Improving Team Communication

My company is looking at using a communication assessment tool to help our teams work better together. There are so many out there. What are your thoughts?

The Team Doc Says…

Assessment tools can be very useful to help people understand why they communicate the way they do, where their strengths and weaknesses are, and how to set goals for personal improvement.

Use caution with any tool though. Whether you choose the Myers-Briggs, the DiSC, the IOPT or some other type of tool, never forget that the key word is tool.

Also remember that people are people, not just some combination of letters that make up the results of their assessment. Refrain from having discussions in your organization such as “Oh, you’re a high D, it’s no wonder we can’t communicate” or “Gee, we need to see if we can get some more ENFP’s on this team to make it work better.”

Never use an assessment tool to make team member selections. A better way to look at it is to assess the team to identify strengths and weaknesses. Then determine what “rules” or “guidelines” can be implemented in the team charter to develop or compensate for the team’s weaknesses.