I frequently get this question from clients. There are numerous psychometric assessment tools in the market for our communication coaching practices. When putting on the hat as the executive/user, I really hope not to be stereotyped by these tests, and most importantly, I hope they don’t ask me to do a test for more than 20 minutes. Time is so precious and we already have so many backlog tasks!
In the past 18 months, I was introduced to an assessment tool and since then, I have been conducting hours of debriefing and finally got accredited this year too. One of the reasons I like this tool is that, it does not only understand an individual’s personality or preferences, but also understands what is required for different roles in a typical organization.
An article from iSpring Solutions gave 3 tips on how to choose the right assessment tool for you:
🔍Assess your needs - You have to think about the goal and objective, the format of the training program, and the participants to suit their learning needs.
🔍Consider resources - Check with the company how much they are willing to invest on the tool, i.e. time, budget
🔍Test drive - Try it our yourself and do a self debriefing to get a sense of the process and usability.
✍️To add on the above, another key element that some might overlook is to consider if this tool is #culturally#relevant, i.e. whether it has been used in your culture, with reliable sample size. For instance, we are an Asian cross-cultural communications consultancy and more of our clients are based in this part of the world. The setting is different from those based in the west.
Besides, tools are often used as an opener but not the destination. We are not trying to use the tool as a ranking like a “school grading report”, but rather, it is an #evaluation on where the #growth potential is, and a time to #celebrate achievements.
Self understanding is the first step, and most of the coaching practices are aimed to catalyze this #SelfAwareness process as the 1st step. But at the end of the day, it is more than just self understanding, but how to move the team or leadership performance one step further.
How do you choose your assessment tools for corporate training programs?
Comments