Cracking the Personality Code

I think there are two specific things. First of all hiring managers for the most part don't have a clear definition of actually who they want in the seat and if they had a clear definition of the kind of characteristics they would like, or goals or objectives they would like to have accomplished, really clear goals and objectives, not just I want them to show up in the morning, I want them to make X number of phone calls, something more specific than that, that tends to help and the second thing is a lot of hiring managers are looking for someone to walk in the front door, present themselves in a certain way, they basically have to fog the mirror in a sense and be alive because they need somebody really badly to fill the position and that leads to really not probing enough with the individual to find out who they are or what they have to offer, they're not probing as far as asking for real detailed examples or possibly not even giving homework to an individual to see how they might respond to a task or activity.

It is really helpful to have candidates towards the end of the interview process, so maybe the second or third meeting, to draw a pie chart, a couple of pie charts, as to what their last position looked like as far as how time was carved out in a typical month and then also for this particular position, the new position, how they perceive time being drawn out in a typical month once they've settled down in the position. So an example would be, let's say a company is hiring a sales manager and in their old position they put down 40% of their time was spent on administrative activity and the new position is requiring only 15 or 20% and the person goes, wow, I really enjoyed the 40% of time spent on that, it was really a lot of fun. Well, that is probably a good area to probe into a little further to see why they have a need for that or why they enjoy that. They might be unhappy campers if they are only doing 15 or 20% of their time in that area.

In your book you talk quite a lot about the value of personality tests when hiring managers are choosing candidates. What kinds of personality tests are useful in the hiring process?

There are thousands of different assessments around the world and it gets very confusing because everyone is pushing their wares, what assessments to use. I think the main criteria is to make sure a profile has a minimum of 165 questions or more within it in order to gain enough data on the individual otherwise it is kind of like pixels on a screen. The more questions the more data points that are being picked up and if a questionnaire only has 30 or 50 or 60 questions in it, it's very limited data so it is kind of like pixels on a screen, you might look at limited pixels and go oh that's a pretty picture but when you have better resolution you go "Oh wow I didn't see that before." In hiring you want to make sure you have as much data as possible.

The second thing is you also want to make sure whoever is doing the interpretation of the data is properly degreed or trained in interpreting the information.

The third thing is you want to make sure that whoever is doing the testing has the job description, has a copy of the resume of the candidate so when reviewing the data with the organization they have all that information in front of them for another set of eyes for debriefing because a personality assessment to use appropriately, to me is part of the three legged stool of hiring. The first leg is the best interviewing anyone can possibly do, to peeling the onion back let's say. The second leg is doing the best reference and background checking anyone can do, and the third leg is using an in-depth work style personality assessment. They should all validate each other and that's why I think it is so important to use an assessment because then you'll be able to see, "Oh yes, I saw that during the interview" or "I missed that so I'd better go back and re-examine a little bit to see what's going on there."

What kind of things can personality tests tell you about a candidate?

It can look at the problem solving capacity of an individual which is really helpful because problem solving is really part of being in a position and also learning how to on-board someone so if someone is more rote in their learning style or how they problem solve, that's helpful to know that. If someone is able to think out of the box and they have a strong intellect let's say to figure things out, maybe just give them a book and they will figure it out. Sometimes people will also spin their minds so much when they are problem solving, they don't look forward to get something done, or some individuals have major self esteem issues so they are very scared to make a decision and if someone is being put in a position where they have to make quick decisions yet they are scared to make them, it's best to know that up front.

Understanding stress, to see if someone deals with a stressful situation, are they going to be reactive or how they are going to deal with it, depends on the profile that's used, the number of questions that are asked and how well validated the profile is and making sure it has cultural bias built in to it for sufficient countries around the world. If the profile claims to have a translation and it doesn't have the cultural bias built into it from research, that doesn't do a lot of good.

And when should these types of tests be done? Before or after an interview? At what point in the process?

I think it should be done around the second or third interview, just before the final face-to-face interview and pre-reference and background checking. The reason you want to have it before the final face-to-face interview because then you'll catch other things you might have missed. Now there is an exclusion there: if there are one or two in-depth phone interviews with someone because they are being flown across the country, or around the world, I would recommend doing the assessment before paying for the airplane ticket or transportation somewhere because that would give additional information to probe into further before making the investment.

Now whenever I've been required to do a psychometric test or a personality test, I have always found it a bit unsatisfactory because either none of the answers matched my personality or more than one did when I was only allowed to actually pick one. How much can a test really make an accurate assessment of one's personality?

Well, it is difficult for the test taker if the test taker is trying to figure out the logic of the profile. If it is a simplistic profile maybe with 30 questions or 60 questions, they can probably figure it out some way or another. When it gets above 164 questions the questions that are rewarded actually have nothing to do with each other but there are validation points set up throughout the profile and decent profiles, it's a moving target based on the research data that is always being updated within the database so I would suggest not trying to figure it out but just answer the best you can at the moment and just let it go because if it's a good profile, they are very reliable instruments as long as they have the studies behind them and they have been around long enough.

Now an in-depth personality assessment is clinically valid for 90 days, plus or minus, because we are all subject to change. What we have seen is that most people stay fairly close for a much longer period of time but as human beings we are pliable and are subject to change which is a very cool thing about human beings.

Now this kind of test produces data, scientific data, but what about the fact that people's moods change and a person might answer a question one way on one day, truthfully, but feel completely different on another day, truthfully. Are these tests able to take that mercurial quality of human nature into account, given that they are scientific instruments?

An in-depth personality assessment, a work style assessment, will go underneath the surface of the daily activity, say if someone is having a bad hair day with that example, it will go underneath that and look at core wiring which sounds very dramatic but it actually will. An in-depth profile will look at the core wiring to see where someone is coming from and see how they will react on a mean average of things. If someone has just gone through some dramatic situation, a death in the family or maybe just been in a major car accident or something like that, that will go right to the core but most people don't come to an interview with those particular issues.

That's why it is important to have sufficient number of questions within a profile to get that kind of data otherwise it is just "surfacey" and a questionnaire with 30 or 60 questions, something like that, it could be affected by the daily moods let's say.

So again it comes down to the quality of the tests that you are using?

Correct, right.

Now what about this phenomenon that you mention in your book, "impression management", when a candidate tries to fake good results, answering what they think the prospective employer wants to see rather than what they know to be true. What can a hiring manager do about that, if anything?

It is an interesting phenomena. An in-depth assessment will have a scale called impression management included in it and it is not so much that the person is trying to lie or fudge about themselves, they are revealing some inner insecurity about themselves that they are counterbalancing to the rest of the world, that they want everyone to see that they're okay. So for example, let's say someone triggers off a low impression management, let's say a two, three, four, five, that's kind of like a litigation attorney, they just don't care what people think of them, let's say. On the higher end of the scale, when we get above a 22, the person is trying to show that they have their act together more than they truly do but they want the rest of the world to see that side. Let's say an example in the workplace where that might manifest itself is if something goes wrong, they might best themselves up or they might end up blaming others because they don't want to see their flaw within themselves, so they are always trying to play themselves off as okay or you didn't tell me that, you didn't explain it to me, so and so didn't do their job, and it is difficult for them to take responsibility for it. So that is a really important scale to have within a profile. If a profile doesn't have impression manager built into it, I would recommend not using that profile for new hires but it may be acceptable for doing team building or something like that. New hires need to have that in there.

So how seriously should managers take the results of these tests, assuming that they do the things that you suggest and do the right type of test?

They should pay very close attention. It shouldn't be a reason not to hire someone, it would be a reason to probe further if the profile is showing some warning signs or red flags, or something like that. Those are areas to probe into and to validate through additional interviewing or reference background checking to see what those things are but I would definitely pay attention to them because there is a reason things pop up. A person is revealing something about themselves that they are not necessarily even aware of or they are not open or sharing it during the interview process. I would say if flags start to show up in let's say the strong yellow or red flag area, it's a sign of caution and needs to be validated.

So how can personality tests and instruments like that be usefully used outside the hiring process, in the everyday job of managing?

It can be used as a wonderful management tool to understand how people tick and how to get the best out of the relationship. I think management from here on out is not going to be the dictatorial autocratic methodology that's been used in the past but rather understanding, the best that anybody can, of how that person works, how they think, how to get the best out of them, to put them into the right position so they can take their skills and their talents and utilize them in the best position possible. So I think using an assessment to understand your team can really help to increase not only productivity but also job satisfaction, loyalty and connect as a public relations tool because if people are happy in their position they are going to tell their friends and they are going to be able to attract new people into the organization, top talent that is.

So would you actually recommend sitting people down and making them do tests like this?

My experience is that it is a very helpful process for the individual to get some feedback on themselves, not to be used as a tool of "I told you so, you don't know what you're doing" but rather as a tool to help someone grow, come up with a mentoring program to help them and to assist the team on putting people in the right place to get the best out of them and not putting them in positions where they're going to fail.

So what else can managers do, apart from put their team through these tests, to try to understand the personalities of their team?

I think to get to know the people also to ask questions, to care about the individuals, respect them. If an individual has a family that plays soccer or some sport or they like to go camping or are doing something all together or just some human interest thing, or they like music – know that, ask questions about it, bring clippings from a newspaper or magazine in or something off the internet and share it with them, to show that you are really caring about them and are interested.

And what about if managers want to understand their own personalities better, what should they do?

I think taking an assessment can be very helpful and they should be the first ones to take it to get feedback before they have others do it – "I've had this great experience, let me share with you my profile and then talk about that" and get everybody acclimated into it. There is also a book I'd recommend, other than our book of course, it's called Play to Win and the author's name is Larry Wilson. It's one of the best books globally for managers to read on how to help to make situations win-win, not only for themselves but also for their teams and helping to understand where people are coming from and working with people in a proactive way.

What was the title again?

It's called Play to Win by Larry Wilson.

Okay, great, that's a good one. There's another book that you reference in your book called Dealing with Difficult People by Rick Brinkman and Rick Kirschner. You reference quite a lot of their ideas in Cracking the Personality Code. Let's take a look at a couple of those now starting with the personality that they call The Authority. What type of person is this and how do you deal with them?

They are such wonderful individuals, by the way, the authors. They have let us take some of their information and summarize it in our book so it is a nice handbook to have on your desk, to open up. So let's say someone is working with someone like The Authority, as they say, the "I know it all". So that's an individual that has low tolerance for correction, that blames others because they know it all, so a couple of ways to handle that type of individual is to do some active listening. "What I hear you say, Suzy or Joe, is..." and be very interested in what they are saying, be very respectful of what they're saying, because they know it all! You want to use very soft words like "we" and "us" and oh I was wondering, what do you suppose would happen if we tried this? That goes back to their wonderful knowledge base and they will spend then more time teaching the individual what they know and help them to be successful, versus challenging them. Challenge them, they are going to then push back on it.

And what about The Whiner, people who think they are being given a hard time by everyone and everything, what's the best way to handle Whiners?

Isn't it interesting, whiners, the old "woe is me" syndrome, the world is so unfair and they are just constantly complaining but let me give you some do's and don'ts. Don't agree with them, that just encourages them to continue to complain. Don't disagree with them as they'll feel the need to repeat their woes. Don't try to solve their problems because you can't. Do have patience with their unrealistic standards and their endless negativity, let's say. Do have compassion for them as your lives just seem to be beyond their control and do have commitment to the process to getting them refocused on a solution.

One way to do that is to listen and write down the main points of their complaints. Say, you are a manager – let's write it down, so it helps to take responsibility for it or you can even have them write it down but it is usually the manager who writes it. "What I hear you saying is..." "No, no, no, I didn't mean that." "Well what do you mean then? Let's get specific here!" "Well, I don't think this will ever get solved." "Well let's pretend that we were going to solve it" – you don't want to interrupt them, just let them go on a little bit and try to get them to be as focused as possible. "You know, if we were able to do that, what would you want to get out of it?" Have them just explain more of what they would like to get out of this unrealistic thing that they think and base everything on the facts and information and get them to feed back on that alone and keep repeating it over and over again.

At what point should you think about removing them from your team, any of these difficult personalities?

If it becomes chronic, if it is a constant issue and it is draining away from the team. I think in an environment that's going to continue globally, none of us can afford to have people continue to do that, there has to be solutions, there has to be contribution, there has to be a talent and a willingness to solve problems. Now there may be a great deal of fear and the manager's job is to help the individuals think out of the box and to overcome those fears and help them to get into an idea mode. Everything needs to be overcome and if the person gets too bogged down with, "Oh there's always this complainer or something" – there's a benefit to a complainer because they will identify issues that may be overlooked by people who always have that positive side, so they do have their place but if they are taking so much time and draining.

Here's a great exercise for the listeners. If you draw, take a blank piece of paper and draw in the middle of it a little circle and that would be me – ME – meaning yourself. Around the outside draw little circles and put initials in it of people that are reporting to you or different departments, done either way or for both and then connect the dots, so from yourself going out to those individuals or to the departments, let's say there is a great relationship – draw a straight line. If it a kind of a bit more marginal relationship, a slightly wavy line and if it is more than that, a little more wavy and if it's a really tough relationship, put a jagged line to those individuals or to that department. After doing that, you can write down a couple of characteristics, like three characteristics, as to why the line is straight and three characteristics for the jagged line individual, and then start identifying what those issues are. After that, identify how much time is being taken with the jagged line person and then take the amount of time that's being spent and translate that into dollars, as to how much money it is costing and time for you to deal with that particular individual or department. Then you can figure out, should I make an investment here of training or trying to resolve this or is this worth it and then replacing the individual and changing something in that department.

And that I think and circling back is why I think it is so important to do the best on boarding or interviewing up front, by doing the best interviewing, understanding how to hire and interview in the best possible way, doing the best reference background checking and also doing an in-depth work style personality assessment up front to make sure that individuals are the right fit for the position because no one wants to have an individual join that isn't going to be close to the right fit because it isn't a win-win for anybody and it is going to be a very poor attractor for the future because someone is going to be unhappy, they are going to leave and say "Oh, you shouldn't work for them." The global population is shrinking and the talent pool is actually shrinking and it is going to continue to get worse over the next couple of decades so nobody can afford really to have a mis-hire. Not only will the work not get done efficiently but also it is very poor for recruiting in the future and we can't afford not to have great PR out there.

Dana Borowka, thanks very much for joining us.

Thanks for having me today.

You can find out more about Dana and his work at www.lighthouseconsulting.com. His book is called Cracking the Personality Code co-authored by Ellen Borowka, it also has a website, www.crackingthepersonalitycode.com.

I'll be back in a few weeks with another Expert Interview. Until then, goodbye.