UPDATED May, 2023
This article was originally published over 8 years ago and we couldn’t have predicted what tools would be used in the future of work (though, hoverboards would have been on our wishlist). One tool that has certainly not lost its appeal in the business and professional community is the personality assessment. As cybersecurity and technology professionals, our team still finds value in professional and personal assessments for our own growth and development. We also utilize them in the strategic consulting work we do for our clients. The following article gives a brief overview on the Insights Discovery color test to discover your business personality at work. Read below for a brief overview and introduction to this assessment.
After an interesting water-cooler conversation with a colleague about coworkers, he told me about how corporations use personality tests to determine what type of person you are. At first I was in disbelief and pictured my coworkers clicking away at BuzzFeed-esque quizzes to let a complex algorithm calculate their answers and provide them with an answer to help the company understand them. But if you think about it, knowing a coworker’s personality can actually help achieve greater productivity and increase solutions-based thinking if everyone just knew how to communicate with each individual.
Corporations of all types have been known to use these tests, such as Sprint Nextel Corp. and Avis Budget Group, Inc., according to The Wall Street Journal. While many of these tests exist, it essentially comes down to finding the office introverts and extroverts.
What personalities do the four colors represent?
One well-known test comes from Insights Discovery. In their system, you are given one of four colors that represent your personality.
Fiery Red – the energetic, action-oriented extrovert.
Sunshine Yellow – the human-oriented, friendly extrovert.
Earth Green – the team-based, understanding individual.
Cool Blue – the precise, written-communicating introvert.
How the color personality test helps you understand your co-workers
So, imagine approaching the new colleague needing spreadsheets with the latest numbers and you know exactly how to best communicate with them in a personalized manner for a smoothly operating business machine. This system may not be the best suited for every business, but it seems to be helping those who have used them.
After some thought, this is not the pigeonholing, dehumanizing tool I initially thought of it as. Sure, in a smaller company it is probably better to get to know the individual personalities on your team. But in a larger one, where people can go years upon years at a career and only interact with a fraction of that office’s population, it seems like a helpful tool to know how to approach someone new to you.
What personality type do you think you are? Could you see this in your company?
If you like assessments, you may be interested in the Technical Learning Assessments our team can provide to uplevel your learning programs. Take a look at what we offer.