The Good Side of Profiling

I have always been fascinated by psychological tests, or psychological assessments as they now call it. The objective of such assessments is to know an applicant’s personal qualities –- knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviors, aptitude –- and see whether the applicant will “fit” the job, the team, the company. One can say that a psychological assessment “profiles” a person to predict future performance.

Just this past week, I had the pleasure of being assessed using 3 different tools:

• DISC describes me as a DC (dominant-conscientious), task-oriented person
• STRENGTHSFINDER  listed my top 5 strengths to be:  strategic, learner, responsibility, connectedness, and futuristic
• EMERGENETICS  profiled me as a strong “quad” – a person most likely to succeed in any situation!  Yay! 

Why do psychological assessments move me? Three reasons. 

1st -- just like with psychics and zodiacs, it tickles me when somebody (or something) is able to tell me what I am like without having the benefit of really knowing me.

2nd -- it is nice to hear good things about myself as it is nice to get a gentle nudge for me to work on the chinks in my armor. And knowing that I have areas for improvement, it is reassuring to know that I am actually a WIP (work in progress)!  That I change and with change comes hope.

3rd -- assessments are humbling reminders that this corporation called Life has expectations. And for us to fit in this world and have meaningful lives, we need to work at it. We need to know what the expectations are and we need to know if we can continue as we are, or if there is a need to change and reinvent ourselves.

Looking around, I see corporations and their markets evolve. I see life on earth and earth itself evolve. I guess this only means that so should we.