Profing Benefits All

Personality Profiling for Selection, Coaching, Development and Leadership with Teams  

It’s crazy.  I know of an Branch Manager with ten sales staff and admin people who spends more time and resources appraising the purchase of a new photocopier costing merely a few hundred pounds, whilst failing to invest anything like the same energy in his people.  

Investment in People  

Do we really know what makes our people tick?  Do we really understand what motivates them?  Have we really appraised their strengths and limitations?  And have we a good picture of their combined strengths?  If the answer to any of these questions is NO then it’s about time we did.

Achieving More through Your People  

Although you have invested in your staff, are you really getting the most from them?  Are you employing them to play to their strengths?  And what action are you taking in helping them leverage improvement from their current limitations to a new, more acceptable level of performance?  

If you are going to do it you may want to consider how it can be done.  You may also want to consider how you can take charge of the process at the start of your staff’s employment – even prior to the selection interview.  

Selection & Development  

You may also consider that as part of their induction and development that you would like to appraise their skills, behaviours and competencies and one good way to do that is through the use of psychometrics.  

Development Workshops can be designed to make the process exciting and invigorating.  People love to find out about themselves.  When they do isolate their strengths, they can employ them to their advantage.  And in the areas where people don’t excel they can take action.  

Poor use of Psychometrics  

I cannot believe how badly profiling techniques are applied in business today.  For a start, it’s a good idea to have someone qualified and licensed in administering and interpreting any profiling.   

There are still cases of people peddling Personality Profiles which are less than accurate, reliable and statistically robust to measure what they claim to measure.   

There are still Trainers using profiles they have not been trained to use and are misinterpreting the results.  Just think what damage these people are doing in Coaching, Training, Leadership and Selection scenarios.   

People don’t recognize sometimes that an unqualified and unlicensed Trainer can cause a great deal of psychological and personal damage.  

And what about the situation where Profiling is agreed to be a useful tool which is wrongly imposed on staff with the results remaining a decision-making tool for the manager alone? 

There are many cases where managers use such assessments and keep the results to themselves.  In such cases mutual trust plummets and motivation walks out the door.  

The Effective use of Personality Profiling & Psychometrics  

The benefits that can accrue to using instruments for developing people from selection through development are significant in relation to the investment required.  

Using relevant and accurate instruments, tools and development centres and workshops can significantly impact performance for the better.  Your staff will appreciate the commitment you are making to their development and there may be a new curiosity and openness in the workplace.  

Profiling should always be fedback to staff.  It is pointless for staff sitting through profiles or development activities and there being no debate or further development. 

Profiling should not be imposed on others with their results remaining in the Manager’s filing cabinet.  Profiles should be used as an open tool for development of the whole business.  

For further information email me direct and we can discuss possibilities and opportunities in using such instruments, or in the design of Development or assessment Centres specifically for your needs contact me. 

Philip@philipatkinson.com