Beyond what leaders can learn about themselves from self-assessment tools, surveys can also serve as an ideal catalyst for team discussion and group insight.
Having each team member complete a self-assessment and then share the outcomes or results provides several potential discussion points and can make for an engaging team exercise.
Patterns in the results that emerge across the group are a strong place to start the conversation. The collective results naturally raise the question as to why.
Teams enjoy exploring the many reasons and theories as to what makes people different and why commonalities emerge. This discussion can be tremendously insightful as well.
Teams that explore their strengths and weaknesses against an assessment focused on an important quality, such as agility, strength of purpose, or tolerance of ambiguity, learn what is potentially in their way or propelling them to success.
By knowing where they stand against the quality and factors measured by the assessment, the team can now grapple with what they might need to do differently in the future.
Take, for example, the self-assessment of Grit. Psychologist Angela Duckworth has written extensively about the concept of Grit and has made available a quick and easy self-assessment survey to measure it.
Having each team member complete the survey and then discuss their results gives the group insight into how gritty they are.
Reviewing the score for the individual survey items promotes a discussion of what factors contributing to Grit matter most to those on the team. They are also a good reminder.
What also naturally follows is a discussion about how to become grittier, both as team members and as a team.
Given the range of topics and self-assessments available to leaders, a team exercise designed around a specific tool can energize the group and provide a dynamic discussion leading to true reflection. Grit is just one example.
Selecting an assessment that measures a quality worth discussing is critically important. Too often, this choice is left to facilitators or meeting planners when it is the leader who should make the call about what is essential to discuss.
In addition to the Grit Survey, assessment tools like Google’s Team Effectiveness Survey, VIA Character Strengths Survey, Gallup’s Employee Engagement Q12 Survey, Life Orientation Test, Need for Closure Scale, and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale are some popular examples that work well for team exercises.
If there is an idea, concept, or issue worth discussing as a team, the odds are good there is an assessment tool that measures it.
Good leaders recognize that the real power of these assessments is not to accurately reflect reality. Through quality discussion, good assessments reveal the reality of the team’s reflection.
