Informed leadership with personality profiling

Personality testing is much more useful than simply categorising staff members into different personality types. It can help teams gel and create cohesion, by understanding each other better, people become more tolerant, and conflict is avoided says Daniel Acutt ​

The world is full of different people, with different views, beliefs, values and skills. These differences make up the rich cultures of our societies and spark ideas, creativity, growth and more. Of course, differences have also been known to create conflict and divide people but with greater understanding of different views and values, these differences can be overcome.

The same can be said of any business that has multiple team members. Within a business the people who work there are usually the most important driving force in the business’ growth and development, but if these people are caught up in conflict and without clearly defined roles, these team members won’t be able to work to their optimum.

Teamwork is at the heart of business. It is often overlooked despite affecting every aspect of work. High performing teams exist all around us, but they do not happen by accident. They are the result of developing the team in ways that can be measured and improved upon.

Personality profiling

So how can companies ensure they have a team that is working together at an optimal level? How can they play to everyone’s strengths and identify any skills that are missing? Personality profiling can create cohesion and a deeper understanding of each team member and can also offer leaders invaluable insight into the inner workings of their team’s dynamics.

Helping each team member recognise how they most naturally create value; personality tests also show how each member can grow that value by using certain processes, and via interactions with others. Each team member can discover how their own natural path links directly to how they lead or follow, how they perform best in a team and how they can most effectively impact the organisation in which they work.

Job satisfaction is determined by many factors, but the members that make up a team can have a huge impact on how much an individual will enjoy their role. Friction in a team causes issues with performance and will invariably lead to losing key members to competitors. A better understanding of how each other tick, can go a long way in creating cohesion and can enable greater staff retention.

Play to your strengths

So how does it work? The Talent Dynamics (Teams) and Wealth Dynamics (Leaders) profiles that we all undertake and work with at Genius Group have been designed to help both the individual and the leader understand the unique strengths they possess and identify the productive state called ‘flow’. Flow can be thought of as the path of least resistance, where the team member will add the most value and get the most done.

Each of the Talent Dynamics profiles has its own set of strengths and challenges and will help identify why certain tasks and roles may be draining, while other jobs excite and energise.

It is in the team where the Talent Dynamics profiles become extremely useful as they help teams to gel together and spot potential opportunities to work better. As each of the Talent Dynamics profiles has its own strengths and challenges, they can be used together in a team setting to cover potentially challenging tasks and ensure that each team member gets into and stays in flow.

There are eight Talent Dynamics profiles. Each represents a certain mix of energy, thinking and action styles. The profiles are not a label, but an entrance point to understand each other in terms of how we act and think as well as the types of roles that we are each suited to.

I am a Creator Profile which has shown me that I am good at starting or creating projects but not so great at finishing them. This insight lets me build a team around me that can infill the skills that I am not so brilliant at and allow projects to be completed on time, to budget and with great success.

I am very clear on what gets me going, what is ‘boring’ and what is a necessity. A “profile is not an excuse for inexcusable behaviour” says founder of Genius Group, Roger James Hamilton. This is so relevant because it’s up to me to be in control of doing what I do best and the company and teams around me are the vehicles that allow growth and continuation.

Following this is also the frequencies of which each person is one of four. Dynamo, Blaze, Tempo and Steel are the second layer to the profile giving it more ‘meat’ or depth. For example, two people can be Creators, but they will tackle the same task slightly differently because of their frequency of being a Creator. Do they have more Blaze or Steel than me?

This is the simplest and deepest understanding I have ever seen with profiling individuals and teams and it’s changed my life.

Productivity

By using a profile test that assesses personality, strengths, productivity, values and behaviour in order to identify each personality trait, companies can then start organising themselves better and track projects with greater transparency and accountability. From each profile, a natural strategy will be easier to identify, and a more productive state can be achieved.

When aligning strengths and challenges, amazing thing will start to happen within a team and productivity and teamwork will increase greatly:

1. Teamwork allows for problem solving as more skills and experiences can find the right solutions.
2. Teamwork lets work be finished faster than a single person could manage.  The tasks can be spread out and given to those with the right abilities.
3. Motivation is increased as the team help and encourage each other.
4. Relationships develop as a team works together, removing barriers and conflicts that can slow down projects.
5. Teamwork allows for mutual learning as team members learn from each other’s skills and experiences.

Imagine a team that worked well together, could anticipate each other and could back each other up. A team fully ‘in flow’. What economic impact would that have on your business? These are the results that can be measured in productivity levels and can be achieved through personality profiling. Usually profiling and adjusting roles or responsibilities according to profiles can increase productivity immediately by 20%.

Workplace conflict

A conflict free workplace, driven by a deeper understanding of what each team member enjoys, excels at and the reasons why they may avoid certain tasks is a futuristic idea, but with so much focus on good company culture, combined with the many pitfalls when recruiting, has led to businesses looking to implement schemes that mean their team members feel valued and therefore are more likely to stay.

By offering team members the chance to understand themselves better, businesses are not only showing that they value them as a part of the team but are also investing in their growth and personal development.  They are offering them a vision of how the future of the company, a future that they are a part of, will look.

There is a huge emphasis at the moment on HR and OH departments to implement new and forward-thinking ideas to support staff and from personal experience I can attest to the results that can be found when using personality testing and applying the findings in a strategic and insightful way. Companies who value the individual within each team will be putting personal development at the top of the agenda.

Personality testing is far more useful than simply categorising staff members into different personality types. It can actively help teams gel and create cohesion, by understanding each other better, people become more tolerant, and conflict is avoided. Any business with people at the heart of it can really benefit from tests such as Talent Dynamics and a deeper understanding of their biggest assets. As they say, knowledge is power and empowering a team with the understanding of what makes each member tick really goes a long way to creating a powerful dynamic.