Consultants collect team-building tools. There’s the “make a square out of these parts” exercise (solution — team members have to swap parts). There’s the penny exercise — everyone gets a penny (for their thoughts, of course) and has to relate a personal anecdote from the year the penny was coined (“1951 … I was conceived.”)

One year, I participated in “Match the secret to the team member,” so often that I didn’t need the Internet to eliminate my right to privacy — by the end of the year I’d even had to reveal that I’d played Glockenspiel in my high school marching band.

These are just ice-breakers. When you want to get hard-core about team building, nothing compares to personality profiling tools. Myers-Briggs, DISCO, Forte … you could choose one for each team member and have tools left over.

Don’t get me wrong — these things do have value. People tend to see the world through their own eyes. Lacking a degree in psychology I can only speculate as to why. My guess is that it’s because connecting someone else’s optic nerves to our own visual processing centers is too hard.

Unfortunately, content to use only our own eyes, we take the next illogical step and conclude that the way we think is the only valid one. That attitude leads to cliques, not to effective teams — when everyone thinks the same, whether two people or ten focus on a problem, the range of solutions they develop will be about the same.

Personality profiles help frame discussions of how different thought patterns complement each other in crafting optimal designs and solutions. With IS and Marketing interacting with increasing frequency, the importance of appreciating diversity of thought can’t be overstated.

Regrettably, that’s rarely where the conversation stops.

Instead, team members commonly use their personality profiles as a stereotyping tool. Having learned that there are just sixteen kinds of human being (or eight team roles, or four determinants of personality, or what-have-you), team members use each others profiles to build ad hominem arguments during disputes (“Well of course you think that — you’re a Perceiver!”) and excuses for themselves (“That’s not a natural act for me — I’m low-empathy.”)

The worst part of some of these tools is that they’re built on forced-choice selection of false dichotomies. Are you a driver or an analytical? Yes, I am … depending on what the circumstances require.

Okay, that’s the second-worst part. The worst part is that these tools should be opening people to new possibilities — new ways of thinking about things. They ought to be expanding horizons, and instead they have the exact opposite effect.

There’s another version of this “scientific stereotyping” that’s even more pernicious. You don’t have to look very far to find books and articles explaining how to manage Generation X’ers, the difference between male and female leadership styles, or how to motivate the vertically challenged (Hint: Don’t play Randy Newman over the intercom).

Let’s follow this logic: I have a 27-year-old team member. She works in my area, we work together on a regular basis, and I meet with her one-on-one every two weeks. To understand what motivates her … I know — I’ll read a book written by authors who have never met her!

Works for me.

Want to motivate a twenty-something employee? Want to understand a new female manager’s leadership style? Do you have an African-American on your team and you aren’t sure what he needs to succeed?

Here’s an advanced leadership technique, hitherto known only to Zen masters living at high altitude in remote regions, brought back to the United States by a courageous consultant since assassinated by the cult charged with protecting the secret:

Get to know your employees. Empathize with them. Ask them what’s important to them. Treat them as individuals.

I know it’s more complicated than administering a Myers-Briggs test and reading a book, but if you master these techniques you’ll be a far more effective leader.

But then, I have to think that way … I’m an INTP.