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Assessment & Evaluation

Published June 2009

Personality Profiles: Valuable or Not?

  Sandra L. Shullman

Personality assessments take a beating from skeptics and supporters. The detractors make a case for fallacies and dangers. Notably, Annie Murphy Paul's 2004 book, Cult of Personality: How Personality Tests Are Leading Us to Miseducate Our Children, Mismanage Our Companies, and Misunderstand Ourselves, challenged their prevailing use: "They cannot specify how we will act in particular roles or situations. They cannot predict how we will change over time."

This is partially true. In many cases, personality inventories are presumed to predict comprehensive performance when they can't.

The other beating comes from the most devout acolytes of personality assessments: the talent managers who misuse the tools. As management demands faster results, HR often is seduced by marketing promises and distributor claims. Myriad management consultant Web sites tout amazing solutions and advertisements for instruments such as Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), Hogan HPI or FIRO-B and DiSC.

Personality instruments are good at predicting two main categories behaviorally related to work: getting along with people and the motivational aspects of getting ahead.

"I don't give them a lot of weight in terms of selection," said Gregory Pennington, Ph.D., vice president and global senior leader of development and planning at Johnson Controls. "They clearly fit the category of 'interesting input' for development. Personality tests are most effective in how they enhance the effectiveness of an entire team."

Another common misapplication occurs when a talent manager takes a personality snapshot of a high-performance employee and then tries to clone the individual through selection. That person may have lasted the longest or closely resemble the boss. If the boss is in charge, isn't a replica the best talent?

Not for Jeff Holst, a 35-year corporate HR veteran with Coopers Lybrand, Bayer US, Kennametal and now a talent management consultant specializing in executive feedback and coaching. "When personality assessment information is used to determine hiring decisions or in promotions, you send a message of, 'This is the kind of personality we want around here,' and you risk a groupthink mentality that's very dangerous."

For positions in which traits such as honesty and stability are vital, there is substantive research to demonstrate personality assessments can enhance predictability. For example, if one of several valid personality assessments reliably identifies people with low impulse control, it can be used to prevent selection as an operator in a nuclear power plant.

Generally, however, diverse groups are more effective with better problem-solving skills and better ideas than homogenous organizations. Almost all organizations have inherent skills gaps. A diverse organization — in terms of personality, work style, gender, ethnicity and generation — is one of the best strategies to minimize them. Personality assessments can be excellent tools to develop diverse groups of people that can be trained for the tasks and competencies required for specific roles.

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