As you develop your leadership and management skills, eventually you’ll probably be asked to take some sort of standardized assessment. You’ll also likely run across someone who suggests that you have your team take one as well.
But are these assessments helpful or harmful?
Well … they can be either.
I tend to classify them into two categories: archetype assessments, and detailed assessments.
Archetype assessments are those like Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, and DiSC that take a wide array of your responses and aggregate them into a single number or a label such as INTJ or a pair of concepts, such as High D/C.
Detailed assessments are … well … more detailed. They often elaborate on your level of strength across a vast array of skills or highlight tendencies or preferences for a large number of traits and situations. Examples of these might be 360 assessments or the Harrison Assessment, both of which I make available to my clients.
But which is more useful?
Part of the appeal and value of an archetype assessment is that its results are simple to understand. A simple definition assigned to each of your team members can help you remember some of the most significant distinguishing factors between them without having to stare and compare differences across pages of details.
The danger of this kind of an assessment is two-fold. First, it can be easy for you to reduce a person to their assessment definition, overlooking or ignoring the areas where their unique nature doesn’t fit the archetype. Second, it can be easy for the person taking the test to adopt the label as if it were their identity, leading them to conform not only to its strengths but also to its weaknesses.
The benefit of a detailed assessment is that it can often help identify both specific opportunities for growth but also specific skills, strengths, and attributes that you can use as tools to support that growth.
The potential challenge of a detailed assessment is that the sheer volume of information may be overwhelming to process even for yourself. And if a person fears that someone else will have access to the detailed results, they may feel compelled to adjust their answers to influence the output.
If you’re considering a standardized assessment for yourself or for your team, let’s talk. Visit stevedwire.com/talk to start the conversation.
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