The hiring process often includes psychometric testing, competency quizzes and open ended questions but something that is often forgotten, is personality.
It is important to firstly distinguish between the endless personality quizzes that can be found online and the simple art of understanding which personalities compliment different scenarios.
Not all personality tests are accurate. They can also be quite overwhelming for a professional who is passionate about working for you and concerned about selecting the wrong answer to a hypothetical question. They are at times misrepresentative and often cheat Family Offices out of finding exceptional talent.
We saw this very situation unfold some years ago when working with a Family Office in California.
They were seeking a replacement for their Chief Financial Officer, on course to retire after earning the title of an unofficial family member. He was the perfect Cultural Fit and as a result, the brief was to find a similar profile in terms of achievements, experience and personality. The Principal was convinced the next hire needed to pass a personality test having recently discovered the phenomenon but upon testing the current CFO to create a benchmark, discovered he would be an awful Cultural Fit on every single level.
These tests do not focus on personality from a hiring capacity. They should not mine data regarding mental health, gender, race, age, ability or class. They should in no way be discriminative or prejudiced and should exclusively concentrate on personality during a journey of personal self-discovery.
Aligning personalities during the hiring process does not require online testing but rather an understanding of the characteristics, behaviours and cognitions of your employees, present and prospective and utilising them to ensure you have a great culture.
Each and every person has a different personality, from those that are loud, powerful and decisive to others who are perhaps more peaceful, agreeable and diplomatic. Each of us possess a different personality and something used to measure them is “the people test.” The Hartman Personality Profile as it is officially titled, uses four colours. Red, Green, Yellow and Blue. Each colour represents a personality type with Reds typically striving for leadership positions, stubborn but driven and opinionated but passionate.
Blues on the other hand are analytical. They are deep thinkers who require not just empirical evidence before forming a conclusion but over-analyse much around them. They respect intelligence, require process time and appreciate sarcasm. They are often introverted and frequently inventors.
Yellows are the life and soul of any party and every office. They are sociable, lively, outgoing and trusting. They can however be frantic, flamboyant and hasty. Then there are Greens.
This group is where the majority of Support and Operational Professionals sit. They are emotional, loyal, compassionate and respectful. They enjoy frequent praise and dislike confrontation or public displays of criticism. They are imaginative, creative and thrive off positive relationships, a kind culture and helping others.
The Family Office is often led by the Patriarch or Matriarch who mostly sit within one or two colour camps. Red or Blue. They are driven, powerful and can be decisive, confident and opinionated. At times, they can also be quite stubborn, narrow-minded and egotistical. We all have our flaws and so do our colours.
Blues as we mentioned are analytical and numbers driven, they require statistics and empirical evidence but equally, their cautiousness, line of questioning and slowness to commit can fall as a flaw in today’s aggressive and fast-paced world.
With Family Office Heads as Reds and many staff members as Green, there are clashes that can quite easily occur without understanding what each colour requires. We take personalities into account when finding the perfect Cultural Fit for your organisation but once inside, it is a practice worth keeping to retain your top talent.
Download The Complete Guide to Cultural Fit to find some handy ways of interacting with each of the colours in your workforce and something to bear in mind when recruiting.