPIs) and engaging in personal development planning for the year ahead.

Top five blog articles of 2014

What's your type tipple?
Posted 29 December 2014 by
OPP Ltd

Visits to our Personality Matters Blog were at an all-time high in 2014, and we covered a wide range of topics in our weekly posts. Over the last 12 months we've talked about the best MBTI-based books and the various resources available for L&D teams. We’ve promoted Movember, and we’ve chipped in to the Paul Flowers furore. We've continued to thrive as thought leaders in a diverse range of workplace psychology issues, from recruitment and assessment centres to polarity management. But what are the top five posts that readers have returned to again and again?

Ten top tips for staff retention

Bowl of fruit
Posted 11 December 2014 by
Julia Nickless - Key Account Manager at OPP

Staff retention is a major issue for many organisations. Some environments are feeling the effects more than others - call centres, for example, are practically haemorrhaging employees. Consequently, HR professionals need to find more effective ways to retain talent. Our blog post offers ten top tips for engaging with staff and keeping them on board.

Top 10 best-selling practitioner resources

shopping cart image
Posted 24 November 2014 by
OPP

To celebrate the launch of the new shop we thought it would be useful to highlight the most popular resources that have been purchased through our online ordering during 2014. These are the items that our customers find most useful (along with the many popular reports ordered by practitioners via OPPassessment). How many of them are in your portfolio of essential resources?

How to structure those reference requests

reference
Posted 17 October 2014 by
sitecore\Robert McHenry - Chairman at OPP

References on job candidates are a very valuable source of information, and yet they are being requested less and less by private sector employers. The main reasons are a fear on the part of the referee (or the referee’s employer) that if they give a candid reference, they might be sued; and scepticism on the part of the new employer about the value of any references they might obtain.

Six videos that help illustrate MBTI type

E-I vid by Susan Caine
Posted 10 October 2014 by
Betsy Kendall - COO and head of Professional Services at OPP

Training aids that are memorable and that bring clarity to descriptions of MBTI® type are like gold dust. One of the commonest questions I come across in the various MBTI-related Linked In groups, including OPP’s own OPP Qualified Practitioners, is the plea for good exercises to help illustrate the MBTI preferences and dichotomies.

Ten more books about MBTI and type that you can't afford to be without!

16 Personality Types
Posted 12 September 2014 by
sitecore\OPP Ltd

In the second of our blog posts looking at 20 invaluable books about MBTI® and type, we review another ten titles that have impressed MBTI practitioners or been a key support in their work with the MBTI assessment. As with the first batch, the books featured here are listed in no particular order, and comments are from individual reviewers who responded to our request for reviews on the Linked In group OPP Qualified Professionals.

Ten books about MBTI and type that you can't afford to be without!

Was that really me?
Posted 20 August 2014 by
Paul Sullivan

Which books about MBTI® and type have had the biggest impact on practitioners? We posted this question on the Linked In group OPP Qualified Professionals earlier this year, to discover the titles that had most impressed and inspired practitioners or been a key support in their work with the MBTI assessment. Twenty books rose to the top of the pile. Here are the first ten – in no particular order – with comments from the individual reviewers.

Receiving feedback well... a question of give and take

Feedback
Posted 25 June 2014 by
Claire Bremner, Senior Consultant at OPP

I'm reading a book at the moment – Thanks for the feedback: the science and art of receiving feedback well by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen (Harvard Law School). I bought it on the strength of an article in the Saturday Guardian by Oliver Burkeman, which included a comment that really made me chuckle: “Tell me what I did well, tell me what I should do differently and don't confuse the two. If I wanted a sandwich, I'd go to the office canteen.” If only receiving feedback was as straightforward as eating a sandwich!

Celebrate with 25 free resources for practitioners

OPP at 25 logo
Posted 28 May 2014 by
TeriSmith

Few things in life are free – but OPP has some really cool free resources to support you in your work! To help celebrate our 25 years in the business, we’ve taken a trawl through the various goodies available for zero outlay on our website. They range from white papers and feedback materials to fun quick guides and infographics – many of which can also be found on our practitioner downloads page.

Ten top tips for using psychometric tools competently

Penknife with business skills on it
Posted 02 May 2014 by
TeriSmith

When used well, psychometric tools are a powerful output of scientific thought and research, and can be the key to unlocking the potential of an organisation’s most vital but complex asset: its people. But in the wrong hands, or with a misplaced sense of how they can be useful, things can go badly wrong. So how do you ensure you are commissioning or using tools that will get you kudos for creating lasting improvement, rather than a damp squib that will damage your reputation and that of your business? Here are our ten top tips.

Top five blog articles of 2013

Top 5
Posted 17 January 2014 by
TeriSmith

The blog has been increasing in popularity over the last year. We've celebrated 70 years of the MBTI system with posts on best practice, ethics and the diversity of applications; we've blogged about topical events such as the horsemeat scandal, the European elections and Andy Murray's Wimbledon win; and we've continued to thrive as thought leaders in a diverse range of workplace psychology issues, from stress to benchmarking to onboarding and retention. But what are the top five posts that have kept readers coming back again and again?

Ten terrible (un)truths about psychometric tests in selection

Truth
Posted 14 November 2013 by
TeriSmith

There is a great deal of information out there on the web about psychometric tests and questionnaires – and, as with most things on the internet, some of it is absolutely wrong, especially when it comes to using these tools in selection. Here are ten common myths, along with the real story.