Your team member is more than 4 letters
“Marguerite, what do you think of assessments?” my client asked. “Do you use them? Do you recommend them? Do you find them useful?”
I am no expert on employee assessments, but I have come across a few in my years (decades) leading organizations, consulting and coaching. I must admit that I have mixed feelings.
Assessments take a number of forms:
- Psychometric – to reveal aspects of someone’s psychological makeup
- Competency – to assess a particular area of skill
- Emotional intelligence – to assess one’s ability to manage emotions
- Values – to highlight and reveal personal values
- Management & leadership – to assess competence and performance as a manager and leader
They are useful because they:
- Surface issues that are difficult to discern, or that we might never have thought of or deemed important. For example, ever wonder what went wrong with that star hire that upset everyone in his or her first few months on the job, after interviewing so well? There were probably underlying emotional intelligence deficiencies that an assessment might have surfaced.
- Save time – in our busy world, with the plethora of “things to do” on our desks, we need quick, efficient ways to make decisions about job fit, performance gaps and developmental needs.
- Reduce subjectivity and are therefore seen as being more objective by the person being assessed. Hopefully, at least in theory, this makes people more open to receiving feedback.
- Level the playing field and provide a basis for comparison since everyone is rated on the same criteria.
On the other hand, they may make us lazy. Once we have the results, we take them at face value (remember we are busy) and neglect to explore deeper. Also, they are limited in their scope. For example, the Myers-Briggs personality test identifies 16 discrete personality types based on a combination of sensation, intuition, feeling, and thinking. But surely we are more than a combination of 4 letters? How can the essence of who we are, which is the summation of our entire life – our upbringing, our socialization, our experiences, our culture, the people we have interacted with, the books we have read, our innermost thoughts and feelings – EVERYTHING in our life up to this point that has made us who we now are – be summed up in 4 letters?
Now, I am not at all saying that these assessments are ineffective – they are simply one more piece of information to help us understand others and ourselves. They are a starting point for deep discussions and conversations where we ask questions, listen and ask more questions. The challenge is that the assessment could actually colour our listening – when we know the results of an assessment, then we listen through that filter. And what we listen for is usually what we hear. In my experience, these assessments can get in the way of truly listening to someone with an open mind. I have seen on a number of occasions, particularly in 360° assessments, where the recipient spends much time in indignation trying to figure out who said what and who gave a particular rating. Not helpful. Doesn’t really matter who said it – what matters is what we do with the information.
Be judicious in your use of assessments – reflect on the results and view them as a piece, a small piece of the puzzle of who you and others are.
TAKE ONE ACTION
Take stock of the assessments used in your organization. What purpose are they serving? How are they used? You may want to cull those that no longer serve a good purpose.
INTERESTING LINKS
Go back to basics! Some tried and proven, simple advice on how to get people to agree with you. And after all this, if they don’t, then maybe you are the one who needs to agree!
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“We are creating organizations able to fail, but in a compliant way” – a great TED talk that posits that the drive for clarity, accountability and measurement may actually get in the way of productivity.
– click to watch video
I am loving the new President of Tanzania! He is NOT joking! His actions may seem drastic, but they are getting real results.
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