A question I'm asked often: "What's the difference between MBTI and what Zeswa does?"
Short answer: MBTI describes a person. Zeswa predicts how that person will fit a specific team. These are different problems, and they need different instruments.
Here is the longer answer.
What MBTI is#
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality assessment based on the work of Carl Jung. It reports a person's preferred way of thinking and acting on four preference dimensions — extraversion/introversion, sensing/intuition, thinking/feeling, and judgment/perception — and combines them into a four-letter "type."
It is widely used in team development by management consultants. It is far less popular with academic organizational psychologists, mostly because the evidence for its ability to actually improve team performance is thin.
Why it's not the right tool for matching teammates#
There are three substantive reasons MBTI is not appropriate for selection or team formation:
1. It is built on a personality theory most modern psychologists have moved past.
While some practitioners still endorse Jungian psychology, contemporary organizational psychology generally relies on trait theory and social cognitive theory. A fit perspective — what Zeswa does — embraces psychometric measurement of traits from trait theory while also considering the environment the person interacts with, a key element of social cognitive theory.
2. It tells you type, not strength.
MBTI puts you in a bucket but does not tell you how strongly you sit on a dimension. Two people labeled "E" can be wildly different on actual extraversion. Some MBTI dimensions correlate with traits we measure — extraversion roughly tracks our assertiveness dimension, for example — but team research has identified many other traits that matter more for team performance and that MBTI doesn't measure at all. Team-member agreeableness is one of the strongest predictors of team performance we have. Facets of psychological collectivism — particularly concern for others — predict whether a team will be top-performing or bottom-performing. None of this is in a four-letter type.
3. The response format is wrong for ranking.
MBTI uses a forced-choice (ipsative) format where respondents pick between two equally desirable options. That structure can produce a "type" but it is not appropriate for rank-ordering people on a dimension — which is exactly what selection decisions require. Using MBTI to compare candidates is a methodological misuse of the instrument, not a feature of it.
What Zeswa measures instead#
Zeswa's work-style survey is built specifically for the team-fit question. It captures:
- Personality traits with established team-performance evidence (agreeableness, conscientiousness, and others)
- Facets of psychological collectivism, including concern for team members and reliance on the group
- Work-style preferences that matter for daily collaboration — conflict management, communication, time management, approach to tasks
- Values that drive long-term motivation and engagement
For each dimension, the survey measures strength, not just direction, and the methodology aggregates those scores into a compatibility view of how a candidate will fit a specific existing team.
When MBTI is still useful#
I want to be balanced about this. MBTI is easy to understand, generates good conversation, and can be a productive icebreaker for an established team that wants a shared vocabulary for differences. As a developmental tool used carefully, it can have a place.
It just isn't the tool you reach for when you are deciding whom to hire, or which existing team a person will most successfully join. For that question, you need an instrument designed for that question. That is what Zeswa is. See how the Bell Method measures the 16 dimensions that actually predict team fit, or explore the full platform.