CAUTION: Why Smart CEO's Need To Be Wary Of Personality Assessments

Human beings have stereotyped each other since the creation of social structure. Over the past several decades, the stereotypes have become more formalized because they are supported by psychology and some science. The stereotyping has also become commercialized and personality assessments are big money makers. Psychology Today suggests that approximately 80% of Fortune 500 companies use personality assessments for hiring their upper-level positions.

We see a similar trend, where 90% of our clients use personality assessments as part of their process for hiring and team building. CEO's need to be aware that personality assessments do provide value, but they can also cause more harm than good. Please note that I am not suggesting that you don't use assessments; I am suggesting that the information in the assessments can have significant flaws that inhibit long-term performance.

There are five reasons why we encourage our clients to "burn" every assessment immediately after a new or existing employee has taken one.

1. Personality Assessments Are NOT As Accurate As You Think They Are

Our research shows that personality assessments provide a small glimpse of who a person truly is. There is no scientific way, with the current technology, that a personality assessment can determine the tens of thousands of beliefs that a person holds in their mind. It's virtually impossible to simplify an individual into a report and categorize them as "X type."

The other challenge is that a person's personality differs from their behavior. Personality is based on traits and behavior is based on action. Yes, traits can predict a person's behavior but not consistently. There are two reasons why: a) situations always change and no two situations are the exact same b) a person experiencing the same situation twice will not behave the exact same way twice.

There are numerous assessments and many of them do provide some value. However, the majority of psychology experts tend to agree that there are only five core personality traits as known as the big five (OCEAN): openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Based on our experience in working with over 4,000 executives and entrepreneurs, we find that identifying a person's personality traits are far more telling that categorizing them into a "type." We tell our clients to use an assessment based on the big five over others. We also stay clear of any assessments that categorize a person into a "type" because it's impossible to simply a person into a type as mentioned earlier. Types creates generalizations which can be costly. As a CEO, you can't afford to generalize; you need accuracy.

2. A Personality Assessment Is Like A Balance Sheet

Personality assessments are like balance sheets, they are a picture of a person at a fixed point in time. You can't tell how a business operates based on just a balance sheet. People are constantly changing and nothing in this universe remains exactly the same over time. A human brain is constantly evolving and so does a person's personality. For example - research shows that as people age, they tend to stress less over the smaller things in life. They adopt a more "don't sweat the small stuff" approach.

I remember a situation when I ran into a college friend years after graduating. We were having drinks with a group of people and he began to tell a story about my drinking days. He told the story as if I was still the same person from 20 years ago. I sat there and thought to myself "are you seriously suggesting that I'm the same guy who partied until 6 am in the morning? I'm a grown man with young kids and I can't stay awake past midnight now." Unfortunately for him, it seemed as though he was stuck in his old ways of being.

People act based on their beliefs and traits. Beliefs change over time and so does a person's behavior. If a person is the exact same as they were twenty years ago, that's a red flag for you and you probably don't want them on your team anyway.

3. Reports Are Like Fortune Tellers - They Can Cause Things To Happen

The minute someone reads their personality report, they've already become more consistent with it. People tend to believe that assessments are fairly accurate. They may disagree with a few elements but as a whole, they tend to think that they are who the report says they are.

If you've ever watched a person read their report, you know exactly what I'm talking about. They are eager to get their results because they are nervous about what the results say. It's like scratching a lottery ticket; there's a sense of "I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to find but I hope it's good" feeling.

Even if a person doesn't agree with the assessment, they believe it to be true anyway. There's a look of confusion or contemplation on their faces as though they are reconciling their own thoughts to match the assessment. They walk away with a conscious or unconscious belief that the assessment is accurate.

The point is that people will shift their behavior after the assessment to be more aligned with the report whether they believe it or not. The report has now determined their future. It's like a person who goes to a fortune-teller to see their own future. The fortune-teller suggests that they may end up getting a divorce. The person then unconsciously behaves in a way that is counterproductive to having a healthy relationship and they end up causing the divorce. If you think it's far-fetched, it's not. We've seen this happen to our clients.

4. You Want To Promote Evolution, Not Stagnation

You want people to learn, grow and improve themselves. The only way to do this is for them to believe that they have the option and capability to change who they are. Assessments have a underlying tone that a person's personality is fixed which is not true. Every person can shift their personality into who they want to be.

When our clients start working with us, many of them believe that they are who they are because that's who they have always been. It's a self-restricting belief system that we break down immediately. After several months, our clients become more like who they want to be rather than who they were.

We never get our clients to take personality assessments when working with them because we know that it gets them stuck. It restricts their ability to believe they can change. Instead, we ask them who they are. After, we ask them who they want to be. We then show them the strategies and actions they need to shift into the "new and evolved" them. They are astonished to see that they've been able to make that shift in short time frame.

5. People Love To Point Fingers At Others

Not only does the participant get stuck in their thinking after taking an assessment, so do the reviewers. HR professionals, hiring managers, or whoever is reviewing the report immediately develop a stereotype of the person they are assessing. They can't help but think that the person is who the report says they are.

People love to stereotype because it creates predictability. People want to be able to predict things because that's how our brain works. Our brain's core function is to predict because it increases the chances of survival. If you can predict how a person is going to behave, it increases your chances of success and reduces your chances of failure.

If a manager can predict a person's behavior, it indirectly implies that the manager can react to that person more timely and effectively. In their mind, they are thinking "I know that John is an X personality type, so I need to do this because he will understand better." There's nothing wrong with this but we know that most predictions are not 100% accurate when it comes to people.

Proactively assessing a person and situation is important for success but you also need the skills to deal with things "on the fly." We coach our clients to be rapid innovators which enables them to deal with both expected and unexpected situations more effectively.

We also see teams use personality assessments for team building. We may even facilitate these sessions if our clients are adamant about using assessments. At least we can control the stereotypes when we facilitate ourselves. We openly tell our groups to have fun, look at the reports and then shred them because they mean very little. Our goal is to show people they can change and how to do it, not tell who they are based on a report.

If the session is not facilitated properly, people walk out pointing fingers at each other. Team members are thinking "I knew that person was like that" or "the reason why that person is so difficult is because they are X personality type." It does more harm than good!

Summary

Personality assessments have some value if used correctly. Based on our research, 90% of our clients have not used them effectively. This has slowed down individual performance and in many cases, caused more harmful stereotyping. Also, just because a person is certified in a facilitating a personality assessment doesn't make them a pro. Always use an expert. Would you rather have an apprentice fixing the fuel line on your car or an experienced expert? The same applies here.

All the best!

Purdeep Sangha

Award-Winning Author & TV Show Host