Assessments Today

Learning Styles Instructional-Design Challenge

Learning and Assessments are closely tied together and there are many Learning Style assessments that I use and recommend.  I must confess that I have never really been convinced that knowing one's learning style is really a "BIG" self awareness issue for teams or groups, I have found it useful in some individual coaching sessions.

It is clear that William Thalheimer's from his blog Will at Work is even less convinced.  Here is his post and challenge:

I will give $1000 (US dollars) to the first person or group who can prove that taking learning styles into account in designing instruction can produce meaningful learning benefits.

I've been suspicious about the learning-styles bandwagon for many years. The learning-style argument has gone something like this: If instructional designers know the learning style of their learners, they can develop material specifically to help those learners, and such extra efforts are worth the trouble.

I have my doubts, but am open to being proven wrong.

People remember 10%, 20%...Oh Really?

For a very long time, I have been using the standard "statistics" of what people remember from hearing, seeing, doing etc. and have been unable to find a good source.  Why?  It doesn't really exist.

Work-Learning Research (of which William Thalheimer is a part) are always curious     about how research is used in the learning-and-performance field.  Here is an excellent article which not only thoroughly researches the claims and sources but connect this to another popular model:  Edgar Dale's "Cone of Experience," developed in 1946.  You must check this out if you are serious about learning.

Values Inventory: What matters most to you?

Conductor and composer Douglas Wagoner has written a wonderful introduction to tit is available online for freehe importance of creating a values inventory. He’s even automated the process and it online for free

Here is how it works.  You start with a list of 150 "vlaues"

I decided to build a tool to automate the list, randomizing it so that the values appear out of alphabetical order and then to apply what I learned as a "forced choice" matrix to rank the values against each other. I learned about "forced choice" at a time-management seminar I attended years ago. Essentially, the matrix helps you to mechanically compare each value to every other value on your list. You can do it on paper, but it takes a lot of effort with anything more than 5 or 6 items long. My scripting also randomizes the order in which you are asked the questions to shake up your responses and simplifies the voting by making it a just a matter of clicking hyperlinks.

At the end, I present your ordered list of your values and then list out the top 10 values ranked by everyone that has used this website. You can bookmark the results page if you would like to come back at a future time to see your values again or to see how they compare against the cumulative ranking.

Thanks to Ken Winston Caine

The PT/Berkeley Personality Test

I would love to be able to find the time to review and write up some of the wonderful assessments out there, but it takes time to research and document. There aren’t enough hours in the day. So you can imagine how happy I am when I find an extensive analysis and neutral review. I recently came across such an article in Psychology Today from over ten years ago. Not only is it in-depth but it actually lists the PT/Berkeley Personality Test ( based on The Big Five Personality Dimensions) and how it is scored. This is a must read if you are interested in a tool like this.

The PT/Berkeley Personality Test

Is your self-image in sync with other people's take on you? This exclusive test will tell you.  
By:  K. Harary and E. Harary

Your personality is the essence of who you are and how you appear to other people. It lends continuity to your identity over time, tying together your early childhood experiences, your unique approach to the people and events around you, and your aspirations and apprehensions about how you may develop in the future. It affects, and is affected by, how other people perceive and respond to you. In short, the more you understand about your personality, the better you can understand your actions, feelings, and relationships with other people.

One of the most direct ways to find out about your personality is for a psychologist to ask you a series of carefully selected questions that have been shown in research to be related to important life outcomes, such as job satisfaction or susceptibility to depression.     Self-report questionnaires are one of the most commonly used techniques in the scientific study of personality. For example, you may have heard of, or even taken, tests such as the California Psychological Inventory (CPI), the NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI), or the recently revised Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI-2).

Each of these tests provides you with scores on several dimensions, such as extroversion and neuroticism, that together form an overall portrait, or profile, of your personality. In the hands of a qualified     professional, these tests can provide very useful information about an     individual's personality and psychological functioning. These tests tend to be quite long, however, and are complicated to score and interpret.   Therefore, PSYCHOLOGY TODAY will present the PT/Berkeley Personality Profile -- a three-part series of tests based on cutting-edge research in the field of personality assessment. Each is designed to be scientifically valid while allowing you to take, score, and interpret the tests yourself by simply following the instructions provided.

Developed by psychologists Keith Harary, Ph.D., of the Institute for Advanced Psychology, in San Francisco, and Eileen Donahue, Ph.D., of the department of psychology and the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research at the University of California at Berkeley, the PT/Berkeley Personality Profile will help you actively explore the ways in which you perceive your behavior, as well as the ways you are perceived by those around you.

Profiling Leaders: Natural-Born Leaders, Meet Your Inner Managers

From the CIO Magazine comes the following review:

Do personality "tests" such as the Myers-Briggs profile really reveal how people think and work? And if so, can test-takers change their personalities to shore up weaknesses?

In a  published book from 2003, two academics focusing on leadership studies, Roy Williams and Terrence Deal, use Myers-Briggs and another model of cognitive styles to examine leadership and managerial roles. They conclude that, while people are indeed predisposed to think and act in certain ways, the best executives consciously combine different personality attributes. This enables them to respond effectively to a variety of situations.

In When Opposites Dance: Balancing the Manager and Leader Within, Williams and Deal define four types of executives:

• Rationalists, who value sound thinking and work through organizational structure to accomplish tasks.
• Politicists, who view group dynamics from a power perspective and are adept at politics.
• Humanists, who are attuned to organizational moods and regard people as a company's top asset.
• Culturists, who consider culture the preeminent force in an organization and communicate through stories, ceremonies and rituals.

Here is one review from Amazon:

Reviewer:

L. Scott Merritt (Sarasota, FL United States)  - See all my reviews

I found the book superb! It gives a logical spectrum to evaluate yourself and others you deal with. It helps to organize needed communication skills to effectively interact with people of different mindsets. I graded a strong politicist and could see how I need to understand different styles and incorporate them rather than confront in a win/lose scenerio. The book also clearly shows the need for both leaders and managers and that talented, aware people can move between the two. While a book focused on life-approach styles, it subtlely suggests the needed balance in peoples lives between inward(spiritual) and outward(action)components. Those that weren't balanced accomplished goals but significant problems came their way that diminished their effectiveness. The book is useful in business, government, education, the church and anywhere social interaction is required for success.

Metric Madness - Metrics can mislead. Whatever gets measured will change.

This week's articale in Business Week points out too well:
   Metrics can mislead. Whatever gets measured will change.

While not specific to assessments - particularly in the relm of personality, it seems that similar issues are faced in all sorts of arenas when it comes to the issue of measurement.

Quantifying innovation is key. Here's how to do it right and avoid the big mistakes managers often make . . .

   

                                                             The buzz around innovation is expanding to monstrous proportions. Nowhere is this frenzy more evident than in the pell-mell rush to metrics. Where once managers obsessed about measuring quality and cost, they now focus on measuring the innovation process.

But metrics madness can lead to confusion, dysfunction, and less innovation, not more. The common mistakes are putting in too many metrics, measuring the wrong things, misaligning metrics within organizations, and counting what can be counted, not what counts. Looking solely at the number of ideas in a pipeline without measuring successful outcomes in terms of revenue and margins won't help.

   Metrics can mislead. Whatever gets measured will change.
While put forth as a warning and caveat, there is a great opportunity here for those of us who use assessments in coaching and training.  Imagine the possiblities of whatever you focus on WILL shift.  As long as you are clear on what is being measured - preferences, communication styles or leadership competencies, as examples, you are communicating that for some reason these are important. 

One more caveat from wave and partical theory of Chaos Theory  - What you look at; you will find.

Just like everyone else: Doctors Often Overestimate Their Expertise

Studies suggest more outside evaluation is needed as reported in HealthDay.            
By E.J. Mundell    

TUESDAY, Sept. 5 (HealthDay News) -- Doctors often have a falsely exaggerated view of their own capabilities, a new study suggests.

In fact, physicians who were judged by outsiders to be the worst performers in a given area often gave themselves especially high marks, researchers report.

"There is a subset of clinicians who appear, either by training or personality, unable to judge themselves," said study lead researcher Dr. David Davis, a professor of health policy management and evaluation at the University of Toronto, in Canada.

"In two-thirds of those studies, it appears as though physicians, without any outside means of observing their behavior, misjudged their competence," Davis said.  . . .

Davis said the findings shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone familiar with human nature.

"This isn't peculiar to physicians," he said. "It's peculiar to us all as human beings. It's just part of the human condition that we don't have full, objective opinions of ourselves." In fact, he added, studies have found similar trends among lawyers, engineers and other professionals.

Emotional Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the building block to which all elements of Emotional Intelligence are built upon. It is important to gain a full understanding of your emotions and how they relate to others in order to effectively make decisions both in and out of the workplace.

Self awareness is defined as understanding 1. what is important to you, 2. understanding how you experience things, 3. knowing what you want, 4. knowing how you feel, and 5. knowing how you come across to others (Weisinger, 1998). By developing self-awareness through these five elements, you will be more prepared to make decisions that will not only increase your emotional satisfaction, but also the satisfaction of the people you interact with.

Emotional intelligence is based on the idea that you must first become aware of your emotions before you are able to alter your behavior for better results. Studies show that managers who maintain a high level of self-awareness posses more aspects of EQ and are therefore rated as more effective by both superiors and subordinates than those who are not self-aware (Harvard Business Review). Knowledge about the nature of your personality is vital to making sound decisions. Emotional awareness is knowing what emotions you are feeling and why, and understanding the links between your feelings and your actions (Goleman, 1999). In other words, its the ability to take a step back from the situation to become aware of what's happening rather than become immersed in it and loose control (Goleman, 1998).

Tuning into emotions is not easy for most people. Dr. John D. Mayer, a psychologist at the University of New Hampshire, has identified three categories that he believes people fall into when it comes to identifying and dealing with their emotions.

1. Self-aware. These people are aware of their moods as they are having them. Their mindfulness helps them manage their emotions. When they are in a bad mood they don't obsess about it, and are able to get out of it sooner.

2. Engulfed. These are people who often feel swamped by their emotions and helpless to escape them, as though their emotions have taken charge. They are not very aware of their feelings, so that they are lost in them rather than having some perspective. As a result, they do little to try to escape bad moods, feeling they have no control over their emotional life. They often feel overwhelmed and emotionally out of control.

3. Accepting. While these people are often clear about what they are feeling, they also tend to be accepting of their moods, and so don't try to change them. There seem to be two branches of the accepting type: those who are usually in good moods and so have little motivation to change them, and people who, despite their clarity about their moods, are susceptible to bad ones but accept them with a laissez-faire attitude, doing nothing to change them despite their distress- a pattern found among depressed people who are resigned to their despair (Goleman, 1998).

As you can see, self-awareness is not getting carried away with emotions, but rather objectively identifying them in order to take control of the subsequent actions resulting from these emotions. By acknowledging your emotions, you can manage them, deal with them and then move on. This is very difficult for some people to do. It is much easier at times to just ignore, deny or rationalize your emotions. It is crucial, however, for us to develop an understanding of what we are feeling in order to use our emotions intelligently.

Emotions can tell us through instant feedback whether a decision or act is right for us. What we call "gut feelings" or " intuition" are feelings that have been formed by experiences in our past. By tuning into these gut feelings, we are able to use information about similar situations that we have experienced in the past. This is particularly important in recognizing what is important to you, knowing what you want and how you feel in different situations. Gut feelings can identify your true intentions in a situation. If you feel happy, satisfied, or content with a decision, it is a good indication that your decision coincided with your true intention. However, if you start to resent, or feel uneasy in a situation, you probably did not go with your true intention. Self-awareness allows you to connect with emotions, thoughts, and actions (Susik & Megerian, 1999).
Emotions are not just psychological impulses; they are also physiological "feelings." One way of identifying an emotion is to understand where in your body you feel that emotion. For example, think about where in your body you feel fear. Does your stomach ache, or do parts of your body grow tight? What about love or anger (Steiner, 1997)? If you can become aware of where these emotions physically occur in your body, it will be easier for you to identify them and act accordingly.

Along with becoming emotionally aware, you must also learn to become aware of your actions. One way to do this is by examining how you make appraisals. Appraisals are all of the different impressions, interpretations, evaluations, and expectations you have about yourself, others, and situations (Weisinger, 1998). These appraisals are largely influenced by your personal filter. It takes everything you gather as sensory data, information gathered through your five senses, and interprets it through a filter of information already stored in you mind. People with a high self-awareness are conscious of the filtering process and how it affects their perceptions. Negative appraisals can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies. However, being aware of this allows you to change your attitudes and actions. Becoming aware of your thoughts allows you to understand how they influence your feelings, actions and reactions thus allowing you to alter them accordingly.

Shortcomings in Emotional Intelligence come from habit learned early on (Fisher, 1998). Self-awareness is the first step to identifying and changing your behaviors. In order to change a habit, you must first notice when you're falling into it, and second, practice a different response. "By being aware, you can do a little better each time you try" (Farnham, 1996).

SREE NIDHI S K
Oscar Murphy International
Life Strategists, Behavioral Trainers, Coaches & Change Agents
Email: sree@oscarmurphy.com
Phone: Mobile: 91 9343714606 Office: 91 80 41161534 / 35

Singapore & Bangalore
Web: www.oscarmurphy.com

Reprinted with permission.

Employee Surveys

Just like any assessment, climate survey and employee attitude questionnaires require the same rigorous review before launching.  Consistent and strategic communications is also a requirement for success.  Here is a great response from HR.com's Ask the Coach serices.  Many of the same principles can be positioned for follow-up with any assessment.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

QUESTION:  Employee Survey:  Strategic Presentation?

Dear Merry,

I am the Global VP of HR reporting to the CEO and President of the company.  We just did an employee survey and there were some strong positives and also some strong areas for us to consider improving.  I wonder if you have a recommendation of where I should communicate the results and how?

RESPONSE: Leverage Feedback into Action

Dear Executive,

I recommend that you use this employee survey data to strategically align you with your executive team and business needs.  Like most companies it sounds as if you are doing many things right, but there is also room for improvement.  Responding to your employees’ feedback is very important for the health of your organization culturally and financially.  Recent research has shown that the higher employee engagement, the better the financial results.  You should leverage the survey results by taking action to address employee concerns.

My suggestions are:

1)Share the Results:  The entire Executive Team should receive a copy of the results.

2)Formally Communicate the Results: Schedule time to communicate the results at an executive committee meeting.

3)Present a Balanced Picture: Present abalanced picture of what is positive and what needs improvement.

4)Highlight Strengths & Gaps:  Highlight the top 3 things that your organization is doing well and the top 3 areas for improvement.  Substantiate your remarks with data from the employee survey and any anecdotal quotes that the report provides.

5)Discussion:  Invite your executive team to participate.

• What do they see as important; do they agree that these are the top 3 gaps and strengths?
• Offer some suggested solutions to bridge the gaps.
• Present your solutions in business language.  So, be sure to mention that your solution will not only improve the HR metrics, but also what that would mean in hard dollars, share holder value, etc.

6) Save The Messenger:  The tendency in many organizations is to take credit for the strengths and to say that the gaps are HR’s issue.  Don’t let this happen to you.    This is not about HR only.

• •If you worked with an outside company on the survey perhaps they could present the data to the executive team.  This would support appropriately distancing you and your team from sole ownership.
• In addition, you could tap some other members of the executive team to participate with you in the presentation.

7)Take Action: Work with the executive team to address the gaps.

8)Strategic Alignment:  The most strategic thing you can do, as an HR executive, is to align the programs you are going to rollout in 2007 to address the gaps agreed to by the executive team and the other business objectivesyou are focusing on as an organization.

• How do the programs you are rolling out next specifically target HR or business metrics?
• Beyond the metrics, what could achieving them mean in terms of bottom-line business results?

Aligning your HR programs to the business objectives of the organization supports HR’s seat at the executive table.  And, don’t forget that when you do put programs in place that affect employee satisfaction metrics, be sure to share those results and their business impact with the executive team.

Dare to Deliver!

Merry

Submit your coaching question to Ask the Coach: Merry will consider addressing it in a future issue...click here. (You will need to sign up for a free membership.)

Article: 360 Evaluations: What's the Verdict?

Here is an interesting article from the latest newsletter of the Sasha Corporation

As early as 2000, in the 'boom' days of the high tech bubble, the authors of "The Human Capital Edge"  reported: "too many companies are investing in human capital practices that make little financial sense. Certain practices applauded by conventional wisdom - 360-degree review and human resource technologies - do not always add economic value. In fact, they often are associated with a decrease in market value. "

According to Workforce Magazine,  in 2006, "Some popular HR practices are associated with higher value.  Here's one that is a reverse barometer. Firms in which employees evaluate their supervisors do not enjoy better shareholder value. In fact, they do worse than companies who do not employ the 360-degree review."

The 2005 Human Capital Report analyzed the financial performance of companies who use 360 evaluations against those who do not. Companies who never use 360 evaluations showed a 47 percent total return in shareholder value over three years, while companies in which 30% of employees evaluated their immediate supervisor showed only a 31% gain in total shareholder value.  Workforce Magazine, June 26, 2006.

Our comment: Be careful about reaching a cause and effect conclusion from this data. Perhaps companies who are already doing well don't need 360's, and companies who are doing poorly are trying to find out why.

Study to compare traditional assessments to Personology

Face Reading for success in business and relationships

According to Naomi Tickle, author of You Can Read a Face Like a Book, information about your potential client, business partner, family, friends - or even your perfect career - is staring you right in the face.

 

The History
Personology, the study of the relationship between the facial structure and behavior,  was first researched in the 1920s by Edward Jones, a judge.  During his time in the courtroom he noticed a strong relationship between the facial features and behavior.  He was so intrigued by his observations, that he researched much of the information that had been published by Lavater, Spurzhiem and many of the well known phrenologists.  On conclusion of his research with thousands of people, he came up with sixty-eight traits that indicated a 92 percent accuracy for personality profiling.  Later, the late Robert Whiteside, an editor, who had studied with Jones, conducted an independent study in the 1960s on 1068 subjects.  He found the system to have the same degree of accuracy.  These observations apply across all cultures.  The only difference between the Asian and the African culture is that their eyes are 10% further apart.  Today the information is used for jury selection, sales training programmes, personality and career assessment and relationships.

Following are examples of traits that will help you when working with your clients.  Individuals with close set eyes are very good with detail. The challenge for individuals with this trait is that they tend to focus on their problems until they are bigger than life itself.  If their feelings have been hurt or they are having a problem at work, it can consume them for days, weeks or even months.  Notice next time you see someone who appears to be overly anxious, check out the eyes.  An individual with a narrow face indicates they build their confidence through knowledge.  They often take class after class to make sure they have enough information before starting something new.  Whereas someone with a wide face will often take a weekend course and the following week they meeting with clients.  One looks at them with amazement.  They feel "why not?  There's nothing to loose."

They say the eyes are the window of the soul - but what about the rest of the face? According to Naomi Tickle, author of You Can Read a Face Like a Book: Reading Faces to Succeed in Business and Relationships, information about your potential client, business partner, family, friends - or even your perfect career - is staring you right in the face.

 

Need to fill a leadership position? "Look for someone with a wide face and Roman shaped nose. They make natural leaders who excel at challenges," says Tickle. Looking for that magical multi-tasker? "Choose a person with wide set eyes." Want a person who is detailed-oriented? "Seek out someone with the "Julia Roberts look," meaning someone who has close set eyes. They're very good with details and dislike interruptions." At times they can be so focused on their problems that the situation gets bigger than life.  If their feeling have been hurt, they can focus on them for hours, days and even months.  As coaches or therapists, recognizing that tendency in your client, will help you to coach them to look at the problem from another perspective.

 

Naomi is currently doing a study to see how her career and personality program compares with the more traditional tests.  She plans to do an initial study of 100 people.  So far the results are very similar.  She is looking for volunteers who would be interested in submitting their photographs and tests results to her via e-mail.  If you and your client would be interested in participating in this study, please contact Naomi at:  naomitickl@aol.com.  The career/personality assessment is done from photographs.  This is not an intuitive reading, it is based on the facial structure which reflects was innate abilities and challenges.  The computer program that is used, was based on the Department of Labor guidlines for career assessment.

 

In return for volunteering for the program, you will receive a list of careers your client can go into, a chart plus a list of their strengths and challenges.  Don't miss out on this unique opportunity.  Contact Naomi today.

 

www.thefacereader.com