How can psychometric profiling add real value to my team?

What is psychometric profiling and how can it significantly benefit my team dynamics, team relationships, team communication and team's productivity? In this article we review what psychometric profiling is, list 12 applications for teams, and look in more detail at one of the most effective ways to use it in your team.

Every team is made up of individuals

Each team is composed of unique individuals who bring their own set of skills and experiences to the table.

No two people are the same. No two people have the same temperament, skill set and experience. No two people’s behaviours will be identical. No two people’s leadership styles will be exactly the same or respond to stress in the same way. Individuals come together to form teams and we would be fools to overlook this individuality.

All this said, teams are also a lot more than the sum of their parts. There is a beauty in bringing together very distinct individuals to form a team. Through coming together, new ideas are sparked, new creativity is inspired, and even new competition can be fostered, in a healthy way. In teams we have the opportunity to bring out the best in others, leading others to help bring out the best in us. As the common cliché goes:

For a team to truly succeed, its members must be united in their commitment to each other and a shared vision. This means working towards a common goal and recognising the unique strengths and perspectives that each individual brings to the table. Psychometric profiling is a powerful leadership tool to achieve this and can help individuals to better understand and leverage the dynamics of their team.

What is psychometric profiling?

Psychometric profiling is a field of psychometrics, which is concerned with the theory and measurement of our psychology and emerged around the mid-1800s.

Britannica.com summarises it as:

Psychometric profiling aims to measure and understand our individual ways of operating and existing in this world, ultimately contributing to our uniqueness. It employs structured, objective, and data-driven tests to gain insights into a person's personality traits, skills, and behaviours, which are all influenced by various factors such as character, culture, education, training, values, and environment. However, psychometric profiling exists because our psychological preferences are easily observable and measurable.

Essentially, it is a tool to help us understand ourselves and others better, most importantly, facilitating more effective working relationships.

Whether you're in a leadership role or working towards building a team that performs at its best, utilising psychometric profiling can be a game-changer. This insightful tool can help you gain a deeper understanding of how your team is operating, allowing you to better capitalise on individual unique strengths and perspectives that contribute to a high performing team.

For a more in-depth discussion of what psychometric profiling is, see our blog "What you need to know about psychometric profiling" and also "What you didn't know about the history of psychometric testing".

12 applications of psychometric profiling within a team

1. Talent recruitment and development
2. Choosing a job path
3. Personal growth in self-awareness
4. High-performance training
5. Change management
6. Management training
7. People and team development
8. Resilience training and stress management
9. Communication training – verbal, written and body language
10. Sales training
11. Building healthy culture
12. One-to-one coaching
    
    

Behaviour profiling: one the most effective uses of psychometric profiling within business teams

One of the most effective ways to apply the value of psychometric profiling within teams is behaviour profiling, because it is the way that people behave in response to both colleagues and the challenges their organisation throws at them that really affects how well both the individual and the organisation develop and perform.  

Behaviour profiling studies a person's psychological preferences and how these preferences influence their behaviour. With the aim of equipping individuals with the knowledge and skills to recognise these same elements in others and adapt their behaviour accordingly to foster better relationships within their teams.

Crucially, it is the way that we behave which impacts others, directly affecting team dynamics and performance.

Our behaviours are an expression of our personality traits. However, unlike our personality traits that are relatively fixed across our lifetime, our behaviour can change and develop with self-awareness and as we grow an appreciation for others who may be wildly different from ourselves. 

Some psychometric profiling tests use binary categories, such as numbers and letters to define personal differences, which can feel prescriptive and limiting. They’re also hard to remember when you’re working day-to-day. Instead, here at C-me we use a blended and non-binary model based on colours. This is in order to give a unique read-out for every person instead of one category. 

We give people room to be many things at once and understand that we flex and adapt between these colours when needed.

We teach teams how behaviours impact team dynamics, giving them strategies to understand their differences, resolve conflicts faster, and collaborate better to achieve their objectives through:

• A shared language: We use colour to simplify behaviours and group them together. Discussing behaviours through colour enables braver conversations around what behaviours are needed, for example, in specific roles, working culture, and in team communication. It also enables individuals with wholly different approaches to quickly understand their differences and how to flex to relate to one-another. 
• Tasks aligned with motivation: Identify each team member's motivations and resilient strengths to better align team roles to each individual. Trial potential project teams to understand their strengths and possible group behaviours when stressed.
• Understand team dynamics: The C-me team colour wheel plots all team members' preferences on one graph to clearly display team strengths and areas for development, understand what happens under pressure, spark discussion around members who may need more support, equip leaders with the knowledge of how to better communicate and motivate their teams, highlight potential bias, and future recruitment needs...there are many more applications!
• Boost recruitment and retention: Spark productivity, cut hiring costs, better retain staff by considering preferences and personal motivations from recruitment stage all the way through to employee engagement and people development programmes. 
• Increase behavioural diversity: Get another perspective on your team's diversity and how this impacts on your performance and culture.

How can C-me add value to my team? 

One of the great strengths of C-me is that it is deeply relational. We want to help you and your team to understand yourself better, always in relation to one another. C-me is a tool that really helps teams see each member of the team for what they bring, feeding the realisation that we all bring something unique to the team.

One online platform, multiple uses

If you would like to discuss how we could help support you in building your team, book a demo.