Self evaluation.

I was doing a training course yesterday for work. Normally these really bore me as I was never good at sitting down and listening but this one was kind of fun. There was plenty of interaction and a few games along the way. The basis for the course was personality testing and dealing with people. As I work in retail management my entire day is spent dealing with staff and customers so getting it right is a fairly important as part of the job.

Before going on the course we had to fill out a 25 question survey that would establish our personalities and place us on the color wheel as established by Carl Jung's psychological theory.



source


To start the actual day of training we spent a lot of time evaluating ourselves.

Where did we think that we would place on the chart?
What section best fit us?
What words did we think best describe our work?

All of these were built into little mini games through out the morning as we broke down our management style and personalities into little fragments. Then we were rated among the other people in the course to see how they had viewed us. More mini games as we rated each other and gave our views on how they acted.

The important part to this is to realize that nobody is just one thing or one color. We tend to lead with one of the colors and this forms the basis of how we deal with other people. It's the part of our mindset that we can access most easily and therefore it's the one that we use most often.

So after we had played all of our games and chatted to our fellow trainees all that was left to do was to chart ourselves on the color circle. Where did we think that we should be?



source


I had put myself leading with blue for factual, structured and introverted. This is how i felt that I approached work and dealing with situations. I thought that red would be the secondary color since I can be determined and stubborn with a single mindedness at times. Makes sense.
I went with position 136 on the wheel.

The moment of truth

This really surprised me to be fair.
From answering the questions on the survey I was calculated as leading with green and having yellow as my secondary color. As you can see from my chart all of the colors are fairly similar which means that I can access all of them fairly easily depending on the situation in front of me.





This is a good trait as i can adapt to different situations and personalities fairly easily. Some people lead very strongly with one color or another which can cause difficulties when they need to take a different approach with other people. My chart however puts me as being somebody that is happy to serve others and fairly tolerant about rules and restrictions. I am a moderator that is willing to listen to all sides and will take the facts on board. It has a ring of truth to it.

The pat that I don't agree with is where they have placed me in a very people first area. While I do try to get on with people and like a sociable work area, at the same time I am not a people person. I can be friendly and lively but really don't have an external interest in a lot of it. I tend to ignore a lot of the more personal side of it and keep everything light and friendly. That is only a part of leading with green so I do see how I embody a lot of the other traits from the section such as loyalty, consideration, patient....

It can be very interesting to see how others think of you compared to the image in your head. As part of this I will be sitting down with my area manager and line manager to discuss the report and plan for the next period of time. It should be a fun chat.

So what was the point of all of this?

Well after all of this was completed, we were given a very detailed breakdown of our personalities and how that affected ourselves, how we worked and our environment. It was broken into:

• Personal style
• Key strengths and weaknesses
• Value to the team
• Effective communications
• Possible blind spots
• Opposites types
• Suggestions for development.

I've read it through from cover to cover and I have to say that it is scarily accurate. From just 25 questions this report has pretty much nailed down my attitude and behaviors at work. It takes them apart and shows the strengths and weaknesses of my approach and where I can try to challenge them. For anybody that does work with people, I would recommend this course as a great tool for the future.

There is a lot involved in it so I will follow this post up tomorrow with the breakdown of my personal profile and a bit more detail. It could take a while to process all of the info.