Assessments in Your Toolbox
Assessments are an essential resource for the coaching toolbox. They provide us with a starting point for helping clients develop a deeper understanding of self and sometimes others. Assessments provide coaches with baseline information about the client and can deliver various details about personality, leadership styles, interpersonal communication style, strengths, and stage of development. There are numerous choices available for the coach to use in practice. The most important factor is that the coach develops expertise in the use and application of the assessment. The remainder of this article will focus on formal assessments available for the coach practitioner.
Myers-Briggs
The MBTI assessment helps clients identify natural preferences in four areas of personality. The extroversion/introversion dyad is determined by how the client directs and receives energy. A focus on the outside world, interacting with people and taking action is considered extroverted while focusing on the inner world and reflecting on ideas, memories, and experiences would be considered introverted. The process for taking in information determines the sensing/intuitive dyad. Perception using the five senses would be sensing while seeing the big picture and looking for relationships and patterns is intuitive. The thinking/feeling dyad is determined by how a person decides and arrives at conclusions.
Logically analyzing the situation is considered thinking while considering what’s important to the people involved is considered feeling. The final dyad is perceiving/judgmental. Approaching the outside world in a planned, orderly way fits the judgment domain while a more flexible, spontaneous way is considered perceiving. Once the client has completed the MBTI, the natural preferences of the individual are sorted into 16 distinct personality types. In understanding natural preferences, clients can use the information to strengthen and enhance both personal and professional relationships as well as create developmental plans for growth.
DISC-Values
The DISC assessment is a behavioral assessment tool which identifies four types: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. In describing the differences between the behavioral types, the tool emphasizes the uniqueness of each type and while expanding upon what is needed and expected by the behavioral type. Communication between and among types improves when an understanding of others based upon their type is achieved. It is through understanding ways to adapt to different behavioral types that tension is reduced and increased cooperation and trust in relationships can be built. The results from the values assessment helps individuals better understand their value hierarchy and belief systems. The values that are measured are aesthetic, economic, individualistic, political, altruistic, regulatory, and theoretical. Values are what drives an individual and are expressed through the personality. During the debrief, the coach connects what is valued to how it is expressed. When the DISC assessment is combined with the Values assessment, a full spectrum of behaviors and values can be introduced to a client for a deeper understanding of self and opportunities for development.
Strength-Finders
A third assessment that Global IOC often uses with corporate clients is Strengths Finders. This assessment was developed from Gallups’s 40-year study on human strengths which brought rigor and robustness to the assessment. The Gallup Organization research suggests that the most effective people are those who understand their strengths and behaviors. It is through this understanding that individuals can develop strategies to meet and exceed the demands of their daily lives, their careers, and their families. Strengths Finders focuses on understanding of natural talents that lead to insight into the core reasons behind consistent successes. The Strengths Finders assessment provides the client with the five highest rated strengths out of 34 so that development can be inclusive of the strengths. Gallup found that individuals who know their talents and have the opportunity to use them at work are six times as likely to be engaged in their jobs. Gallup has also found that individuals who know their talents and have the opportunity to use them at work are three times as likely to report having an excellent quality of life.
Hogan
The Hogan assessment suite evaluates personality from both the inside-actor’s view and outside-observer’s view. The Hogan assessment suite is a compilation of three instruments that are based upon consistent observations across a wide range of jobs, individuals, and industries. The suite can help organizations and individuals evaluate strengths and weaknesses, identify high potential employees and leadership candidates, uncover motivations and values, and discover derailers to prevent negative impacts of future performance. The three suites include; Hogan Personality Inventory which describes how we relate to others when we are at our best, the Hogan Development Survey (HDS) measures 11 derailing tendencies that can impede career success and interpersonal effectiveness and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI) describes personality from the inside – the core goals, values, drivers, and interests that determine what we desire and strive to attain.
Enneagram
The Enneagram assessment measures nine personality types defined by a particular core belief about how the world works. This core belief drives a client’s deepest motivations and fears — and fundamentally shapes a person’s worldview and the perspective through which they see the world and the people around them. It is through understanding specific Enneagram types, that a client can explore how the type impacts perceptions of the world and open up to respond to situations and challenges differently. Personality assessments help clients understand not only their own behavior but the behavior of others which can reduce or eliminate conflict. Similar to DISC, the Enneagram also shows how clients react to stress and how they might adapt in future stressful situation. The Enneagram is widely used in corporate environments. In business contexts it is generally used to gain insights into workplace interpersonal dynamics, improve communication and self and team development activities.
Global IOC is a strong proponent of the use of assessments in coaching as it provides both the coach and client with a starting point for reflection then action. However, the use of assessments needs to match the situation and coaches need to develop expertise with assessments along with creating an understanding with the client about purpose and expectations for use. Also, for Global IOC the assessments have to pass the reliability and validity measures in order to be used. The key question is “will it simply be discussed and placed on a shelf or will the coach weave in the information in future development opportunities”?
Global IOC will be hosting a webinar on April 6 to discuss at a deeper level the assessments covered in this blog. Zoom call https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83239074707