Digital Talent Management Next Practice: Character and Mindset Assessment

Talent performance and potential assessment and management are critical for business’s long term success, because people are always the most invaluable asset in business. However, the traditional performance management approaches more focus on measuring behaviors and quantitative result, with ignorance of qualitative assessment about character, mindsets, potential and multidimensional intelligence. More specifically, talent managers need to do self-checking: For what purpose are you assessing mindsets? For selection? For promotion? For leadership development? Is it job-related and relevant? does it really matter for what purpose you're assessing? Can you measure a person’s character or mindsets (the varying thought processes) Can the purpose be an excuse for higher or lower qualitative capability of the assessor? Or put simply, how to take more objective and innovative approaches to measure talent as deep as in mind level and as profound as at character base?
The breakdown assessment of mindset or characters: One needs to understand that character oozes out of a person’s thought process, communication, behaviors and action and so on so forth. One needs to have an eye for all that. Character is fed by the heart and mind through the blood running in one’s veins and the heart and mind are guarded by the subconscious. Thus in order to allow a correct assessment, the guard has to be lowered and in order to understand correctly, you really need the acumen and power to probe in very deep level, have a strong tool into the hands of the assessor, which holds the capacity to allow you a much deeper ingress into the very soul of the person. Whether for selection, career development, promotion, or self-development, the assessments are really about ascertaining the individual's "current state," a snapshot of where they are at in that moment of time; also predict his or her “to be” state, their potential to be who they want to become. The break down assessment types include: (1) Innate thinking capabilities & styles, cognitive skills and decision-making biases; (2). behavioral styles and patterns; (3). motivational drivers and passions. Altogether and combined, they provide a well-rounded assessment baseline of "character" or more specifically the individual’s mindsets. Talent managers then know the nature fit of talent and work, how inclined are they to guide, inspire and develop other people, what types of roles and careers they connect with, and much more.
The talent mind assessment shall go beyond just traditional IQ and EQ, expand to CQ (Character Quotient), VQ (Value Judgement Quotient), SQ (Strategic Thinking Quotient,) or PQ (Paradoxical Thinking Quotient), etc. There have been major advancements in the field of neuro-axiology (neuroscience + value science) and the ability to directly and objectively measure the current value perceptions and attitudes that comprises a person's unique "character." It is a deductive assessment, not inductive like most others. It measures what being called VQ (Value-judgment intelligence Quotient) across 36 dimensions. VQ gets to the root source of everything that other assessments measure. Moreover, the assessment report is highly actionable. The application to this assessment instrument is based on recent findings in neuroscience that have created the major breakthroughs. Understanding character is very relevant and timely for those leaders who are seeking new ways to maximize themselves and human capital initiatives in their organizations. For enduring success, Talent managers shall respect, embrace and then go beyond traditional (IQ) and emotional intelligence (EQ) measures, to individual and collective attitudes, beliefs and commitment principles ... CHARACTER or CQ, the Character Quotient!
All power is in the assessor, not in the tests. Most HR-managers and recruiters keep hanging in those duality tests, that show preferred behavior. It's of course not a surprise that the learning points are the opposites. All assessors had hardly more baggage than some Freud, Maslow and Belbin. How are these people capable to judge others and their capacity as long as they do not know the measurement starting points (= themselves) The assessor is just as important as the testing tool. Any tool, like a hammer, can do harm if used by someone who was incompetent in how to use the tool well. Some assessors use their tools to make profit. Other assessors are trying to create positive impact. The majority of assessments are 'behaviorally based' and therefore descriptive of a person's style or behaviors in relation to another person's style or behavior. Normative assessments measure can statistically compare one person's personality or characteristics relatively to another person's based on a normative scale. All assessments claim to be 'valid' for measuring what they say they measure, but few can be statistically validated to predict future outcomes. And it’s the assessor that needs to assist in creating helpful action plans and programs for the assessed individuals.
The talent performance and potential assessment is not just a stand alone assessment. It is the foundation of a full-blown, structured personal and leadership development process. It is also used to assess the "character" of entire organizations which is the corporate culture, and the science behind it has significant implication for the whole of the organization level progress. The assessment not only measures thinking, but teaches the person how to tap into their most powerful and brilliant modes of thinking anytime, anywhere, under any circumstances. Within every human being there are core ways of thinking that, when activated, genuinely and authentically unlock their maximum potential to create value in any situation. That’s what it gets to. It raises emotional intelligence to the level of multidimensional intelligence and wisdom. It's not about fixing weaknesses, it's about strengthening the strength, maximizing good thinking and eliminating the negative influence of "weaknesses" and habits so that maximize value in all forms can be created.
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