If you and your company use employee behavioral assessments, you might have experienced a vast array of experiences, such as:
1) Increased retention
2) Higher productivity
3) More job satisfaction
4) Savings in your hiring process

You may have experienced some, or all, of these…or none of them. Here are other experiences some companies have had:

1) Once implemented, the assessment reports go ignored by most managers and leaders. Much of the information ends up in computer files, file cabinets, the trash can and, for the most part, unused.

2) The consulting company or people in HR that are “certified” to read the reports may set themselves in a position of “secret knowledge” and anyone wanting to partake of this “knowledge” must come to them

3) The assessments label people as if, once labeled, they will always be that. (Remember when you took the Myers-Briggs, a DiSC, or some other assessment? They used letters, colors, graphs, etc. to tell you “This is you!”)

4) There are ongoing costs for many reasons and they vary by assessment company; reports, “meters”, certifications and re-certifications, training, conferences, and the list continues.

What are my credentials to speak on this topic? I have worked with employee behavioral assessments for more than 20 years. I have participated in the building of employee behavioral assessments from conception to bringing them to market. I have sold and implemented them in scores of companies for every facet of the employee life-cycle. I’ve worked shoulder-to-shoulder with psychologists, psychiatrists, and pyschometrists. I helped turn a $7 million-dollar-a-year assessment company into a $200 million-dollar-a-year company in just eight years.

I’m also a Master Executive Coach, Master Life Coach, NLP Master Practitioner, creator of Dynamic Visualization, and expert in Neuropathological Remodeling.

My experiences with my clients tells me that there is a much better way for leaders and staff to have a permanent way to help people perform at their best. One that leverages all the potential and possibilities they hold, not what the past has created in them. And, that’s why I ask the question, “Behavioral Assessments – Can they be a Thing of Your Past?“:

So, what am I suggesting? Is there an alternative to behavioral assessments? I’ll share two experiences I have had that will answer those questions. Let me just say this before the assessment “gurus” comment; I know about Reliability, Validity, U.S. Government studies, clinical studies, and all the rest of the information about employee behavioral assessments. And, you don’t have to believe what I’m about to say but, if you could open yourself to the possibility that my comments that follow could be true, your life and business will improve dramatically.

Client #1: I was asked to work with a U.S. Military Veteran that had been labeled as “unmotivated” by a career transition group. I was told that he wouldn’t do the required work, was often late for career counseling sessions, and sometimes wouldn’t show up at all. His behavioral assessments indicated that he should be put into a administrative-type position. I met with the veteran and quickly determined that the career assessments and staff assessments were incorrect. The behaviors he was exhibiting were due to his lack of confidence, which stemmed from his experiences in life. I used Dynamic Visualization to help this veteran discover the confidence he had all along, but had been hidden because of hurts, habits, hang-ups, and limiting beliefs. He met with the career counselors 3 hours later. They called me and asked, “What did you do?! He’s a changed person!” Within six months he was promoted into a sales management position.  (Note: Not administrative, as he had been labeled)

Client #2: I was doing Executive Coaching with a C-Level person who, as part of a battery of tests, had been labeled as an “Introvert”. I asked him how the company knew that he was that. He said it was because of the results of several behavioral assessments and the behaviors he had observed in himself. As I always do with executives, I took him through my methodology of discovering his core identity, purpose in life, and a clear view of his future. That alone told him that he wasn’t an introvert, or many of the other things the assessments had said about him. I then used Neuropathological Remodeling to eliminate the things that were the cause of the introvert-like behaviors and other behaviors we discovered weren’t really him. The experience has been eye-opening and very satisfying as he now gets to believe, think, and behave as the person he is, not as the one he had been labeled as!

Those are two of the hundreds of experiences I have had of working with people that have been labeled as a certain type of personality or behaviors, either professionally or by their own confession, who changed in a matter of an hour, or a few hours.

So, were these people who the assessments said they were? Or, were they who they had been because of their life experiences causing them to think and behave in that way, adapting to their environment and stress? And, did being labeled as that “type” by an assessment further cement that concept?

I think everyone will agree that we are all an accumulation of our experiences in life; our education, our environment, our genetics, etc. But, just suppose people are able to leave the negative in the past and live their lives as who they are in their core identity and as they want to be in the future? Can you imagine the possibilities and potential that would open up, not just for them, but, if they are employees of your company, for you? So, I ask again, Behavioral Assessments – Can they be a Thing of Your Past?

Dr. Edward Lewellen is a Master Executive Coach, leadership and sales expert, and keynote speaker for some of the largest global organizations.

972.900.9207
Ed@Trans-Think.com