Personality Tests vs. User Guides
User Guides present a new way to make the insights from personality tests useful and applicable at work.
Is it just me, or are personality tests more interesting than useful? I take all these tests and invariably conclude: “Yup, that’s me. They nailed it.” But then I struggle to convert all the bar graphs, concentric circles, and presumptive paragraphs into usable next steps. People on the team might know I am an INFJ, Enneagram 6, and C on the DISC, but do they know how to earn my trust, what I’m not good at, and those weird off-putting quirks of mine?
In an attempt to accelerate the time it takes to build a healthy working relationship, I have created “The User Guide to Working with Banks." It’s targeted at direct reports and new hires, but it’s also a template others can use to create their own user guides. My hope is user guides like this can be human roadmaps we give to each other to decrease misunderstandings and increase the mutual permission to be our full selves around each other.