Spent a great couple of days with Learning Links Europe talking about how personality profiling can impact on their business.
The workshop session yesterday was a little unorthodox but I think they enjoyed it. I know I did. We dealt with some big issues;
We started the session looking at the day to day problems that each of them were facing. The issues raised were very broad. Afterwords we looked at these a little closer and discovered that personality profiling would help them significantly with each of them. This comes back to the theory that “all my problems walk and talk”
We talked about how we could increase the level of service to clients. This was an important issue as this was a room full of people who care passionately about the welfare of their clients. Between us we discovered a whole bunch of different ways that personality profiling could help clients.
We explored how we all view the world differently and how difficult it is to understand that some people, located on a different part of the personality map, view the world so differently from us. Although logically we understand this, it is only natural to assume that others all see the world the way we do. It takes awareness to overcome this.
With a team of over ninety people, LLE is a “complex” work environment with many relationships. We looked at how to use profiling in-house to help individuals and the many formal and informal teams work together. There is a great spirit already and we discovered power personality tools that we can adopt that allow a team thrive.
If I was summarise the day it would be that we explored how personality profiling helps you understand yourself and others. From this understanding comes tolerance, forgiveness and an accelerated “moving forward”.
I had a great day. Lot’s of laughs and everyone even managed to tolerate my swearing. I get a little carried away with the theatre of it all but I hope no one was offended too much.
Further Reading
You may also enjoy reading about how we made a Personality Test that is easy to use.
Julie, Thanks for the feedback. You raise some really good points and it delights me to see you and others thinking about ways of improving things for you internally and for your clients, with personality profiling.
A little understanding it truly like a torch in a darkened room; even a little light makes the world of difference.
I love my job. I love dealing with people face to face. It is what I’m naturally good at.
Having now met Martin and had the chance to discuss people maps and their numerous applications I understand more about why I’m good at dealing with people face to face. I care. As I learn more and more about what makes a person tick my job will become even more interesting, not to mention rewarding.
People maps will become an essential tool for people who give advice and guidance. It is a way to gain insights and assist in the understanding of a personality, a head start, on the road to good advice.
I have a problem at work; there isn’t enough time. I want to provide a good service but I also need to be efficient in my work. My challenge is to find a happy medium between giving quality time and advice to a client on one hand, and giving the service to as many people as possible on the other. I see people maps as a tool to help me do this.
I enjoy days like Thursday. I enjoy spending time with the people I work with in a different setting than usual. I enjoy long discussions around a table. I really enjoyed our session with Martin it has made me want to make a difference.
Well Martin what can I say. Although the time was brief, I felt I had a great connection with you through the personality maps. I work with different personalities every day and felt it such a shame for the session to be so short, as I could have talked and talked and talked and…… well as I said, I could have talked all day with you. I too deal with such a wide range of vulnerable people and touch on some bizzare personalites within the courses I teach. I am sure Tony would agree on that much. The PE course especially can bring out the most interesting of people who have such fantastic ideas and have no idea on to channel this. This is where I feel PM could help, explaining why people are the way they are. I am proud to be one of the many members of staff who can give confidence and motivation to the learner, and sometimes staff. I know we all contribute as a team and not just individually, confidence and enthusiasm to all learners and I hope that having another tool such as PeopleMaps will help a great many learners as well as the staff on many levels. Being with the company for over 10 years I still believe the ethos that has been instilled in me from the very beginning. ” How precious the customer is, for without the customer, there is no Learning Links Europe.”
Personalities are interesting and the right personalities have to work together to get the most from them. Just as I run the courses I try to read the group fairly quickly at the beginnig,sometimes changing the seating arrangements to get the most from the learners. Group dynamics, means everything, for if you get this wrong, the group can become difficult, and there is then a possiblity of the group not working. If I had a PM record to read about each learner before hand this would make my job easier, and also when I try to arrange placements.
So Martin, I would love to meet up for a day and discuss PeopleMaps further, and how to use it within my work, is there a chance of this or are you too busy. Once again thank you for your time on Thursday and hope to hear from you soon.
Agreeance with Martin, it was an excellent session – lots of staff, especially from the IAG (information, advice and guidance) Team realised how their personality can be at times bent out of shape – A great analogy used was that of a square peg in a round hole. Most of the team though, are giving an outstanding caring service, and can see how their clients have become that square peg. It is all well and good saying it is due to things out of their control, but that is no solution, their personalities are what they are born with and they are the most comfortable and productive when they are true to themselves.
The session Martin gave was, dare I say – wonderful! He opened up a lot of eyes, including mine, and I deal with personality issues every day.
We are all now focussed on understanding our personalities and those of our colleagues – why we or they do things in a certain way or behave in a certain manner at different times – This will make the whole team more of a whole and more productive as a result!