I’d be willing to wager that you may have done some sort of personality assessment in the past, perhaps with your team. I could be Myers Briggs, it could be Disk, or any number of other personality tools.
What I find to be true is that, in most environments, leaders who take their teams through that kind of team assessment tend to find them interesting, valuable, and helpful at a given point in time. They feel motivated to take the things they have learned and use them to benefit their team. They want to make changes based on the new information that they have and are glad they have gone through these exercises.
But, without guidance or a plan in place to use the knowledge from these team assessments, people tend to file those booklets away and the conversation moves away from the learnings that they gained and the insights they had. The reports begin to gather dust on a shelf and the changes and improvements that could have been made are forgotten.
Maybe you pull them out at some point in the future and think, “Gosh, this was really good. Now, what do I do with this?” You might remember how motivated you were to use the information about your team to improve productivity and alignment and wonder how to get back on track to make that happen.
Perhaps your team has changed dramatically since you last took the assessment. Often, when team members leave and new faces come in, it can feel overwhelming to not only get them up to speed on their job responsibilities but to also have them take a personality assessment. Not to mention, figuring out how to integrate that knowledge with the talents and skills of everyone else on the team.
In short, the process of sustaining the knowledge and value you gained when you had your team take as the assessment can be hard to navigate, appear time-consuming, and easily be pushed to the back burner with all that you have on your plate as a leader.
Core Focus Consulting Can Help with your Team Assessment
If it’s been a while since you’ve used a team assessment tool, and you’re not sure what to do know we are here to help. The work that we do with Core Clarity and with the Clifton strengths tool, creates a sustainable model for you.
You will feel empowered to use the information you gain to strengthen your team over the long haul, in a way that doesn’t feel like a burden or one more item on your overflowing to-do list. You’ll see changes in your team’s satisfaction and productivity that will motivate you to keep going.
We do this by going through a series of workshops that are spaced over time, according to your schedule. By the time these workshops come to an end, you will have an understanding of your current mix of people and what talents and skills they bring. Then as you add someone new – whether when someone leaves the team and you hire someone to replace them, or when you’re adding an additional position- we have a plan to help you integrate them into this work.
When they come on board, they simply take the assessment and we add them to the tools and the reports. Once that’s done, you can take a look at the mix of people on your team and their particular talents. This will allow you to see if there are any changes that you could make to optimize your team now that you have a new person and skills in your mix.
I will take your new hire through a short conversation to bring them up to speed. This will ensure that they understand the work and how it benefits them and the team. If you hire multiple people over the course of six to 12 months, we may come back and do another workshop just for those people or perhaps a refresher workshop for your entire team.
As you go, however, you’re using the reports that you’re provided, to refine your understanding of the mix of the folks on your team. You can be aligning tasks by assigning them to the person who will benefit the most from them, and who will produce the best results. You will also be able to more easily manage conflict as it comes up. Conflicts always exist. Our job isn’t to do away with all conflict. Our job to understand what the conflicts are and how to navigate them.
Strengths work will help you do just that. You’ll have an understanding of what is important to your people, and you’ll understand the best way to approach them. Knowing their personality traits allows you to customize your approach to conflict resolution, so everyone leaves feeling heard and resolved. This work allows you to continue to sustain a momentum of understanding that will benefit you in many ways. While it may seem overwhelming at first, you’ll see dividends that continue to pay out over many years.
Your team will function as a unit. Your employees will be engaged and feel valued. Your productivity will increase as your work is aligned and people are functioning at their best. As you add team members, they will be able to quickly find their place in your team and begin contributing right away. The journey becomes yours because you understand it and have to tools to be successful. Before long, it becomes part of your practice. And, I’m always available to help. I’m here to step in and offer guidance at any point along the journey.
I’d love to have a chance to talk with you about using a team assessment and CliftonStrengths. If you are interested in seeing how this work could change your team for the better, click here to book a free 15-minute call to find out more.