As part of my work on developing teams and individuals, as well as talent and manager assessments and recruits, I use the following tests and development tools:

Myers-Briggs Type indicator

WAVE Personality Test and SWIFT Proficiency Test

BizBees - Online Leadership Simulation

 

Below you can read more about them and their use

A prerequisite for effective communication, good cooperation and good conflict management is that you understand and accept yourself, each other, your differences - as well as how you can make your differences a strength.

MBTi (Myers-Briggs Type Indicator), is a psychological theory that helps you as a team create a common framework and language.

You get to understand and talk about how and why you perceive and act in different ways due to your personal preferences.

MBTi is based on Swiss psychologist Carl Jung's Type Theory, which is one of the most widely used theories in the world when it comes to understanding human preferences and behavior.

Jung's Type Theory is used today as the basis for both MBTi, Insights and DISC profiling tools.

The MBTi model divides people into 16 psychological types which each has different behavior. Your psychological type is defined based on what your natural preferences are within the 4 dimensions:

1. Where you prefer to direct your attention and get energy from
2. What types of information you prefer to collect and trust
3. What process you prefer to use to make decisions
4. How you prefer to organize your life and orient yourself towards the world

Your individual psycological type is indicated in a report, which is prepared based upon your answers to a questionnaire.

There are two levels reports:

1. MBTI Step 1, which describes your basic preferences within the 4 dimensions.
2. MBTI Step II: is an extended version that provides a more detailed insight into how we express our personal preferences in different contexts.

The profile report will contain a thorough description of typical behavior in i.a. Communication, Decision Making, Change Management style and Conflict Management.

Individually, MBTI provides a good basis for insight into your own preferences and how they affect your way of interacting with other people.

In team development, MBTI provides a common frame of reference that will help your team get better at collaboration through various ways of solving tasks, communicating, making decisions, and managing change and conflict.

I use the personality test WAVE Professional Styles from Willis Towers Watson in connection with:

Recruitment with focus on compatibility between candidate and company. How well does a person's talents and preferences fit into the existing corporate culture?

Identification of talent pool. How can one focus on key requirements for future success and subsequently hold candidates against these in a precise and fair manner?

Follow-up on selection. How best to plan and implement introductory courses for new employees, thereby ensuring that the first three months are successful and productive for all new employees?

Retention.How can you identify individual preferences and commitment to the company in order to improve employee motivation, satisfaction and retention?

Career and skills development. With the personality test Wave, we map your competency profile. We use it to uncover how your skills match your current job or the jobs you want to look for.

If you want to measure your candidates' analytical skills in the course of a recruitment, I offer the skill test SWIFT from Willis Towers Watson.

The tests are characterized by:

• Short response time with high validity
• Great job relevance
• Contemporary content and design
• Clear instructions with examples
• Available in a wide variety of languages
• Can be answered on iPad and other tablets
• Candidate-friendly feedback
• User-friendly reports comparing skills and pace
• Inspiration for improving skills in the reports

 

Skills Areas

The tests measure the following skills:

• Verbal (work with words). Measures the ability, under time pressure, to analyze written verbal information.
• Numerical (work with numbers). Measures the ability to analyze numerical data under time constraints.
• Diagrammatic proficiency test (work with systems / logic). Measures the ability to analyze processes presented via diagrams under time pressure.
• Abstract proficiency test (working with systems / logic). Measures the ability to find the logical order in patterns under time constraints.
• Error checking (work with details). Measures the ability, under time pressure, to check written information.

Are high employee satisfaction and retention as well as lower expenses for leadership development and recruitment essential success criteria for your business?

Would you as a manager want to gain experience in how your leadership behavior affects different types of people? - Training in a safe environment.

Then Bizbee's Leadership Simulator is something for your business.

Bizbees is a game application for your smartphone that, through practical training, gives the manager an experience of how his / her behavior affects employees with different psychological types.

In Bizbees the manager must reach a preset target on the four generic KPIs;

• Productivity
• Quality
• Integration, and
• Employee Motivation

 

The managers leadership behavioral actions towards his/her "employees" are stored in a database. The managers' game data shows how their behavior has influenced the different psycological types of his/her "employees". The game data shows the managers change in behavior during the gameplay.

Bizbees is based on Jung's person type theory, which forms the basis for the person type tools MBTi, Insights and DISC. Three of the most widely used and recognized person-type tools in the world.

In BizBees, you lead 12 bees divided between four types, characterized by Jung's mental functions. The type determines how a bee solves tasks and is motivated. The game's score is measured on four parameters of value added and bees motivation.

BizBees is played in competition with other course participants in the time up to a course. On the course itself, BizBees is the common reference for discussion and reflection.

BizBees creates added value in relation to e-learning and theory review by interacting with direct feedback on performance. The elements of entertainment, practice-gathering experience, repetition, and feedback on one's own behavior increase learning deposition.

The simulated on-the-job training universe, the concept's cost-effectiveness and scalability make management training available to a large group of managers in large international companies and in the SME segment, which for financial reasons have not had this opportunity before.