“The ‘self-image’ is the key to human personality and human behavior. Change the self-image and you change the personality and the behavior. –Maxwell Maltz”
You’ve probably seen and taken a thousand personality tests online. Some of them even tell you what kind of animal you would be based on your personality after answering just a few questions about your favourite colour or vegetable. If you’re the leader of an organisation, however, you know that businesses need to rely on assessments that are a bit more serious when it comes to evaluating their workforce to measure dimensions of personality and related characteristics.
Why is personality testing so important to an organization?
Put in simple terms, assessments can—when done correctly (and we’ll get to that a bit later)—develop promising talent, build effective leaders, leverage natural strengths of team members, improve team cohesiveness and, ultimately, affect the bottom line.
When should organisations conduct a personality test?
Many organisations choose to utilize a complement of assessment tools in various stages of an employee’s tenure designed to help their talent in specific dimensions.
For example in recruiting, personality tests can be valuable tools for identifying and selecting the right people for your organisation. They can also be used to develop strong and effective leaders by teaching them to understand and leverage their own personality strengths and their team’s. Assessments can also be used as a team building activity to motivate and create an effective work environment by bringing a team together to discuss and explore their work styles, preferences and give them an understanding of diverse personality types, which leads to more collaborative working relationships. The process also gives individuals insight into work preferences and issues that may be interfering with productivity and job enjoyment.
Facilitation
Whilst there are many personality type indicators and assessments, most of these tests are not designed to predict behaviour; they will, however, assist organisations in building a strong workforce and cohesive teams—the key is having effective facilitation performed by a qualified and experienced professional.
A facilitator’s role is to walk you through the entire process of the assessment to ensure maximum results. The process is staged and begins with conducting a needs assessment to get a clear picture of your needs and the needs of your team and organisation. This is followed by identifying and administering the appropriate assessment tool and a comprehensive analysis of the results in the form of detailed reports and/or sessions targeted to the specific audience and desired outcome. Finally, the facilitator will also create an actionable plan to help you and your team continue to capitalize on the assessment’s findings.
If you’re considering including a personality assessment and facilitation in your strategy to develop your team or your organisation’s talent and have questions about how they can help, contact Castlegate International for a free consultation. Our mission is to help business leaders and teams improve their understanding of themselves and others to get results.
Have you participated in a professional personality assessment facilitation? How did you benefit from it? We would love to get your thoughts! Contribute to the conversation in the comments section below.