It’s not unusual to see organizations offer or require their employees to participate in a personality assessment. There are many different types of assessments that leaders use for their employees. Some choose to use personality or behavior assessments, while others use assessments that closely identify a person’s strengths and natural tendencies in a workplace setting. At Quadrivium Advisors, we use an Advance Insight Profile to measure motivations, drivers, and talents. While these assessments can vary in kind and type, most are used for the same reasons.
Clarity
It can be easy to name the strengths or tendencies of your coworker or boss, but when it comes to assessing our own characteristics, it can be quite difficult. We don’t often see ourselves, or our actions, in the same way that others do in the workplace. Whether we use personality assessments or a strength’s finder test, both are good at identifying our strengths and limitations in a non-biased way. Once we assess these tendencies, we will be able to harness our skills while being aware of what improvements we can make. For example, our Advance Insight Profile helps clients identify their talents and clarifies their preferred ways of using them. This awareness can help employees and clients understand themselves and each other more clearly.
Building Effective Teams
When we know each other’s strengths, we’re more likely to know how to utilize each other effectively. Strengths and personality assessments give us a common language that we can use together with our teams. The data we receive from personality and strengths assessments can help us navigate different situations. At Quadrivium, we use our assessment results as a team to understand what motivates each of us as individuals and how to harness these motivators as a team. These assessments give us the insight we need when deciding who does what on a big project, or knowing who to go to when we need help or direction.
Discussion
Personality and strengths assessments are great tools to use individually, especially when we use them to improve as employees. But, these assessments are great to come back to periodically with your team. Teams that take time to share with each other, and make it a point to grow both as individuals and as a team, are more likely to function as a cohesive and effective unit. Some assessments even come with discussion questions and material to use together as a team.
Find Meaningful Work
A lot of times, these assessments can help guide us well into our careers. When we know what drives us and what makes us happy, we’re able to seek it out in our work. If our work responsibilities match our strengths, chances are we’re going to be happy while doing really great work. Strengths assessments give us the opportunity to reexamine what type of work challenges us while giving us meaning.
At Quadrivium, using the Advance Insight Profile gives us a holistic approach to understanding ourselves, our clients, and our teams. Together, our assessment results create the WHAT, WHY, and HOW that drives our work, motivates us, and keeps us moving forward. If you’re interested in using the Advance Insight Profile with your team, let us know!
