| Abstract: | abstract Employers seek communication, problem‐solving and teamworking skills in graduates. The need for the last factor derives from an increasing use of teams to manage organisations and to solve problems. The use of analyses of personality styles to understand teamwork grows, and the models of Belbin and Margerison and Lewis (the latter based on the Myers‐Briggs analysis of personality type) are used particularly and illustrate the approach. Most programmes which develop personal skills in graduates include development of inter‐personal skills but appear to under‐use the insights of personality typing. There is a case for redressing this balance. Unstructured group work is of less use than it might be. Dangers to be overcome include stereotyping and superficiality. Other implications for higher education appear in the selection of students, understanding student learning and teaching methods, and the relative inability of institutions to use ideas and insights generated by research. |
