How is your 2011 career man-

agement plan progressing?

The first of our six-part series

on career management appeared

in the January issue. If you initiat-

ed an activity scorecard, you

should be close to accumulating

1,000 points for the plan develop-

ment and networking activity you

have completed.

It’s never too late to build a

career management plan around

the four pillars outlined in Janu-

ary: situational assessment, net-

working, personal branding, and

skill excellence. An effective plan

will help you optimize application

of relational and technical skills

within your current work environ-

ment and give you a solid founda-

tion should circumstances require

you to launch a job search.

This month, I’ll focus on self-

assessment elements of the skill

excellence pillar by discussing the

key components of the critical

“soft skills” and introducing you

to three best-practice instruments

to guide your efforts.

Self-assessment requires an open

mind and a commitment to explore

cause-and-effect relationships

between you and the work environ-

ment. Through this exploration,

you can achieve a level of self-

awareness that will improve the

projection of your skill set, optimize

the impact of your interactions,

influence perception of your fit, and

ultimately increase job success.

Three Dimensions of Self-AssessmentSelf-assessment has three dimen-

sions: your personality orienta-

tion, your inventory of strengths,

and how well the company culture

satisfies your interpersonal needs.

Figure 1 shows how these work

together. Like a three-legged stool,

career success and job satisfaction

are maximized when you achieve

equal balance across these three

dimensions.

There are numerous tools avail-

able to measure each of these

dimensions. I’ll focus on three

instruments most commonly used

in the corporate environment

because they create a common

language and base of data for

input to your career management

plan. Capitalizing on this knowl-

edge will create degrees of separa-

tion from your peers and earn you

opportunities for development

and advancement.

Personality Orientation. The

first dimension of self-assessment

is to gain self-awareness for what

By Mark Morgan

CAREERS

Leveraging Self-AwarenessMastering critical soft skills is a

must for job success. Becoming

aware of how you think, feel,

and act will help guide your

interactions in the workplace

and enhance your potential in

an organization.

Three Dimensions of Self Awareness

Career Management

Plan

Soft Skills

PersonalityPreferences

StrengthsInventory

RelationalValues

Analyze

Apply

Modify

Assess

M a rc h 2 0 1 1 I S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E 21

Figure 1

Three Dimensions of Self-Assessment

22 S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E I M a rc h 2 0 1 1

drives your personality, group

awareness for how your personality

relates to others, and situational

awareness for how to modify your

behavior in order to optimize

interactions.

Carl Jung has been credited as the

founder of analytical psychology.

The essence of Jung’s findings pub-

lished in the 1920s was that person-

ality application is much more

orderly and consistent than origi-

nally believed. Behavior is rooted in

how we perceive and evaluate fol-

lowed by how we react. Jung’s work

became the foundation that made

behavioral analysis understandable

and useful in people’s lives.

During the 1940s, Katharine

Cook Briggs and her daughter,

Isabel Briggs Myers, focused on

Jung’s work to understand how

people could feel most comfort-

able fitting into the rapidly emerg-

ing and complex industrial work-

force. In doing so, Myers-Briggs

developed an instrument to define

a personality “type indicator”

around four dichotomies: World

Orientation, Information, Deci-

sions, and Structure.

The Myers-Briggs Type Indica-

tor® (MBTI®) has become a widely

accepted and valuable instrument

used to learn the orientation and

strengths of personality preferences

that each of us takes into the work

community. The instrument

achieves systematic identification of

an overall personality type through

measuring response to a series of

situational preferences. Under-

standing your orientation with the

relative strengths and weaknesses is

the foundation of self-awareness.

The World Orientation dichoto-

my measures your preference to

focus on the outer world (Extro-

version) or inner world (Introver-

sion). Information measures your

preference to accept basic infor-

mation (Sensing) or need to inter-

pret basic information (Intuition).

When making decisions, do you

prefer to look first at logic and

consistency (Thinking) or look

first for special circumstances

(Feeling)? Structure measures

your preference to focus on clo-

sure (Judging) or stay open to new

information and options (Perceiv-

ing). The result is a matrix of 16

possible distinct personality types.

It’s a reflex for each of us to

push the strong parts of our per-

sonality forward when we’re chal-

lenged. Frequently we can’t under-

stand how an interaction went

sour when we relied so heavily on

what we know to be our strength.

But was our strength right for that

situation?

The work of Myers-Briggs has

been expanded beyond the identifi-

cation of a personality type to

include understanding the comple-

menting and conflicting elements

among the 16 possible types. A

high percentage of people in busi-

ness and education have completed

the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator

inventory, which provides a valu-

able database to help you to “know

your audience.” There’s significant

value in knowing the characteris-

tics and recognizing the diversity

among the personality types while

understanding how the strengths of

your personality type relate to oth-

ers in the workplace. Being aware

of relative strengths and limitations

within your personality type will

enable you to modify your

approach and behavior to avoid

conflict and manage the outcome.

Becoming self-aware, under-

standing the composition of the

landscape, and exercising situa-

tional behavior modification will

dramatically enhance your fit,

impact, and satisfaction at work.

Strengths Inventory. The

workplace is a collection of unique

skill portfolios. No two people are

exactly alike. Even those who share

similar demographic and educa-

tional backgrounds possess a

unique set of skills and strengths.

In the workplace, skills and

strengths are synonymous with

talent and are used to measure a

person’s performance and gauge

an employee’s potential. As com-

panies conduct talent manage-

ment, they are evaluating the

alignment of the skills and

strengths within the organization

against current and projected tal-

ent requirements.

During 40 years of studying

organizational behavior at both

the individual and team levels,

psychologist Donald Clifton iden-

tified 34 common talents within

four overarching domains, or

areas of basic needs (executing,

influencing, relationship building,

and strategy). As patterned and

structured behavior is the essence

of psychological study, Clifton cat-

aloged the 34 talent themes into

recurring patterns of thought,

feeling, or behavior that can be

productively applied in the work-

place. The more dominant a

theme is in a person, the greater

the theme’s impact on that per-

son’s behavior and performance.

Clifton’s work was furthered in

the 1990s by a team of scientists at

Gallup who created an online

assessment tool to identify a per-

son’s natural and dominant tal-

ents. The assessment is known as

CAREERS

StrengthsFinder, and it’s accompa-

nied by a number of books to help

further the understanding and

application of the assessment.

The StrengthsFinder assessment

tool identifies a person’s five dom-

inant talents. An inventory of 34

possible talent themes results in

millions of possible combinations.

Thus you may find others with

some degree of similarity but

unlikely anyone else with the exact

same profile.

The value here comes from

knowing your strengths, relating to

the profile of others, identifying

assignments and team situations

where your strengths can be lever-

aged, and understanding how to

exercise your strengths to best

complement the four basic needs

of those who lead the organization.

Relational Values. The third

self-assessment dimension is to

understand your orientation to

interpersonal needs and relations.

The purpose of the measurement

isn’t to classify any orientation as

good or bad. The goal is to under-

stand your needs, what drives your

behavior in interpersonal relation-

ships, and how to relate your orien-

tation to others as well as the over-

all culture of your organization.

The FIRO-B (Fundamental

Interpersonal Relations Orienta-

tion) instrument measures across

three areas of interpersonal need

and two dimensions. The three

areas of need are inclusion, con-

trol, and affection, and the two

dimensions are how much each

need is expressed or wanted by you.

Inclusion measures the impor-

tance of involvement, belonging,

and recognition; control relates to

the need for power, authority, and

influence; and affection is tied to

the extent closeness, sensitivity,

and personal ties are important.

The degree to which these needs

are expressed indicates the extent

to which you initiate the behavior,

and the degree to which these

needs are wanted indicates the

extent to which you desire to

receive the behavior from others.

This self-assessment dimension

defines what drives satisfaction in

relationships. The underlying value

of this diagnostic is to understand

that the work environment is essen-

tially a daily continuum of relation-

ship management where success

and satisfaction on a personal level

are enhanced when relational dri-

vers and the common culture of the

work environment are compatible.

Friction and “fit” issues arise

when the satisfaction drivers and

culture don’t align. Misalignment

is neither the fault of the individ-

ual nor the workplace. Each per-

son brings his or her unique set of

needs to the office each day, but

not everyone plays together well in

pursing their objectives.

Beware of companies that pass

out laminated value and mission

statements yet operate with a cul-

ture that contradicts what they

promote. The quality of the work

environment is determined by the

integrity and consistency of the

leadership, not the vanity of words

under plastic. Awareness of your

needs and quality of fit with the

reality of the operating culture will

enable you to modify your expec-

tations, manage your approach,

and ultimately decide if this is the

company where you want to invest

your relational energy.

Are You Ready?Self-assessment requires a strong

commitment to the evaluation

and study necessary to achieve a

level of self-awareness that can be

leveraged to your developmental

and situational advantage. Under-

standing the underlying principles

and mastering delivery in the soft

skills area will greatly define your

presence and determine your

potential in an organization. SF

Mark Morgan is a finance profes-

sional and founder of The Hyperni-

con Group, a management consult-

ing firm assisting clients in achiev-

ing strategic, process, and organiza-

tional excellence. He is also a mem-

ber of the IMA® Global Board of

Directors and IMA’s Eastern Con-

necticut Chapter. Please contact

Mark at mark@thehygro.com with

suggestions and comments.

M a rc h 2 0 1 1 I S T R AT E G IC F I N A N C E 23

A Little HelpHere are some resources covered in the column that will help start youon your journey toward self-awareness:

Introduction to Type: A Guide to Understanding Your Results on theMyers-Briggs Type Indicator by Isabel Briggs Myers

Type Talk at Work (Revised): How the 16 Personality Types DetermineYour Success on the Job by Otto Kroeger, Janet M. Thuesen, andHile Rutledge

FIRO: A Three-Dimensional Theory of Interpersonal Behavior byWilliam C. Schutz

StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath