Leading Growth with an Assessment

Agency leaders are often tasked with working to develop staff throughout the organization. Often times leaders tend to focus on two types of staff – the shining stars that we see headed for success within the organization or the struggling supernova who need to drastically improve or move on to another company. As a result of the time and attention placed on this task, leaders are often quite skilled at identifying the strengths and areas for improvement in our own staff. However, when we have achieved leadership status within an organization a fatal flaw often presents itself. Leaders tend to believe that they don’t need to improve any more. They view themselves as having arrived or achieved what they set out to do. What’s the point of more personal and professional development when you’re at the top? 

The truth is that we can all continue to improve and develop. The better our leaders become, the better the staff can become, and the better the agency can be. When we partner with clients, we often hear leaders say, “I’ve worked on so much over the years, I’m not sure what to work on now.” Our response is always simple – “You need to take an assessment.” It’s impossible to make a good plan without data to drive it. Taking an assessment will give you the data you need to draft an improvement plan.

Leaders have often taken a great number of assessments over the years and are apprehensive to return to that route. They feel as though they’ve already gained all the information they can from that process, but assessments remain a valuable tool. Assessments are great at giving us information about a person at a particular point in time. Yes, you may have taken an assessment as part of an employee development protocol several years ago – but you’ve likely changed a lot over the years. You’ve probably completed a great deal of development work. Perhaps you’re not even in the same position anymore. You may have a completely different work environment. All of these (and there are many more!) are reasons why you should go back to step one and complete an assessment.

There are many different assessments on the market that you can consider to inform your developmental path. Each serve different purposes and provide different types of information – and some are definitely better than others. There are four assessments that we recommend to our clients who are looking to start this process: the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), the Everything DiSC, the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0), and the CliftonStrengths. These assessments provide a diverse array of information – which is why we suggest that our clients take any and all of these assessments. The more data you have the better – so invest in as many of these as you can in order to develop your growth plan. If you have taken one of these in the past, but it’s been more than 2 years since you’ve completed it, it’s worth investing in another assessment. If nothing else, it can confirm your earlier results and provide you with more confidence in the outcomes.

 ·      Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) – The MBTI is perhaps the world’s most well-known personality assessment. The tool can be completed online or in-person and provides a typing which places you into one of 16 different personality types. The results of the tool provide insights into the way that you interact with others, increased self-awareness of each personality type’s strengths and challenges, and ideas for adapting your behavior in response to other personalities in the room that can assist you with achieving greater success. 

·      Everything DiSC – The Everything DiSC is another personality assessment designed to help individuals better understand themselves and better learn to adapt their behaviors with others. This online questionnaire classifies individuals into four quadrants: Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Conscientiousness. The information is then utilized to explore strengths and areas of growth. 

·      Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0) – The EQ-i 2.0 is the world’s leading assessment tool for evaluating emotional and social intelligence. The assessment contains 133 items which converge to provide insight into 15 competencies and 5 composite areas. The EQ-i 2.0 provides you with a picture of how you operate emotionally – something that research now demonstrates is a greater predictor of success than traditional intelligence.  

·      CliftonStrengths – CliftonStrengths (formally the Clifton StrengthsFinder) is an online talent assessment. This assessment evaluates your natural patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving and categorizes them into 34 CliftonStrengths themes. The results are utilized to identify what you naturally do best, how to develop and leverage your greatest talents into strengths, and how to maximize your potential. 

Don’t stop at just completing the assessments. Once you are armed with this data, it’s time to put this information to work for you. You can incorporate these findings in a detailed personal or professional development plan for yourself. Partnering with a coach through this process can assist you in your growth development journey. A coach can assist you in interpreting your results, shed light on blind spots that you may not be conscious to you, guide you in setting goals related to your development, and act as an accountability partner as you take the action steps towards your goal. 

Start Your Year Off Right - Knowing Yourself (Part 3)

Whether your personal strategic plan is focused on helping you grow personally, professionally, or both, it's important to take a good look at yourself before proceeding further. Taking some time to be introspective can help you to determine the what, why, and how of the changes you want to make. 

For instance, one woman I know felt like she was always struggling to balance work and home. Work seemed to always dominate her life. She was convinced there was nothing she could do about this situation. She just had to work and meet her deadlines. When she took some time to examine herself she realized that her assumptions weren't true. Rather, she found that she was driven by accomplishment and recognition. At work, it was easy for her to feel successful. She could complete projects, sign contracts, and acquire new clients. She received bonuses, promotions, and praise frequently. At home, these sort of accolades were harder to come by, and she found that this part of her personality was being swept aside. She rarely felt as if she accomplished anything at home and often didn't feel appreciated or valued. It's no wonder she found herself "stuck" at the office so often. If she wasn't working so hard at the office, no one would appreciate her!

Imagine if we'd just tried to work on strategies to help her balance work and home without that critical insight. Knowing this information gave us the much needed information to develop meaningful strategies that would really work for her. Balancing her time wasn't really the problem at all. Learning how to recreate her home environment made all the difference. We focused not on ways to spend more time at home, but on how to gain a sense of accomplishment and reward in her home life.

But how do you gain that insight? There are many ways to take a look at the inner workings of yourself, but my favorite method is through the use of assessments. There are two that I rely on the most that translate powerfully into personal strategic plans: the Myers Briggs Typology Indicator (MBTI) and the Emotional Quotient Inventory 2.0 (EQ-i 2.0). 

The MBTI is a personality inventory based upon the work of Carl Jung. The tool examines the ways that you utilize perception and judgement to assign you to one of 16 personality types. It's important to know that no type is better than the other - they are all equal. Knowing your personality type helps bring to light your innate preferences and allows you to learn about yourself. Once you understand yourself through this lens, you can grow and develop in ways that help you accomplish your larger goals. 

The second tool, the EQ-i 2.0, measures your emotional intelligence. Essentially, emotional intelligence is a person's ability to recognize and manage her own emotions and the emotions of others through successful interactions. In other words, how well do you understand, empathize, and connect with the people around you? The EQ-i 2.0 evaluates your abilities on five composite scales and fifteen subscales to give you an in-depth look at yourself across a variety of situations. While you may have little control over your level of traditional intelligence, you can work to develop your emotional intelligence. And research has demonstrated that emotional intelligence is a better indicator of success in the workplace than traditional intelligence. All the more reason to work on it!

So which test should you take? It depends. With clients who haven't done a lot of introspection, I like to begin with the MBTI. With the MBTI results the client can focus on how to stretch and balance their personality. EQ is a bit more complex, so I use that with clients who have already spent a good deal of time working on self improvement. For the clients that really want to make growth and change in their lives, I use both. While that may seem like a lot to some individuals, I like as much information to go on as possible. You may try the MBTI now, and the EQ-i 2.0 a little later in the coaching process. Clients rarely find that they didn't gain anything from the assessment process. 

You can take these assessments online, but working with a coach to interpret and apply these results gives you a whole other level of value from those tools. A coach can help you to apply this information to your personal strategic plan to help you live your life with purpose. With introspective work, it's helpful to have someone "outside" to process the results with.

BCG offers these assessments in the context of coaching or just for your own informational purposes. Visit our marketplace to set up your personal assessment today: http://baumanconsultinggroup.com/marketplace.

This post is the third in a series of posts about personal strategic plans.

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

Team Development

Whether you’re an introvert or an extrovert, prefer working alone vs in a large group, or consider yourself a follower and not a leader, the chances are that you have been part of a team at some point. Between school, family, sports, and now work which can even include being on a global remote team at times. 

With all the various types of teams we end up on in life, the question isn’t whether or not we want to be on the team but rather how to be on the team. Enter: team building. Team building isn’t just trust falls and introducing yourself with 2 truths and a lie. Team building is taking time to really understand your own individual role and how the team operates as a whole with everyone’s strengths and weaknesses. 

 Let’s start by looking at the individual. Do you know how you are on a team? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What are you comfortable performing for the team? Identifying these things in yourself, through self-reflection and the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, can help gain an understanding of everyone that makes up the team. 

 Next, it is important to take a look at the team as a whole. What are the team dynamics? How does the team communicate and handle conflict? These are important things to know when trying to build a team or examine a team. The Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey 2.0can help with this. 

Third, examine the functioning of the team as a group. Perhaps your team is falling into some of the common traps that teams can fall into - also known as the Five Dysfunctions. You can take proactive steps to address these dysfunctions and create a more effective team.

 Finally, get the team together for a retreat! Taking a day, a weekend, or a week to go away with your team and focus on one another can help build team morale and work through conflict. While you might initially be frustrated with having to spend even more time with those you work with, the long-term benefits of connecting with the team outside the office quickly outweigh the annoyance. 

Interested in focusing on your team? At Bauman Consulting Group, LLC we offer workshops to help your company with their team development. Please contact us with any questions and for further details!

Team Development with the MBTI

Participants in this workshop will have the opportunity to discuss effective team dynamics; explore their Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) results; identify the ways each Type relates to the six core team issues (communication, culture, leadership, change, conflict resolution, and stress); and practice ways to make their multi-type teams function more effectively. This workshop is held over 2 days for a total of 15 hours and can accommodate 6 to 24 participants.

Team Development with the TESI 2.0

Participants in this workshop will have the opportunity to discuss effective team dynamics; explore 360 team feedback on the seven critical competencies for emotionally effective teamwork using the Team Emotional and Social Intelligence Survey 2.0 (TESI 2.0); and practice ways to make their teams function more effectively through stress management, conflict resolution, communication enhancement, and beyond! This workshop is held over 2 days for a total of 15 hours and can accommodate 6 to 24 participants.

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Workshop for Teams

Participants in this workshop will have the opportunity to discuss effective team dynamics; explore Lencioni’s Five Dysfunctions of a Team, and practice ways to make their teams function more effectively. This workshop is held over 2 days for a total of 16 hours and can accommodate 6 to 12 participants.

Team Retreats

Taking time to connect as a team is an often-overlooked element of success. These occasions can be organized for workgroups, clubs, networks - any group wishing to build a greater sense of community and purpose. At a carefully planned retreat, groups have the opportunity to reconnect, celebrate successes, plan for the future, and build powerful relationships with one another. Onsite at your home base or away in a stress-free environment, investing in your success will leave your team energized, motivated, and refreshed.

Personal Branding

Personal branding has become a topic that many individuals in business have come to dread. It’s one additional topic to put someone on the spot and require them to have a flawless answer. It’s the 21stCentury’s “elevator pitch”. But personal branding is nothing to be feared, and spending some time developing and finessing your personal brand can pay dividends in the long run.

For those new to the concept of personal branding, it can be helpful to begin by thinking about corporate brands. What do you think of when you hear Starbucks? What about Nationwide? Target? You might think of colors, of jingles, or of experiences you have had there. Maybe you have an emotional reaction. Whatever it is that comes to mind – your view of the company – is the brand of the company. It’s what you think and feel when that company comes to mind. Company’s work hard to build their brands and to maintain their brand – they want you to feel a certain way and think certain things when their name comes to mind.

Personal branding is no different. Jeff Bezos gave a great definition of personal branding that really put it into perspective. He said, “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” The reality is that we all have a brand. Everyone that you interact with has an opinion about you. You may as well take the opportunity to control that brand so that it works for (rather than against) you. 

There are many misconceptions about controlling your brand. It’s not about being narcissistic. It is not all about being on social media. And it’s not something that’s just for millennials or Gen Z. Personal branding can be the key to your career success.

Take a moment to think about your coworkers or a boss you’ve had in your career. What adjectives you would use to describe them? Smart? Lazy? Ambitious? Competent? Imagine you were in the position of selecting a new boss for your office out of your co-workers. Who would you pick and why? Typically, we select people because of their brand (how we feel about them) rather than their paper credentials. When you identified the co-worker that you would select as the new boss, you likely weren’t thinking, “Well, Bill has the highest education level among us, so he’s the perfect fit.” You likely thought something more along the lines of, “Ruby is really fair. She’s a hard worker and gets along with everyone here in the office. We can count on her to be reliable and not play favorites. She’s the best option.” And this is why your personal brand is so important. These are the views that shape your promotions, your opportunities, and your experience in your career. How you are viewed matters.

Now that you’ve agreed that personal branding is important, let’s talk about how to develop your own personal brand. Our five-step process to creating your personal brand will set you on the path to the career that you want. 

1. Define:The first step to crafting your personal brand is to define what it is you want your brand to be. What do you want others to say about you when you are not in the room? Be specific. Start with a list. You likely have manythings that you would like people to say, but it’s unlikely that all of that will come to mind. Narrow the list down to the key items. What are the 4-5 things you’d like to be the priorities? I.0f you are struggling to meet your core list, you can always try assessment tools like the MBTI or the EQ-i 2 to get the ball rolling on seeing what traits you possess. 

2. Gap Analysis:You know what you’d like people to say, but are you really demonstrating these traits? You’d like to be viewed as hard working, but are you really a hard worker all the time? Maybe you’d like to be seen as a great public speaker, but how often do you actually find yourself engaging in public speaking opportunities? Evaluate the key items you’ve listed and determine how you currently measure up. Then think about whether or not people would actually say these items about you. You may find it helpful to ask a friend or trusted colleague to list five things they think of when they think of you. See how closely their list matches with yours.

3.  Vision:Now you have a good sense of where you currently are and where you’d like your brand to go in the future. It’s time to craft a vision. How will you create this personal brand? If you want to be seen as outgoing, what opportunities do you have to demonstrate that to others? You’d like to be seen as an expert, how do you put yourself in that position? People will only describe you in ways that they see you acting. So if you want to be viewed as hard working, people need to seeyou working hard! If you’d like to be viewed as a leader, you’d better be leading where people can see it! This isn’t about being a bragger or boasting about yourself. It’s about ensuring that the traits you want identified can actually be seen. If you are only funny when relaxing with your close friends, no one else but your close friends will know that you are funny! If you don’t speak up in meetings, no one but you knows that you have great ideas! Develop your plan so that you know how you will show others the great traits you have to demonstrate.

4.  Create:It is time to put your plan in action. View your work and personal life through the lens of your brand. Is your plan making a difference? Are people beginning to describe you in the ways that you could like them to? Maybe you need to adjust your plan. Or maybe the plan you created is working perfectly. The key is to make sure you are monitoring the results and adjusting as needed. This is where you may find that your social media presence, your daily work tasks, and your interactions with others begin to pay dividends. Figure out what works in your situation, and go with it!

5.  Evolve:Our brands change over time. This depends on the stage of life that you are in as well as the stage of career you are in. The brand you needed to develop as a 22-year old trying to get your first job out of college is different from the brand you need as a 55-year old hoping to become the boss of the company. You need to be seen in different lights for different jobs, different roles, and at different stages in your career. Trying to define yourself as an expert when you are a rookie in the field is not likely to work well for you. But that may be more attainable for you after you’ve worked in the field for a decade or two. You’ll want to check in with your brand every 3-5 years and decide if it’s time for your brand to evolve to a new stage or if you’re still on track with your current brand. Don’t be afraid to take the next step. That’s how you move up!

A career coach often helps clients to figure out what they’d like their brand to be to best serve their career goals. Together a coach can work with you to formulate a plan to put that brand in place, and ensure that the strategies you develop work for you. Partner with a career coach at Bauman Consulting Group and begin your personal branding journey today!

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.

Why Your Personality Type Matters

Early on in the coaching process, I like to gather a lot of information on my clients. Often times, I ask them to take an assessment called the Myers-Briggs Typology Indicator - or the MBTI. The MBTI is the most popular personality assessment in the world. It is currently utilized in over 70 countries, in over 24 languages, and is used annually by over 2 million people worldwide.

But what is the MBTI? The tool itself is not a test. Because there are no right or wrong answers! So the tool is simply an indicator of what your personality type appears to be. It's important to keep in mind that there are no "good" personality types to have. Each personality type has it's own strengths and weaknesses associated with it. The key is to know who you are and then grow from that. 

The tool is based on the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. He developed a theory of personality in 1921 which essentially said that the difference between people are not random. Instead they form patterns or types. If you're a super achiever you can read his book, Psychological Types, which details his theory. In 1923 this book was translated into English and was read by an American woman named Katharine Briggs. She spent the rest of her life studying Jung's theory, expanding it, and seeing how she could apply it. In 1943, Briggs and her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, developed the questions that became the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

According the Jung's personality theory we each take in information and then make decisions about that information. But not everyone takes in information the same or makes decisions the same way. That's because we all have preferred ways of using these mental processes. This really boils down to which world you prefer to live in: the outer world (people, places, and things) or our inner world (thoughts, feelings, and ideas). Everyone has a preference for either the outer world or the inner world - and you were born with these preferences. These preferences have likely been shaped over time by the people you have been around, the experiences you have had, and the world that you live in, but at your core you'll still tend to gravitate to those innate preferences.

The MBTI identifies the innate preferences you have across four pairs of dichotomies. We all use both sides of the pairs, but the MBTI helps you identify which of those you have an innate preference for. 

Let's look at each of the four pairs. The first is Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I). This refers to where you focus our attention and get our energy. Individuals with a preference for extraversion are energized by being around others. These are people who tend to be sociable and expressive. On the other side individuals with a preference for introversion are energized by the opportunity to be still and reflect. These are people who tend to be private and contained. Those with a preference for extraversion tend to be those who will end a long day by going out to dinner with friends or family to recharge. Those with a preference for introversion would rather spend a quiet evening at home with a good book or a movie rather than be around others after a long day.

The second pairing is Sensing (S) or Intuition (N). This refers to the way we take in information as well as the type of information that we tend to like and trust. Individuals with a preference for sensing tend to focus on reality, verifiable facts, and experience while those with a preference for intuition tend to focus on possibilities, the big picture, and insights. I often think of the difference between sensing and intuition as though you are building a project. Let's say that you are building a bookshelf. A sensing person takes the instructions and begins as step one moving sequentially through the instructions until it's complete. While the intuition person starts by looking at the final project. They need to see the big picture first, then they can break it down into smaller pieces as needed.

The third pairing is Thinking (T) or Feeling (F). This refers to the way that we make decisions. People with a preference for thinking tend to make their decisions based on logic while those who prefer feeling tend to make their decisions based upon relationships. For example, imagine that you have a let someone from your company go. A person with a preference for thinking may begin to select that person based on logic - I'll have to fire Sarah. She has been here the least amount of time and can bring the least amount of value to our company. While a feeling person may begin to select that person based on relationships - I can't fire Sarah. I've started mentoring her and she is such a caring person. I think I'll select Ryan. He doesn't really engage with the rest of the office much and the loss of his presence would affect us all the least. Plus, his brother owns a company so he can likely find another job easily.

The final pairing is Judging (J) or Perceiving (P). This refers to our attitude toward the outside world and how we orient ourselves to it. Individuals who prefer judging are those who want the world to be an organized and orderly place. They see the world as a series of decisions that need to be made. Individuals who prefer perceiving see the outside world as a place to experience. They don't want to organize the world, they want to explore it! Think about your experience on vacations. Someone with a preference for judging loves to have an itinerary to plan their trip while someone with a preference for perceiving would rather see where the day takes them with no set agenda. 

The MBTI will identify which preferences you have in each of these categories. Once you've identified your preference in each of the four dichotomies, you'll find that you have a four letter code which identifies your personality type. The table below identifies the sixteen possibilities that you could be presented with.

Once you have identified your four letter type, the world becomes a very interesting place. You can devote energy to balancing your personality type. For example, maybe you have a very strong preference for extraversion. Perhaps you need to spend some time developing your ability to gain energy through more introverted methods. You can also spend time learning how your personality type influences your life. You may find that certain preferences lead to your success at work while others cause you problems. Perhaps certain personality preferences make it easy for you to get along with others while other preferences make it difficult. This is where your coach can really help you see how your personality impacts every part of your life! And then you can learn to use your personality preferences to your advantage and develop the areas where you need some help.

If you are interested in taking the MBTI, learning about your own personality type, and exploring ways you can enhance your life with those results - schedule an assessment, interpretation, and follow up coaching sessions with one of the coaches at the Bauman Consulting Group. We conduct sessions for workplaces as well. Imagine how much more effectively your team or workgroup could function with this knowledge!

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Ashley Bauman, M.S., M.B.A., B.C.C. is the president of Bauman Consulting Group in Loveland, Ohio. She provides training, consulting, and coaching to criminal justice and social service professionals.