The personality tests are created to help you get to know yourself, establish a solid team , and develop professionally and personally. Small businesses often utilize personality tests in a certain way and I’m always amazed at the outcome. Financial planners, specifically are able to benefit from personality tests.
If you’re a solo practitioner, various test results can help you develop your interpersonal skills and discover your most effective work routines or areas where you may be able to delegate tasks to someone more suited for the job. If you’re operating a large financial planning business tests on personality will help you manage your team as well as make hiring decisions and much more.
What are the advantages from Personality Testing?
Tests on personality do more than just provide you with an understanding of how you behave day-to-day. They can help you gain an understanding of who you really are, and this means digging deeper into your workplace preferences, habits of work such as energy levels, social capabilities, strengths and weaknesses. These tests also aid to understand how you perform when under pressure, or determine the most suitable career path in the field of financial planning which is in line with your goals and interests.
Testing for personality has value for solo businesses as well as for larger teams. However, I have found that teams generally benefit more from personality tests when they are focused on the way they work with each other, and solo practitioners will get the most details about the way they work with clients.
For Solo Practitioners
I enjoy assisting clients who are sole practitioners to take a look at themselves. The more you know about your own self, the more you’ll be in a better position to develop an enterprise that inspires and fills you with joy. You’ll also be able to meet the needs of your ideal customers when you know how you communicate with others, react to criticism, or even communicate. It is possible to offer your clients the test of their personality or a value assessment which helps you determine the person you are and what your needs are and how your interactions with them can best satisfy the needs of their clients.
For Teams
The management of an advisory team isn’t easy. When you have several personalities in the same room, you’re opening yourself to conflict. Conflict is normal and so long as it’s constructive , I am fine with it. However, minimizing the destructive effects of conflict or miscommunication in the workplace tension is something all financial planning teams can agree on. The tests for personality can be beneficial.
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If you let your team take a personality test in a group, and review the results, you’re beginning an exchange. As a group, you’ll be able to gain knowledge:
Who are the team members?
What are their strengths?
What they should perform to recharge (and how often they have to perform it)
Their strengths at work
How do they are able to communicate
What they prefer to communicate to
What they want from interactions with colleagues
What do they expect from themselves when they perform their job
What are they looking for?
How do they handle criticism and conflict
And much more.
These kinds of discussions accomplish several things. They also confirm how each member of your team is feeling about their own personal qualities. They also urge everyone in your group to take a look at themselves and find out more about their own personal goals, as well as what they would like to achieve and how they wish to be a part of the group in an effective manner.
In the second place, personality test exercises can improve understanding between the team. Understanding who each person is and what they do best and where their weaknesses are allows for greater grace in workplace conflicts and professional interactions and allows more intimate connections to be established. This results in more productivity and more positive workplace interactions.
What Personality Test Should You Test Your Personality?
It’s like there are billions of personality tests all over the internet, and each time I go online, there’s an exciting new program that claims to be amazing and unique it is. In all honesty, I’m pretty sure that the majority test are excellent. However, in the interest of being certain, let’s go through some of the ones I’ve had the pleasure of taking, have seen used in the financial planning industry and have read glowing reviews of.
Insights Discovery
Insights Discovery is currently my preferred personality test and so much so that I recently became certified to conduct it with firms! Insights Discovery is based on an easy formula:
Applications + understanding = breakthrough
The authors of the test of personality believe encouraging self-awareness within teams and applying the knowledge you’ve gained to your workplace environment can result in an efficient, productive and positive work environment. The test aims to help to build stronger interpersonal relationships within your company as quickly as is possible, which I am a huge fan of. I’m not a big fan of personality tests if we just take them for a few minutes and ignore them. They’re designed to be used!
Test takers who are part of Insights Discovery will be able to learn more about:
Their enthusiasm
What they do to make decisions
How they share and receive messages
The most effective method to connect with team members is to make use of the latest information
Insights Discovery provides a fantastic in-depth, deep exploration that’s perfect for teams who want to increase their communication and efficiency to ensure the highest level of productivity and effectiveness. I like it as an instrument for developing leadership skills as well as a method to create an improved working environment for teams (even with employees who are contract!) because it’s so extensive and designed for the workplace.
The test also is focused on the awareness that self-awareness and development aren’t just a one-time thing This is the reason I believe that a lot of other personality tests are lacking. Insights Discovery promotes continual adaptation and application to challenge your company (and employees) to realize their full potential. They help you as a leader in your business simplify your programs and modify your procedures to better match the needs that your employees have and encourage your team members to make suggestions for changes and help create an environment that supports their progress. Overall it’s an awesome program.
DISC
The DISC assessment is based upon the ability to understand the people’s behavior. It is a good fit in groups because it concentrates on how you can adapt your capabilities to be able to collaborate with colleagues, and also how to observe your behavior in the workplace.
Some of the things DISC is able to cover include:
What do you do when you encounter conflict?
What drives you?
What is it that causes you to stress?
How do you deal with the problems
How can we facilitate better communication?
How to identify the behavioral needs of others to enhance your team’s atmosphere
DISC is extremely focused on teams. However I believe it can be a viable option for the solo practitioner. Instead of looking at how you interact with your colleagues instead, you’d be looking at how your behavior affects the freelance or contract employees and clients. This information is still useful however, the evaluation is more targeted towards larger teams in the workplace.
The assessment consists of four personality types: dominant, Inspiring, Friendly, and the cautious. Certain assessment companies change the names little. For instance, “dominant” might be “directing.” In any case the behavior patterns that fit these personality types are generally identical across all. Every personality type is assigned a set of terms that describe it, including open, people-oriented or reserved or focused on tasks. This is among the reasons why it is useful to financial planning firms that utilize a team of employees. Understanding how the team members behave will help in any particular scenario.
Kolbe A Index
Kolbe A Index Kolbe A Index is a slightly more detailed than some test for personality you could take, but it’s extremely geared towards working environments, which can prove useful. Kolbe Corp believes that once you’ve taken the test, your results will not change since at the root your identity is who you are.
If you study the Kolbe A Index, you’ll discover:
How do you make your choices
Your natural abilities and instincts are
How can you reduce stress?
What is your “action method” is
How do you best solve problems?
The action modes are the ones that draws the most individuals into The Kolbe A Index, and they have good reason for it. The four modes of action include Fact Finder and Following Through, Quick Start, and Implementer. The index shows you at what stage you are at in each mode, which allows you to discern whether you need to are reacting, counteracting or initiate actions. The advantages associated with each action type are explained the mode, keep it in mind, and then innovate and restore.
The appeal the appeal of The Kolbe A Index is that it is a perfect balance between self-reflection as well as an outward-looking team perspective. Being aware of how you should behave in any particular circumstance is useful, but understanding how your coworkers behave in the same situation can be equally beneficial.
For instance, if you have a person on your team who has a high score in the area of implementing tasks and ideas effectively and another team member that scores high for being a person who is innovative both of them could work well together. However If your entire team consists of individuals who thrive on innovation and aren’t keen to keep or implement ideas, you may be in trouble in your hands.
It’s also worth considering The Kolbe B Index and The Kolbe C Index. These two programs are offered for teams that want to move things beyond the current level. Kolbe B Index: Kolbe B Index can be employed by teams to assess their views of their responsibilities as a team. It can help identify areas of tension and miscommunication within the workplace.
Kolbe C Index Kolbe C Index was created specifically for business leaders and supervisors to understand the things they think a particular job involves. This is useful in creating job descriptions or comparing the natural traits of a person with the expectations you have for your job when they are their boss.
The StrengthFinders (Now CliftonStrengths)
CliftonStrengths is an Gallup assessment that was designed to be a complete personality test. It’s built on a set of 34 themes and it highlights the top five. Each theme will focus on a character trait that is natural to you such as accountability taking initiative, thinking strategically, achieving outcomes, or even taking on new challenges.
CliftonStrengths concentrates on:
Finding out who you are
Recognizing your strengths
A deeper understanding of your weak points
How to maximise your potential
Concentrating on the things that make you special
Doing something to improve your performance
CliftonStrengths exceeds expectations by providing an action plan for the test takers to take action on. The test is designed to provide more than just insights, but also to encourage individuals to improve themselves and do something about it. In the end, that’s all you’re looking for from an assessment of your personality that is actions. Personal growth and reflection are both necessary however, they’re not as useful if you rest on the information you’ve gathered about yourself and don’t take the next step to grow!
I am pretty sure that solo practitioners as well as teams could gain from the CliftonStrengths. While it might appear that it’s designed to help groups improve communication skills and concentrate on its strengths, the program gives an in-depth assessment of each person that it can still be beneficial for an individual advisor.
Myers-Briggs
It is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) personality test is among the first psychometric tests. With 16 tests of personality, the test’s focused on what makes you. This means it’s not as fervently targeted at companies or teams at work however that doesn’t mean it less useful.
The MBTI examines:
Your actions
What do you prefer to concentrate your attention (outer world or the inner)
How do you use the information
How do you make your decisions
How do you handle the world outside and how you communicate with other people
Although the MBTI is a great tool however, it has some negatives. It’s based solely on the truthfulness of self-reporting and the way people perceive themselves, which could affect the results. Also, it’s not a ideal tool, which means that you may get an individual personality type which isn’t the person you really are. However, if you’re just dipping your toes into the waters of personality tests to help you or your team, this test is certainly worth taking a look.
Selecting Your Test
There are numerous personality tests to choose from that it will be overwhelming. There are pros and cons for each one and you’ll benefit out of it regardless of which test you select. In order to get the most value from your experience, it’s a good idea to know the reason you’re taking this test at all. If you’re an individual trying to learn more about your own stressors and style of communication If you’re searching for something distinct from a larger financial planning team that’s trying to learn how to work and make the most of their strengths.
If you’re an owner of a business you could utilize a personality test in many different ways and you may be searching for different traits every time. If you’re using a test for personality test in your current team, you’re probably looking to boost communication and improve performance. If you’re employing it as a recruitment tool, you’re probably trying to learn more about the candidates you’re considering and how they’ll be a part of your team.
If you’ve specific reason why you’d like to take the test to determine your personality in your company and you’ll be in deciding on the right personality test that provides you the information you’re seeking and the depth of investigation that you want.
Determine When and How to use them
You’ve decided to go with the idea of a personality test. That’s great! Self-discovery is an effective way to increase your efficiency of work as well as your living quality. Many financial planners with whom I meet about understand the importance of reflection and taking personality tests to help improve their team’s communication and create stronger relationships with their clients. However, there are many different ways to utilize the test to determine your personality in your financial planning practices I’d like to make sure that you’re not wasting your time! If you’ve got the tools to utilize, you may be able to get the best value for your money.
When You’re Recruiting
Personality tests play a crucial function in the process of hiring. Being aware of a candidate’s strengths and weaknesses, and work preferences immediately upon interview will help you make the right choice for your staff.
On the other hand of the spectrum, personality tests assist you in determining whether or not the job is a good fit to the person applying. If you are aware that the duties needed will cause your candidate to be unhappy and unhappy, it could be beneficial to guide the candidate in a different direction (within the confines of your work or not) which could be a better fit , and will result in a more satisfied employee.
A note of caution: If you decide to take the personality test that’s slightly longer, you might want to not send it out to candidates until they’re further along in the interview process. You don’t want to turn off applicants who are qualified by forcing them to have to jump through hurdles too quickly after they’ve found the job posting. It’s also crucial to find out whether your selection of personality test is suggested to be used in the hiring process. Insights Discovery, for example states that workplace preferences do not always correlate with workplace performance They don’t intend to be used for hiring purposes.
When Building Teams Building
Group building exercises that focus around personality tests are from my experience very enjoyable. In addition to the fact that your employees learn more about themselves, but they also gain insight into their colleagues every day. Together, they’re able develop unique solutions, roll processes that showcase the strengths of everyone and work together with one another to push everyone towards the same goal, which is to ensure the effectiveness of the method. It’s quite exciting to watch the team members respond to each other by recognizing their individual needs, altering their communication patterns or simply taking care of themselves in a way which helps them to show up and be their best each day.
As Training
I enjoy personality tests as a form of leadership development. Your new recruits who may be thinking of becoming partners, and/or managing team members could benefit from knowing how they communicate skills, and management style. They could also take the personality test to discover how the personalities of others may interact, which can enable them to be a more effective manager over the long term.
To spark conversation
What is it that a new employee doesn’t like? The idea of telling you how they’d prefer to work. No matter if you have a full-time staff or work with various 1099 contractors, the new team members aren’t very vocal about what they would like their work environment to appear like. The awkward boss-employee dynamics can hinder their progress and new employees might be concerned about being too vocal since they’re only just getting started. This is always frustrating to me because, as a matter of fact the more you are aware about what your team’s needs and needs, the better the practices you can develop.
The personality test is the perfect solution. Numerous personality tests focused on the workplace allow employees to explore and share the ideal work environment that they think will look like. Tests on personality can help users to recognize their own strengths, which tasks they excel at and areas they may require improvement.
Conducting personality tests with new employees can help close the knowledge gap and encourage them to talk about their expectations of their new position within your business. It is also possible to use tests for personality to trigger conversations in performance reviews to begin an open discussion about what’s going well, or not working, in how your employees perform.
Personality Testing: The Downsides of Personality Testing
It would be remiss of me if did not discuss the negatives to personality testing in this article. In particular, I’d like to ensure that you know how to not use personality tests as part of your routine. The first and most important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t use personality tests to distinguish from one another in any fashion. Period.
The second is to be aware of how you utilize tests of personality in your training. While they can be extremely helpful in helping you realize your worth and areas where you’re lacking and can also aid your team in connecting and grow as a team, they can also cause polarization and even harm. Let’s take a look at some instances where the use of personality tests did not go as planned.
Situation One: An Disgruntled Workplace Friend
It is important to conduct a team-building personality test to promote progress and growth instead of pointing fingers and blaming. When your group is having trouble to work together in a coordinated manner, they might need more disciplined direction when it comes to implementing the new information obtained through personality testing. We do not want Advisor 1 to blame Advisor 2 for never being the most innovative, while Advisor 1 is still doing all the managing and work.
Scenario Two: Homogenizing Your Hiring
The most important thing you don’t want to do is refuse applicants with a high-quality resume simply because their personality was not a perfect match or even a compatible match with your own. You shouldn’t hire an entire room of people. Financial planning methods benefit from a broad variety of ideas and opinions. This means you should hire a wide selection of personalities to your team and providing them the tools needed to work efficiently.
Scenario Three: Stagnation
If you’re a solo entrepreneur isn’t it important to not be pushed to the limit after discovering how you’re viewed and working way of working. As a business owner you’re not going to want your staff to begin blaming their behavior according to their personality assessments You’re not following up with my actions quite as well. Sorry, but I’m an extremely clear and direct person. I’m not trying to offend everyone working in the office.
This could be considered the use of labels, which is something you’d like to stay clear of. It is not possible to take the results of the personality test to label people or as a way of avoiding. Instead it is best to use them as clues to help make connections and adjust, not identify someone’s identity, and then resist adjusting your personal identity as a result. There’s more to us than the result of an assessment of personality! Even if you’re a certain “type” of person, you might just be a person who possesses those traits. There’s always more to the surface.
The reason you should use personality tests as part of your financial planning practices is to promote growth and progress in your career. While it’s tempting to believe that it’s a natural thing after having learned the most about yourself and your work style however, this isn’t always the case.
What’s Next?
Personality tests will help both you and the team achieve remarkable things. However, they’re not the magic wand to solve communication issues, strengthen your relationships, and enhance the way you plan your finances. Personality tests are only one step in the process. They should form part of a bigger strategy.
Spend the time to come up with an implementation plan and bring the entire team involved. Even if you’re an individual practitioner working with contract workers and contractors, discuss with them the outcomes of your test and the way you intend to change working styles or behaviors to enhance your efficiency. Being clear about what you’d like to see from an assessment of your personality to modify an approach, alter behaviour, or alter relations is essential to ensuring that you are getting the most value of this powerful instrument.