Bring Out the Best in Your People

More and more organizations are recognizing that individuals and leaders who are self-aware tend to be better at managing their emotions, influencing others, and building strong, collaborative relationships.

To help employees develop self-awareness, companies often use one of the various psychometric assessments available on the market.  Unfortunately, many of these tools were developed decades ago and are still using old thinking with regard to individuals and personalities. They focus on categorizing people into specific “types,” without acknowledging the vast complexity of the human personality.

This approach has been widely criticized, especially in the academic world, as being too limiting. In fact, according to a recent Fortune magazine article, personality “typing” has been subject to sustained criticism by professional psychologists for more than 30 years.

One of the key criticisms is that “typing” mistakenly assumes that personality falls into mutually exclusive categories. For example, you are either an introvert OR an extravert. You are either logical OR emotional. Typing assigns an individual all of the characteristics of a trait without any of the characteristics of the opposite of that trait. The danger in this, of course, is that when organizations use these typing tools their culture can become biased toward one type or another. For example, they may associate a particular type with leadership more strongly than other types and may even eliminate one or more types from leadership consideration. The result is that employees who are not this type but want to become leaders will either try to change who they are, or become disengaged, or leave. This is not bringing out the best in people and helping them feel like valued contributors. 

Evaluative bias threatens personal satisfaction and contributes to an organizational culture of disengagement.  The first damages employee happiness and well-being, while the second damages the bottom line.  According to recent Gallup studies, disengaged employees can cost US organizations up to $605 billion each year in lost productivity.

Humans are far too complex to be categorized as either/or, or to be segmented into particular types.  They may display more characteristics of a trait (or its opposite) based on a particular situation. Reducing the complexity of the human personality into such a narrow scope can limit an individual in their own eyes, and in the eyes of others. It is both limited and limiting.

Fortunately, there are emerging, state-of-the-art psychometric assessments that help to eliminate evaluative bias.  These are tools that do not type people, instead they scientifically measure behaviors exhibited or qualities a person utilizes.  Even better are the ones that embrace “and” thinking as opposed to “either/or” thinking. These are the ‘open-system’ tools where you measure each factor individually.  Therefore, a person’s unique gifts and talents are highlighted. 

National Geographic’s publication Your Personality Explained, called the Big5 the cutting edge approach to measuring personality because it doesn’t categorize people as “types,” but rather empirically and scientifically measures each of their 5 personality factors for a more unique and comprehensive picture. Assessments based on the Big5 principle are one step in the right direction.

No matter what you choose to use in your organization to help raise employees’ self-awareness, be mindful of the effects that creating an atmosphere that rewards or limits certain ‘types’ of people can have on employee morale.  Instead, help your employees look for hidden gems and talents in each other; help them see the uniqueness each person has to offer.  Help them feel valued, and watch them contribute.  Bring out the best in your people and they will bring out the best in your organization. 

Cheers to Deeper Diversity,

Rebecca Bales

Global Partner Lumina Learning

Contact us at info-us@luminalearning.com to learn about upcoming Lumina events. 

Disrupting Talent Development with Revolutionary Assessment Tools

Employee engagement in the US has been hovering at about 30% for a decade. Despite numerous attempts by companies to move the needle via surveys, engagement initiatives and tantalizing perks, the majority of employees remain mostly “ho hum” about their companies, their jobs, their leaders.

Gallup, who does ongoing analysis of employee engagement, had this to say, “Creating a culture of engagement requires a company to take a close look at the critical engagement elements that align with performance and with the organization’s human capital strategy. Managers and leaders should keep employee engagement top of mind – because every interaction with employees can have an impact on engagement and organizational performance.”

So what’s a company to do? How do they get that closer look at critical engagement elements – effective leadership, a sense of purpose, career development, communication, meaningful work – to motivate and retain employees? One tool that companies use is psychometric assessments. Yet many of the companies that use them are using the same old assessments year after year, some of which were created back in the 1940s. As someone once said, you can’t keep doing the same thing and expect different results.  Many of those older tools are mired in old thinking. They focus on “typing” people or putting them into categories or boxes without acknowledging the vast complexities of the human personality. They measure human doings versus exploring human beings.

It's time for a different approach.

Lumina Learning is disrupting the world of talent development through its revolutionary psychometric tools, which are bias-free, jargon-free, empirically measured, and based on the Latest Big 5 research. The Big 5 Personality Traits are:

1.       Open to Experience

2.       Conscientiousness

3.       Extraversion

4.       Agreeableness

5.       Neuroticism

National Geographic’s publication Your Personality Explained, called the Big 5 the cutting edge approach to measuring personality because it doesn’t categorize people as “types,” but rather empirically and scientifically measures each of their 5 personality factors for a more unique and comprehensive picture.

Typing individuals not only limits their potential, but can give them an easy out when explaining their behavior. For example, if someone is typed as a take-charge personality, they may think it gives them license to step on toes or be overly aggressive to get things done. “That’s just who I am.”

Lumina Learning’s assessment, Lumina Spark, recognizes the complex contradictions that make each one of us unique. For example, an individual may have both introvert AND extravert qualities; they can be tactical AND strategic; they can focus on results, AND also care about the people.

The Lumina framework embraces the fact that each individual possesses opposing personality traits. It’s “AND” thinking versus “EITHER/OR” thinking. Lumina embraces the paradox. 

Lumina Spark achieves this more comprehensive view by looking at 8 aspects and 24 qualities, and measuring these along a continuum to create a unique portrait for each individual. And it goes deeper.  Each quality is measured for three personas:

1.       Your Underlying persona – who you are most naturally
2.       Your Everyday persona – how you “show up” based on what’s required of you at work
3.       Your Overextended persona – how you behave under stress

The Lumina model is built around understanding ourselves and others so that we can adapt our behavior and communicate and work better together. Individuals are complex, and should not be placed in boxes, limiting the beliefs about their effectiveness, their capabilities and their ability to develop and expand.

“Spark” employee engagement by giving your people the latest tools to discover and apply their full potential.

Want to learn more? Contact us at info-us@luminalearning.com to learn about upcoming Lumina events. 

Turning Neuroticism from a Negative to a Positive

Neuroticism is not a trait that we generally consider positive.  And yet, according to a recent Huffington Post article, when someone is neurotic and is also highly conscientious, it can actually be a good thing. These “healthy neurotics,” as described in the article, are able to “harness the anxiety that is so fundamental in neuroticism, and use it in a positive way.” 

People who are conscientious are cautious, and explore the risks of something before jumping in. This helps mitigate the negative behaviors often associated with neuroticism, and often results in increased productivity by channeling that nervous energy into action. The homework you were stressing about gets done.  The deadline looming gets met. You figure out a way to resolve the conflict you’ve been agonizing over. 

Society has historically cast neuroticism in a negative light, pointing only to the downside: anxiety, fear, moodiness, worry, frustration, etc.  Think Seinfeld’s George Costanza. The Odd Couples’ Felix Unger. And every character Woody Allen has ever played.

Lumina, however, explores the positive side of neuroticism, along with the positive side of the other four major personality descriptors –extraversion, agreeableness, openness and conscientiousness – the Big 5 Personality Traits.  Lumina is based on the Big 5, which National Geographic’s publication Your Personality Explained, called the cutting edge approach to measuring personality because it doesn’t categorize people as “types” but rather empirically and scientifically measures each of their 5 personality factors for a more unique and comprehensive picture.

Lumina research shows that by measuring the opposite of each of the 5 personality traits, rather than just measuring how much of one trait a person is using, reduces the bias toward having a huge amount of that particular trait.

Lumina strives to have an unbiased approach to personality traits which helps individuals embrace their true unique talents.  In this manner, Lumina explores the positive side of “being cautious, taking calculated risks, being conscientious and structured,” all elements that can be found in a healthy amount of neuroticism.  Lumina findings show that these elements used at certain levels can actually help on the road to success, both in life and in career.  

If you would like to learn more about your personality traits and how to leverage them for more personal and professional success, please join us at one of our upcoming Lumina Spark Experience events – Monday, December 5 in the Dallas/Plano area and Thursday, December 8 in San Francisco. Contact us at info-us@luminalearning.com for more information.

Lead on,

Rebecca