by Natasha L. Foreman, MBA

Employers are quick to provide assessments to new hires, and sometimes invest in the administration of these learning tools periodically for certain key employees; but how many business owners and entrepreneurs are also investing in self-assessments for themselves, and then concentrating efforts on assessing every employee regardless of position or title? I would say very few.

It is extremely important to pull out the metaphoric mirror and look closely at yourself, your skills, interests, abilities, and strengths. It is important to know your and your employees insights surrounding personality, values and attitudes, motivation, decision making, productivity, emotional intelligence, communication skills, leadership and team skills, power and conflict skills, and how well you (and they) do in and with certain organizational structures, change, stress, and work-life balance.

Taking assessments frequently, learning from the results, and applying what you have learned both in your career and personal life, help you to become and remain a balanced individual. Your focus should not just be on changing others and the world, you must first look at your personal change through growth- for positive results only come through change.

At Foreman & Associates, LLC we help entrepreneurs and their team work through and learn from the assessments we administer. Organizational behavior concerns arise when you don’t truly know those individuals who make up your company, and when they don’t truly understand you and their value in your organization. Crafting and executing strategy within an organization is pointless if you do not have the complementary variables and assets (employees and leaders) to help your organization get where you desire most.

If you don’t know how to properly engage, motivate, inspire, work with, communicate, and lead your employees effectively, guess what? They will model what they see and hear. If you (or a manager) are like a canon ball exploding in a crystal shop, but you need someone who has the finesse of a feather, how else will you initially filter through your team to find this person without using an assessment tool?

As a prospective or new business owner you have to ask yourself what type of decision maker, leader, delegator, manager, discipliner, and team builder you are. You have to know your strengths and weaknesses, and then build your strengths as you delegate in areas of weakness. An assessment can help with this. It will also help an existing entrepreneur who may be struggling with team alignment and organizational behavior concerns.

Think about the boss or manager that you had (before you became self-employed) who drove you batty, was stressed out, ornery, and ruled through fear and not care. What if he or she had been given an assessment to see which type of environment and position that fit best with their personality? What if an assessment was used to weigh their ability to lead with the type of respect and care that the organization expected? By highlighting that this person is a brute, narcissist, unethical, or has poor communication skills the manager has the option to change through growth and application of skills taught through a training program, or they can leave and go to a company willing to put up with their bulldozer mentality.

When building teams you need to see each member’s strengths and weaknesses and line them up accordingly. There has to be a well-blended and balanced mix that is mutually rewarding for all parties and stakeholders. An unmotivated person will only give partial effort…how does this affect your relationship with customers, vendors, and investors?

When considering the cost of investing in assessments for yourself, your leadership team, or your entire company, consider how much you will lose because you did not take the time to invest in those that make up your company. Consider how much you will lose because you didn’t take time to invest in making sure that all of the components and parts needed to make your dream a reality were present and aligned with your mission.

How much time and money do you have to lose? What are you willing to invest in your and your organization’s future? Contact Foreman & Associates, LLC today! http://foremanandassociates.info

Copyright 2011. Natasha L. Foreman. Foreman & Associates, LLC. All Rights Reserved.