Assessments Today

The Top Ten Criteria For Selecting an Assessment

I have decided to make this available to everyone who come to the blog.  Sorry, the notes are only for those who registered.  Recording of teleclass with Roberta Hill on Monday, March 12th, 2007 on the Top Ten Criteria to consider before selecting an assessment.

Editorial on US Airways proud that executives are assertive.

Reported this week by Cheapflights. com in an interesting title: US Airways still believes in mergers - assertive management.

Underpinning the new US Airways' penchant to seek out merger partners, and its proclivity to fix things, are the personalities of its key management players. They are not a passive bunch. Parker says when members of the company's executive team took personality tests, 70 percent of them scored above the median when it comes to assertiveness.

I personally don’t think that this is necessarily a good thing. Not that assertiveness is bad – in fact I like a direct approach. I get nervous with passive types who finally get fed up and lash out at you – as if I were suppose to know what they wanted or needed.

In addition, I am not sure that any North American airline is in a position financially to determine what is or is not good as a leadership competency; no matter how US Airways has been improving. In some ways it is the macho culture that prevents us from dealing with the complexities of society. Seems to me that in today’s world, we should be valuing collaboration a wee bit more.  Nor should someone be too excited that they are cloning any specific behavior. What a recipe for narrow mindedness at best and Group Think at worse. Certainly different cultures may favor one behavior or skill over another but we must continue to challenge our assumptions. Let’s also differentiate between style and skill.

This is just my editorial opinion and remember, I am the first to say it is just data and no one thing is either bad or good – in moderation that is. The Platinum Rule Behavioral Style Assessment is one of many instruments that measures the continuum of assertiveness. Like the others it just points to observed behaviors and not skills. These “styles” have a place everywhere and the important thing is how adaptive we are to adjust our behavior based on the situation at hand.

Case Study - What do I want to be when I grow up?

Case Study 3 - What do I want to be when I grow up?

Sally a 40 year old successful project manager comes to you for an info session and tells you the following:

I am doing coaching part-time right now but I want to move into doing it full-time. As a manager, many people came to me for counsel, advice and possible coaching. This is something where I excel.  I am interested in the consulting aspect as well but rather nervous about how to transmission either within an organization or independently. I was thinking of working at a Consulting company and doing part-time life/business coaching on the side.  I really see myself doing Consulting/Coaching as a career but I am not sure where to begin. What do you suggest?

Questions for comments:

1. What would be your first question?
2. Would you consider recommending any assessments with Sally and why?
3. Where would you want to focus first?

Anyone who posts a comment will get a complimentary Sales Effectiveness Assessment.  Don’t be fooled by the title – this relates to all  professionals.  To see what is measured go to: http://sep.hrdpressonline.com/

What Does Your Music Say About You?

This posting on the very impressive blog about cognitive science represents a rather extensive review of some interesting research into music and what it says about your personality.  And as the author points out, "It turns out our assumption was probably right. People's musical preferences good indicators of their personality make up."

So why am I bothering to write this here when it is a little more removed that basic behavioral assessments? Simple, we should never dismiss some sort of observation or “test” as totally invalid. While we must be diligent not to stereo type or jump to any conclusions about ANYONE’S preferences (that especially includes the person’s MBTI preferences), some data from unusual sources may be valuable information in our road to self knowledge.

Finally, they looked at the correlation between the different dimensions of musical preferences and different personality traits using several different measures of personality, including the Big Five Index, tests of social dominance, and tests of communication styles. The results indicated that the different dimensions of musical preferences do in fact correlate with different personality features.

If you're not interested in the science behind the aricle, here are the key things you might want to know.  But I do encourage you to at least take a quick read. . .  even the comments are worth a skim.

In short, people who listen to jazz are smart, liberal, adventurous, and poor; people who listen to heavy metal are smart, liberal, adventurous, athletic, and prone to social dominance; people who listen to Madonna or the "Dancing With Wolves" soundtrack are agreeable, conscientious, conservative, rich, happy, dumb, emotionally unstable, and hot; and people who listen to hip hop are extraverted, agreeable, liberal, athletic, and hot. Well, those are the tendencies at least (I've known some smart Madonna fans, though I have to say that they were pretty emotionally unstable).

Fre*e Teleclass: Ten Criteria for Selecting An Assessment

Over the years, my most popular (bar none) teleclass has been on the topic of how to select an assessment to use in your coaching or training. I have identified ten criteria that must be considered to meet your own personal and business needs.

This is the first time it is being offered since I moved to Switzerland – over one and a half years ago.

I am asking that you submit your email in order to register for so that I can send out my two page summary notes and the audio link - if you would like them and if you would like the information but can't attend.
 

Title: Ten Criteria for Selecting An Assessment
Date: Monday, March 19^th, 2007
Time: Noon Pacific, 3 pm Eastern, 7 pm GMT (one hour)
Cost:  Free
Register: Send an email to: teleclassnow@aweber.com

And you will receive the bridge line information. If you do NOT click the link to confirm, you can still attend and I will won’t bother you again but you won’t get the notes or follow-up email.

And you will receive the bridge line information. I am using the new  Skype Plus system which means if you have Skype the call will be free  - if you live in the US or Europe, you can use a specific number for that country. If you do NOT click the link to confirm, you can still attend and I  will won't bother you again but you won't get the notes or follow-up  email.  If you can not attend  click to confirm and I will send you the handout and link for the recording.

Agenda:
This is content heavy and so I tend to share a lot of information and answer as many questions as possible in generic form.  I will give a high level overview of the two most popular assessments in
the corporate world and how they stack up to the 10 criteria.  (What are the two?  The MBTI and the DISC.)

For those who do attend and are interested in adding an assessment to their business, I will be offering a complimentary Platinum Rule Assessment.

If you are not already a subscriber to my monthly ezine on assessments, I hope you will register by using the form in the upper left or by sending an email to: AssessmentsNow@aweber.com