🔒Temperament assessments a good tool for building team effectiveness

Q: Ray Dalio, head and founder of Bridgewater Associates, advocates psychometric testing and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator in particular as a means for building team effectiveness. How does one use these tests?

ACE advises: First, make certain the assessment you select will bring about the results you want. Temperament assessments, such as the MBTI, the Personality Style Indicator or the DISC, provide a profile that is one of the best predictors of work success and a key to understanding how an individual views the world.

The proper assessment helps describe a person's strengths and weaknesses. It will equip you to determine behavioral preferences and sometimes even predict such specifics as future sales.

Once you have the results, the critical hard work of honest discussion begins. I have personally seen the assessment results enrich coaching sessions, interviews, employee coaching, and performance reviews.

Temperament assessments vary in cost and can come as part of an in-house workshop or individual counseling sessions. Plan to build a workshop or individual appointments into the process so your employees understand their results and how to use them.

The careful application of the MBTI results avoids simple labeling and misuse to excuse weaknesses. The results will not turn you into a new person, but they can certainly help people take responsibility for their temperament preferences and avoid allowing their weaknesses to compromise their performance.

It will also highlight strengths that other colleagues can utilize when they recognize someone else may be better suited for a particular task.

A modest investment in temperament assessment — including, as necessary, the help of a consultant for design and interpretation — can help companies enjoy the same returns that made Bridgewater Associates successful.