Corporations are increasing their use of personality and skills-based assessments during the pre-screening interview process, as well as during performance review cycles. But assessments are also powerful tools for jump starting stalled projects, energizing new teams, and developing emerging leaders.
Formal assessments can help you achieve your full potential by keying in on your strengths, while identifying and correcting behavioral blind spots and performance inconsistencies.
This article provides you with a high-level overview of six assessments, effective uses of the tool, and resource links for the following:
- 360 Feedback (360 MR)
- Emotional Intelligence (EQ or EI)
- FIRO B
- Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI)
- Personal Interests, Attitudes & Values (PIA&V)
- Wilson Learning – Versatility Profile
360 Feedback (360 MR)
In many of today’s fast-paced corporate environments where stressed managers do their best at just keeping up, we can safely say that employees probably aren’t receiving enough feedback, or the right feedback, for their professional development.
A multirater assessment collects feedback on an individual’s behavior from h/her peers, managers, direct reports, as well as other internal and external contacts. Typically referred to as a 360 feedback because it collects information from a “circle” of business relationships, companies use this assessment as a personal development tool by creating a “behavior baseline” for individuals and teams.
Effective Uses of 360 Feedback
- Professional development of individuals and team members
- Determines strengths and areas of opportunity for growth
- Assists in managing change and realigning behaviors
- Improves team productivity and effectiveness
- Career transitions and skill gaps
Resource Links
Emotional Intelligence (EQ or EI)
The focus on Emotional Intelligence, as it applies to relationship management and leadership in the workplace, has only recently been adopted by corporations, although EQ, or EI, has been around for decades.
Emotional intelligence considers an array of skills to assist individuals for coping with the day-to-day work/life demands and pressures. The basics of EQ include the following:
- Understanding your feelings and using them to make life decisions you can live with.
- Ability to manage your emotional life without being hijacked by it; paralyzed by depression or worry, or swept away by anger.
- Persisting in the face of setbacks and channeling your impulses in order to pursue your goals.
- Empathy and the ability to read other people's emotions without their having to tell you what they are feeling.
- Handling feelings in relationships with skill and harmony; articulating the unspoken pulse of a group, for example.
Effective Uses of Emotional Intelligence
- Develop relationships with critical internal and external constituents
- Design healthy team dynamics and influential team leaders
- Persuade cross-functional business owners to take action
- Increase communication and influence for selling ideas
- Gain acceptance and buy-in for organizational change
- Drive innovation, risktaking, and collaborative learning
Resource Links
FIRO B
The FIRO B assessment provides a scientific lens that helps you gain a clearer perspective and understanding of the dynamics of human behavior. Through this view, you can increase your knowledge, awareness and compassion for others and yourself.
Based on three basic needs that all humans share: the need to feel significant, competent, and likeable, the FIRO B assesses how these three needs express themselves across three levels of human interaction: behavior, feelings, and self-concept.
Achieving a healthy self-concept depends on your ability to negotiate a balance of inclusion, control, and openness. This not only helps you to feel good about others and yourself, but also results in more effective workplace relationships and higher levels of self-satisfaction.
Effective Uses of FIRO B
- Helps individuals and organizations better understand human behavior
- Increases self-awareness and awareness of how others perceive us
- Identifies self-sabotaging behaviors and actions for changing them
- Explores deeper feelings driving these behaviors, or social styles
- Creates a highly accurate picture of your interpersonal behavior
- Builds trust and helps establish more collaborative relationships
Resource Links
Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI)
The Hermann Brain Dominance Instrument can be an effective assessment tool for both individuals and teams. The HBDI measures an individual’s thinking style in terms of Emotional, Analytical, Structural, or Strategic.
The instrument doesn’t measure competence or ability, but emphasizes the fact that we all have access to, and can successfully use, all four quadrants of the brain in any given situation.
Low scores (avoidance) in a particular quadrant doesn’t mean that a person is incapable of performing a work assignment, but that their primary preference is not to think, or perform, the work in this way, but could do so if given the chance to develop that area.
Particularly good for shifting left-brain, or technically focused, individuals into the realm of creativity, the HBDI assessment provides users with a walk around the brain. The tool can help teams to understand one another while tapping into the creative conflict natural in different primary thinking styles.
Effective Uses of HBDI
- Communication, negotiating, and selling styles
- Personal growth and career decisions
- Conflict management and counseling
- Team formation and group process
- Creative problem solving
Resource Links
Personal Interests, Attitudes & Values (PIA&V)
Our experiences over time crystallize into a hierarchy of attitudes that become a set of beliefs – true or untrue, positive or negative. The PIA&V assessment report helps you to understand why you do what you do through a discovery process of values that motivate you into taking action. The six attitudes measured include:
- Theoretical: cognitive ability to understand, discover and systematize the truth; a search for knowledge
- Utilitarian: passion for gaining a return on your investments in time and/or resources
- Aesthetic: passion for experiencing the impressions of the world, beauty, form and balance; self-actualization
- Social: ability to invest self, time, and resources in helping others to achieve their maximum potential
- Individualistic: passion for achieving position and to use this position to affect and influence others
- Traditional: pursuit of the highest meaning in life
Pursuing career and personal goals aligned with your dominant attitudes, i.e. your passions, would likely propel you towards completion of the tasks necessary in helping you achieve desired results.
Effective uses of PIA&V
- Increase your understanding and appreciation of the uniqueness of others
- Make career choices that will increase your job satisfaction
- Increase your satisfaction and fulfillment in life
- Understand the WHY of your actions
- Understand the causes of conflict
- Increase your “valuing” of life
Resource Links
Wilson Learning Versatility Profile
Versatility means adapting one’s behavior to meet the concerns and expectations of others to move toward what is comfortable for the other person. The Versatility Profile is a valid, research-based instrument that assesses an individual’s ability to flexibly approach interactions with other people.
Learning the specific skills for improving interpersonal relationships among colleagues and associates can significantly decrease relationship tensions in the workplace and increase productivity.
A Versatility Profile packet consists of 12 surveys, with a suggested distribution plan of one for self, one for manager, five for peers, and five for direct reports or customers. Participants receive results reporting on the three dimensions of Entry, Dialogue, and Closure.
- Entry – Initial trust and comfort levels are established, and a clear task objective is identified. This should occur within the first five minutes.
- Dialogue – Time of exploring needs and mutual problems, focusing on developing a solution together.
- Closure – Gaining a clear and agreeable resolution to the event that triggered the discussion, while continuing to maintain comfort levels.
Effective uses of the Versatility Profile
- Standalone individual diagnostic and planning tool or as an organizational planning analysis
- Assessment and development of emerging leaders responsible for influence selling
- Integrated into Wilson Learning’s The Power of Versatility program
- Assessment and development of Sales professionals
Resource Links
*Disclaimer: We do not endorse any specific resource provided in this posting and recommend performing your own due diligence on the companies and services listed.
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