How Does Your Co-Worker Think?

A manager was becoming upset over the work habits of his employee. Every time he assigned her a task, it would be an hour or so before she started on it.

“It drives me crazy,” the manager told the human resources officer. He wanted to fire the employee.

But after a brief conversation with the employee, the HR officer discovered what was behind her behavior: She simply needed some time to process each new task and think about how to carry it out successfully.

The manager was the sort of person who jumped right into things; the employee was someone who required a bit of reflection first, but in the end got everything done. Two different ways of thinking about work.

Deb Snellen shared that story during her CAMEX100 presentation, The Five Power Principles of Personal Assessments: Making the Most of “Personality Tests” for Your Staff. Currently the executive director of professional and organizational development and instructor at Lake-Sumter State College, Snellen previously spent 12 years as a college store employee in Missouri and later worked for MBS Textbook Exchange. She also wrote a column on employee relations for The College Store magazine for many years.

Using a personality test might have saved the manager in the story some angst. The test would have given him insights into how all of his employees approached assignments and thought about their work, and helped him to provide the right guidance to each person.

Snellen said her college administers the Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI) test, also known as the “whole-brain” test, to employees with a number of goals in mind: retention of staff, writing job descriptions, understanding job candidates, manager/employee communication, customer service, strategic planning, building teams, conflict resolution, coaching, diversity awareness, individual development plans, project assignments, how information is presented at meetings, and leadership development.

“We don’t use it for hiring,” she added, although the test can be useful to learn more about an applicant.

The HBDI test features 140 multiple-choice questions. Responses are designed to fall into one of four areas: rational (analytical, logical, interested in how things work); safekeeping (reliable, plans ahead, follows procedures); feeling (emotional, expressive, supportive of others); and experimental (imaginative, takes risks, impetuous).

“Most people have something going on in all four quadrants,” Snellen said, but the majority of points are typically clustered in one or two areas.

The idea is that a workplace needs people from each of the quadrants to form “the whole brain” when it comes to project work. Studies show, Snellen said, that a project team from the same quadrant will finish faster because they all think alike, but a team with three to four quadrants will produce better results because they look at the task in different ways.

Where do the Five Power Principles (as mentioned in the session title) come in? That five-step process can aid an organization in determining its goals and how the personality test can help achieve them:

P = Figure out your P word, such as increase profits or improve procedures.

O = Define the desired outcomes.

W = Weave it into all your organization does.

E = Establish a consistent message.

R = Recommend ways to incorporate it.

While Snellen likes the HBDI process, she said there are a number of personality tests (also known as personal assessments) that can work just as well. Your institution may already be licensing one of them.

Her advice on conducting a personality test:

• “Do be careful you don’t stereotype people,” she said. The purpose is not to pigeonhole anyone, but to better understand their thought patterns.
• Once the test has been given, “don’t put the results on a shelf.” Utilize that information in as many ways as possible.
• Be aware that when people are stressed, they may flip temporarily to the opposite quadrant. An analytical person may become emotional, while a risk-taker may insist on rules.
• “Pick one test and stick with it,” Snellen said. Bringing in more than one test can be confusing to employees.