Licensed Tools & Assessments
Like chefs & their knives, we’re quite picky about the tools we use in our craft. Too many assessments & certifications in the training space are at best edutainment & at worst genuinely harmful to learning— cheap knives that break & cut the cook. As Nicholas Nassim Taleb notes, “If you see fraud & do not say fraud, you are a fraud” (yes, we’re lots of fun at parties). Good research, sound educational pedagogy, & practical application with a proven track record are key considerations. A few we’ve come to like using with clients:
Influence Style Indicator©: From Discovery Learning, a great tool for understanding our own personal preferences when trying to move minds. We love its validity cross culturally & the large research base behind its findings.
The Kraybill Conflict Style Inventory©: Conflict happens, but it doesn’t have to be destructive. Kraybill’s inventory not only measure response to conflict, but more importantly measures change— as tension increases do we tend to problem solve, fight, give in, or run away?
Culture Mapping Tools: Taking the best of ideas from culture study pioneers like Hofstede & Hall, Dr. Erin Meyers’ Culture Map research translates behavioral trends in a way that is directly applicable to real world communication. No wonder she wrote Harvard Business Review’s most read article of 2017.
Team Management Systems©: Want to really understand how your team members collaborate & relate to one another? TMS does a great job assessing why some individuals, teams, & organizations perform, work effectively & achieve their objectives while others fail.
FourSight©: Want to get innovative
projects done? FourSight is by far our favorite assessment for understanding how individuals & teams think creatively with a particular nod to how we can take projects from start to finish.
Hogan Assessments©: Listen— if you just want a quick awareness exercise on personality/thinking differences in teams, there are plenty of free & low cost options that work (as long as we don’t read too much into them). But if you really want to do personality assessment right & provide deep meaningful take aways for individual change, Hogan is our pick with its sound grounding in organizational psychology.
Designing Your Life©: Available for individuals & small groups, we joined the first coaching certification cohort of this systematic approach to personal change based on applying design thinking principles to developing the self. In a nutshell— ideate, experiment, & reflect on where you are going professionally in a more measured way.
Bates EXPi©: Focused on building executive presence, that nebulous quality rarely well defined, Bates has created a 360 tool with robust construct validity around the facets of character, style, & substance— we leverage it for senior level coaching engagements.