By: Martin Pupil, Executive Managing Director
There are more than 2,000 personality tests on the market taken by over two million people annually. Carl G. Jung laid the foundation for one of the most popular tests given, Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® but there is also DiSC® Behavior Inventory, Hogan Motives Value Preferences Inventory and within my own firm, we leverage Culture Index™. The list of preferred tests is long, but in the workplace setting, they help you decipher your talent and set them up for success.
But the point of this article is not to debate which assessment resource is the right one for you to use, but rather for you to embrace the construct of these tests to better mobilize your organization’s workforce, particularly during crisis-level events when misappropriation of talent can make or break teams and organizations.
Putting Science to Work
Crisis situations can bring out both the best and the worst behavioral traits. Less than desirable communication or interactions internally and externally pose difficulties for people under normal circumstances, let alone in remote working environments under duress. But what these personality assessments can deliver is more meaningful interactions that drive cohesive work environments. These tests can also inspire increased self-awareness—forcing employees to see the differences between how they are being perceived by others versus how they see themselves.
Below is a sample of the primary constructs of Culture Index™ which has allowed our company to better navigate the application of behaviors and direct better action and communication in our operation:
The assessment gets technical, providing for greater understanding by plotting an individual’s four constructs and applying them to one of eighteen typified patterns that fall under four categories: visionary, technical, social and organizational. For simplicity’s sake, we will keep this discussion at a higher level with a focus on the primary construct traits in the boxes above.
Just before and immediately after the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, we mobilized around strategy and execution plans that would allow us to deliver business continuity to our clients while keeping our employees safe and service levels and morale up. We relied predominately on our leaders and team members with dominant A’s for their vision and development of strategic plans but leveraged dominant D’s to question the details and feasibility of those plans. For execution of those plans, we relied on our dominant B’s to act as implementation ambassadors and communicators of value and leveraged dominant C’s to implement processes and deliver continuity.
But no matter which personality assessment platform you choose, all compartmentalize dominant and recessive personality traits to understand engagement from a position of understanding and self-awareness.
Right Person, Right Role
Personality assessments are certainly not a panacea for every issue that faces a business, but if understood and applied appropriately, they just might orchestrate the path of least resistance to your success—crisis or not.
- Leverage personality assessment tools to position your talent for success.
- Empower your networkers with high empathy and social capabilities to promote the positive and listen to internal and external clients for problems that need to be solved.
- Empower your visionaries and quick decision-makers to deliver strategic plans and solutions.
- Leverage your analytical team members to challenge strategic plans and solutions for critical flaw.
