The value of understanding your MBTI preferences and the preferences of people who are important in your life is eloquently stated in the following excerpt from a book called "Please Understand Me" by Marilyn Bates and David Kiersey:

"If I do not want what you want,
please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.
Or if I believe other than you,
at least pause before you correct my view.
Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more,
given the same circumstances,
try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.
Of yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner
of your design for action, let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least,
ask you to understand me.
That will come only when you are willing
to give up changing me into a copy of you.”

Isn't this the real issue of communication?  We see the world as we are not as it really is and especially not from someone's else's point of view.  So the more information we can gather about other people's personalities and communication styles, the more effective we will be as we work and live with them.

We have found that the MBTI which helps you understand your preferences (consider a preference like your preferred hand...it's the one you use the most and the other hand also is used but less frequently and more consciously) in the following areas is quite helpful to a team to learn how to communicate with each other and to work together most effectively:

Where do you get your energy?

Extraverts - Get energy from people interaction and talk out loud to think whereas Introverts get their energy internally and think things through in their head before they speak...to need to rechard their batteries after intense people interaction.

How do you take in information?

Sensors...use the five senses...see the world as it it...current reality is very important to them...they are very detail oriented versus Intuitives who see the big picture of the world...the systems, the possibilities...often imagine what it all could look like if...