When you hear self-assessment, what do you think?
What do you think of when you hear you'll be doing a self-assessment for a team day at work?
⚡Cue flashback to time you discovered you’re apparently more “turtle” than “tiger” in a some type of personality quiz.
Don't roll your eyes just yet. 🙏
Assessments can be a brilliant kickstart for you and the people you're around.
The true goal? A shared language.
A real life example of this in action
Let me tell you a story that happened at our house the other day right after James got home from the gym:
James: Guess what I just found?!? A gray beard hair. For the first time!!!! AH!
-- Now I'm immediately dismissive because James is 4 years older than me and I've been getting gray hairs for years (my head, not my beard). --
Me: Your first one?? Seriously? I've been getting grey hairs for like 5 years now!
James: OK, I'm going to need you to turn your competition way down and your empathy way up.
Mic drop. 🎤👋
Why was he able to say this to me? Because it he was using a shared language that we both understood.
For those familiar with CliftonStrengths - you'll understand this four-coloured image. Here are my results. The two that James mentioned are highlighted.
You see, we work a lot with Strengths at TTP - and James knows that my #3 strength is Competition and my #34 (read: last, bottom) strength is empathy. So when he told me to lower the competition and raise the empathy he was highlighting something we both know about how I process and communicate things.
The strengths language was a bridge for the different ways we approached this conversation.
A shared language for understanding
A shared language is one of the biggest benefits these assessments can bring to a group of people. How do you explain things about yourself that are innate -- how you naturally think and approach things? That's really hard. It can be challenging to put into words.
Assessments give everyone a shared language to describe things about themselves and a helpful way for us to understand others. Lean into the language used on shared assessments.
Translate other people's preferences, cues and personalities to something you understand. It's not all about you, ya know!
Verbalise and understand the impact of your natural ways of being / thinking / working. What works? What doesn't. It's not all about you, but it does start with you.
A shared language for accountability
My dad is a massive fan of any kind of dad-ism. So of course we heard all the age-old life quotes like: Excuses are like assholes. Everyone has em, and they stink. LOL.
The danger in these assessments is that some people take their results and run with them like they’ve just gotten a free pass. It becomes an excuse. Suddenly, you hear people saying things like, “Oh, well, I’m a Type 7, so of course I didn’t finish that report.”
That’s not how this works, mate. The assessment results may help you understand why someone works the way they do, but they’re not a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Talk balconies and basements: Verbalise when you see each.
As my dad would say, No matter how thin it is, there's two sides to every pancake.
Every strength, every preference, every behaviours has:
+ positive aspects that help you and others, and
- negative, basement, aspects that aren't helpful for the situation, for yourself or for others.
You can use the language of the assessment to highlight a behaviour that isn't helpful, without explicitly stating it. One way you can do this is by referring to the basement qualities - which are the code words for the explicit behaviours.
Remember James' quote in the story above?
I'm going to need you to turn your competition way down and your empathy way up.
AKA - This isn't about you. Think about how I might be feeling.
Oh, I think our Activator basements are coming out.
AKA - We need to slow down. We're doing a bunch of things before we've thought everything through.
Hey I need to be in Focus mode. Can we turn down the Communication for a bit?
AKA - Kristen, can you STFU?
I can see your Owl tendencies coming out. You're being so methodical. But best is the enemy of better right now.
AKA - Listen, perfectionist. We need to keep this moving and your little twiddles right now aren't adding value. Can we move forward.
Final note:
As work continues to get more flexible, diverse, and fast-paced, these types of assessments can become a great way to connect and explicitly highlight the needs, preferences and expectations you bring into the workplace. Plus, in my opinion, they make work a bit more fun, which is something we could all use a little more of!
Want to hear about the workplace assessments we work with? Get in touch!