Frequently Asked Questions
What is a “type indicator”?
A type indicator, which may also be referred to as a “personality inventory,” or “personality assessment,” is a compilation of psychological theories that attempt to measure and describe human personality “types” using a set, or “inventory,” of behavioral traits. Perhaps the most well-known type indicator is the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator®, also known as MBTI®.
Type indicators and personality inventories are composed of a set of statements, called “scales”, that a person feels are either accurate or inaccurate descriptions of his/her behaviors, attitudes, skills, or knowledge. To determine a person’s personality type, a person completes a document, called an “assessment,” that contains all of the scales associated with that type indicator by noting his/her agreement with each of the statements. Using an algorithm defined by the author of the type indicator, a computer tabulates the person’s answers and reports the person’s personality “type,” including dominant behavioral characteristics, preferences, and other information.
The value or validity of a particular type indicator is determined by many factors. In fact, the field of “psychometrics” is devoted entirely to the study and development of theories and techniques for measuring human psychology, including the construction and validation of personality assessments. Considerations of validity include consistency of test results, how well the assessment measures the specific traits or behaviors it is intended to measure, and how well the assessment predicts behavior. The ultimate measure of value and validity, however, is whether a person feels the assessment provides actionable insights that enable the person to improve on some dimension, such as happiness or job performance.
What is the Clay Change Type Indicator™?
The Clay Change Type Indicator® is a personality assessment designed to measure a person’s preferred behaviors when responding to change.
For what is it used?
Using information gleaned from the Clay Change Type Indicator®— such as a person’s propensity for change, style of coping with change, behavioral preferences, and attitudes—people who are in positions of influence, such as managers, business leaders, and salespeople, can formulate selling and negotiating strategies that will be more readily accepted by the person and result in a higher likelihood that the person will take the desired action.
Separately, the Clay Change Type Indicator® may be used to audit organizational behaviors and to identify developmental opportunities to improve individual and organizational performance.
What user problem or goal does it address?
People or organizations who would benefit from the using the Clay Change Type Indicator™ include those who:
- Currently have ad hoc processes for characterizing stakeholder preferences and behaviors related to leading or adapting to change
- Are experiencing difficulty or failure to influence stakeholders, resulting in sub-optimal, or undesired stakeholder behavior
- Feel their organization lacks the speed and agility to effectively respond to business opportunities
- Are planning to roll out a significant project or initiative across the organization and want to improve its likelihood of success
How would I or my organization benefit?
There are at least three audiences you may want to assess with the Clay Change Type Indicator™ and each may observe different benefits.
Yourself
By taking the assessment yourself, you will:
- Gain a better understanding of the characteristics and behaviors of effective change leaders
- Gain insights into your own dominant preferences and behaviors that will enable you to
- Improve your interpersonal communications and influence
- Identify developmental opportunities to improve your effectiveness and performance
- Align your activities and job functions with your dominant preferences
Stakeholder/Customer
By applying the assessment to a stakeholder or customer, you will be able to:
- Gain a better understanding of the customer’s behaviors, preferences, needs, wants, and negotiating parameters
- Better predict customer behaviors
- Develop strategies and tactics that are better aligned to the customer’s preferences
Note: Requesting stakeholders and customers to complete the assessment may not be socially or politically feasible. Therefore, you would complete the “observer” version of the assessment using your observations of the person’s behaviors to generate the findings report.
Leader/Manager
By using the assessment with leaders and managers, you will be able to:
- Better understand the leader’s preferences and behavioral tendencies
- Enable the leader’s colleagues and subordinates to interact more effectively with the leader by addressing the leader’s unique needs and behavioral style
- Determine developmental opportunities to strengthen the leader’s performance and the performance of his/her organization
- Better match leadership candidates with the current needs and characteristics of the organization
How is it new or different?
The Clay Change Type Indicator® is specifically designed to assess a person’s “change response”—the second discipline of the Change Leadership Framework®—that is, a person’s preferences and dominant behaviors when responding to forces of change. Based on the theories of the Costa-McCrae Five Factor Model of human personality traits and the scales of the International Personality Item Pool, the Clay Change Type Indicator® assesses a number of factors including anxiety, emotional stability, action orientation, confidence, openness, and risk tolerance.
It’s foundation in the Five Factor Model distinguishes it from other assessments such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® (MBTI®) and the Keirsey Temperament Sorter® (KTS®), which were created to operationalize Carl Jung’s theories of personality. These assessments provide useful information about human behavior that is complementary to the Clay Change Type Indicator™. Change Leadership Group® highly recommends Please Understand Me Too by David Keirsey to its clients, which describes the principles of the Keirsey Temperament Sorter®.
What does it not do?
The Clay Change Type Indicator® is not a comprehensive set of competencies and best practices for leading change. Those are defined in the Change Leadership Competency Model™.
It is also not a general-purpose personality assessment, such as the MBTI® and KTS®. Nor, is it intended to be used as a diagnostic tool, such as the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), for psychiatric illnesses or other mental health conditions.
Related Services
Clay Change Type Indicator® Workshop
Change Leadership Competency Model™ Audit
Contact us for more information about these and other services.
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