This post is about behavioral assessments.
If you’re yawning or not a fan of these tools, instead of reading this essay, go to the range and hit a small bucket, make a visit to Cold Stone Creamery and dive into something delicious, or go practice your down dog at the local yoga studio.
You’re not a raving fan of assessments? Can’t say I blame ya. Up until 2009, neither was I.
My first experience with assessments was in 1997 when I paid a local HR firm $850 to buff my CV and administer the MBTI and Campbell Interest Skills Survey. That was a lotta cake back then. Though I was serious about upleveling my skills and always believed in investing in myself, even before becoming a business and career coach.
In 2008 I became friends with another coach who was certified in a half dozen assessment tools. I nicknamed her “Queen of Assessments.”
I told her I had no interest in having that many tools in my coaching bag. I asked if she had to pick just one, which one would she choose. The queen’s answer was DISC.
Based on her advice, I immediately called TTI Success Insights and enrolled as a distributor.
Being an innovative company, TTI continuously develops new products, year in and year out. Without question, my current go to assessment is TriMetrix HD.
This assessment is a combination of behaviors, motivators/values, competencies, and a dash of emotional intelligence thrown into the mix.
The tool is flexible in that I can use it with leaders, business owners, salespeople, managers, folks in career transition, as well as helping organizations significantly increase their chances of selecting and developing the best talent the first time.
If you are an assessment junkie or you’d like to learn more about the tools I use, I strongly suggest you attend this free seminar being given by my assessment partner, TTI Success Insights.
You’ll learn how TTI sets themselves apart from other tools in the market as well as their commitment to the highest standards when it comes to validity and reliability.
Today’s guest post is from the founder and CEO of TTI, Bill Bonnstetter.
An ice cream sounds real good about now.
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Attend Webinar to Learn 5 Questions to Ask All Assessment Providers by Bill Bonnstetter
Is it enough for the auto industry to say vehicles are safe and reliable?
Consumers in the market demand more — and that’s why there are standards all companies in that industry must meet.
Yet, establishing, applying and maintaining standards for assessments has remained up to individual assessment developers. It’s been up to companies whether to invest the time and money to research the validity and the reliability of the assessments they create.
Sadly, most do not.
We do. Our process of uncovering the Science of Self™ in each unique individual springs from our research, foundation and ideology, which we call, Research that Reveals™.
As we regularly do, today we release additional validity findings, this time conducted by an independent third party researcher, Dr. Delwyn L. Harnisch, director of assessment, leadership and learning at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Dr. Harnisch used Cronbach’s alpha, “one of the most appropriate statistical tests for reliability given the ranking of responses used.”
In other words, the higher the Cronbach’s alpha, the more reliable the assessment is in measuring what it says it measures.
These independent findings show our behavior assessments to be .80 up to .91 reliable in 19 languages studied and our motivators assessments to be .70 up to .89 reliable in 19 languages studied.
In the U.S., our Cronbach’s alpha reliability score is .87 for our behavior assessments and .85 for our motivators assessments.
In the words of Dr. Harnisch, “based on the findings of [these] stud[ies], one may conclude that the Style Insights® and Motivation Insights® assessments are confirmed as a consistent and reliable measure of scale constructs.”
In addition to these studies, we also have been issued a fourth U.S. patent. This patent was granted for a process we developed studying gamma brain waves to validate self-reporting assessments.
While we do not anticipate others to go to the time, investment and expense we have to validate our tools, we demand nothing less of ourselves than excellence.
Why? It’s because what we do is personal. And, it changes lives precisely because of the care we put into our instruments.
If you are a business leader who uses other assessment tools, your provider should be able to share with you how they validate their assessments.
If you’re unsure how sound this validity is, please join me Thursday, Aug. 27 at 2 p.m. (EDT) for a webinar that will discuss “3 Signs Your Assessment Might Not Be as Valid as You Think.” I’ll share five key questions you should be asking.