Finding out your team’s types can unlock business potential and benefit HR systems

1.     Personal and Team Effectiveness

Ever been faced with someone so unlike you, you’re not even sure how to introduce yourself? Or perhaps there’s someone on the team who drives the action and takes all the credit, even though you thought of the idea? Recognising your ‘type’ and how you work with people of similar and opposite types can be pivotal in improving the way you work with others- all the while raising awareness of tolerance issues.

Evaluators like Insights use Jungian ‘type’ factors- made up of ‘attitude’ (extraversion or introversion), data gathering functions and decision making. Different choices made in the test determine a behaviour ‘type’ for the individual, and suggest possible strengths as well as areas to improve in the workplace. Personal effectiveness is a common subject in professional development, and understanding your own preferences can help to increase your productivity, engagement and ultimately, your career development.

2.     Better Recruitment

When used in a professional manner, personality profiling can be an important and informative part of the recruitment process to ensure that HR departments are finding a ‘fit’ between candidate and organisation.

There is risk involved in this process, and it is best practice to use personality profiling tools to understand candidates’ preferences in a working capacity, rather than to evaluate their traits  in order to be selective. For HR professionals, profiling tools can also benefit interviewing skills and enable you to find the best roles for candidates.

3.     Effective Management

Using profiling tools can help managers to gain a mutual understanding and respect for their team. By knowing how they ‘tick’, how they work best and how they interact with others, management can develop more  efficient strategies for leadership, goal setting, problem solving and giving feedback. Feedback and appraisals can be tricky ground; knowing how best to evaluate progress and set targets for an employee can positively affect a business’ value. True North promote the use of the Insights model to help managers to improve efficiency and productivity.

4.     Communication Styles

We all know someone in team meetings who likes to direct the discussion, to sympathise with issues, to take the notes and to offer enthusiasm. Personality profiling tools like Insights use Jungian analysis to identify introverted or extroverted preferences, and ‘thinking vs. feeling’ types. Knowing how you and others like to interact can facilitate better communication in the team. Different preference ‘types’ put their ideas across in different ways- and conflict can be avoided by understanding the communication styles of others. Tools such as Insights introduces a common ‘language’ and terms of reference-that makes it easier to broach subjects that may otherwise be difficult.

5.     Your Bottom Line

Understanding personality ‘types’ and preferences can help a sales team to provide a better service, connect with their customers and evaluate their own effectiveness. Make better first impressions and a stronger rapport by quickly identifying how much information the prospect needs and how they like to be approached- resulting in an improved customer experience.

 

True North are a registered provider of Insights Personality Profiling and use the tool for employers or as a basis for their workshop on People, Personalities and Performance