Google’s Project Aristotle Changed How We Think About Teams. Personality Insight Changes How They Perform
Google’s 2012 Project Aristotle provided groundbreaking research on what drives team effectiveness and high performance1.
Leadership at Scale
How to Support Your Managers at Scale (and Stop the Burnout)
For years, companies have tried to boost employee engagement from the bottom up. They survey workers, invest in wellness programs, and encourage leaders to check in more often. But engagement rarely rises or falls because of initiatives aimed at frontline employees. It rises and falls with managers. Today’s managers are carrying a level of strain that looks very different from even a decade ago. Their role no longer centers on supervising work. They are expected to translate shifting priorities, navigate uncertainty, coach employees through stress, and keep teams aligned even as demands change around them. The problem is not simply… Read More »How to Support Your Managers at Scale (and Stop the Burnout)
How the WorkPlace Big Five Profile® Unlocks Performance at Every Stage of the Employee Lifecycle
HR teams today are being asked to do the impossible: increase engagement, improve retention, support development, and strengthen culture, all without adding more programs, more people, or more hours in the day. That’s why we created The WorkPlace Big Five Profile®. Built on the gold-standard Five-Factor Model and grounded in over 40 years of behavioral science, the WorkPlace Big Five Profile® is a personality-based development tool built specifically for the modern workplace. It reveals how people naturally work best—how they communicate, lead, collaborate, adapt, and grow—and helps align their natural tendencies with the demands of their specific roles. And because… Read More »How the WorkPlace Big Five Profile® Unlocks Performance at Every Stage of the Employee Lifecycle
How Self-Led Personality Insights Boost Engagement and Retention at Scale—Without Adding to HR’s Workload
Employee engagement is one of today’s biggest business challenges. Turnover is costly. Burnout is widespread. And people are craving more meaningful work. Managers and HR leaders want to support employees better, but launching yet another program is an unlikely solution. What often gets overlooked is that disengagement doesn’t start with workload or lack of recognition. More often, it begins when employees don’t understand how they naturally work best, or how to apply that knowledge in their roles. Engagement Starts with Employees Knowing Themselves When personality differences go unrecognized, friction builds. People get placed in roles that do battle with their… Read More »How Self-Led Personality Insights Boost Engagement and Retention at Scale—Without Adding to HR’s Workload
Why Self-Directed Development Works at Every Level, Not Just for Executives
In many organizations, development is still treated as a privilege for the few. Executives get leadership coaching, personality assessments, and bespoke training. Meanwhile, the rest of the workforce, the 80% who actually power your culture and customer experience, are left to figure it out on their own. That’s where disengagement, turnover, and stalled performance take root. Consider this: research from Gallup shows that 70% of team engagement is influenced by the manager. Yet today, managers are among the most disengaged employees in the workforce. When development stops at the leadership tier, you create a vacuum—managers without tools to lead effectively, employees… Read More »Why Self-Directed Development Works at Every Level, Not Just for Executives
The WorkPlace Big Five Profile®: What It Is and Why It Works
HR leaders are under growing pressure to reduce turnover, support managers at every level, and drive business impact through people, often with limited headcount or bandwidth. Traditional personality assessments don’t scale, and they rarely deliver actionable insight across the organization. The WorkPlace Big Five Profile® is different. It’s a science-backed, enterprise-ready personality assessment that helps teams hire smarter, onboard faster, and develop more effectively without overloading HR. Let’s dive into what it is and why it works. What Is the WorkPlace Big Five Profile®? WorkPlace Big Five Profile® is a 15-minute personality assessment built around the Five-Factor Model, widely recognized… Read More »The WorkPlace Big Five Profile®: What It Is and Why It Works
Is Personality Nature or Nurture: Understanding the Layers of Personality
“Does nature or nurture determine your personality?” This is one of the most commonly asked questions in the personality assessment industry. To answer that question, let’s talk about cake. If we whisked only eggs and flour together, can we call it cake? No, because there’s still a lot missing—butter, spices, milk, and flavors. These ingredients are mixed together to give us a full representation of the cake, and many of them add to the full cake experience. It’s the same with your personality. Based on experience and research, we believe it’s incredibly helpful, yet incomplete to define personality based on a… Read More »Is Personality Nature or Nurture: Understanding the Layers of Personality
When and How to Use Big Five and MBTI Personality Assessment Tools
If you ask someone how they might improve their sense of happiness and contentment with life – also known as their subjective wellbeing (SWB) –, most would cite tried and true methods such as exercise, creative pursuits, a lifestyle closer to nature. But few would probably note the linkage between happiness and organization or diligence. But research shows that they should. A study of more than 6,000 Americans concluded in 2019 that increased scores on the Big Five personality factor of Conscientiousness were positively correlated with improvements in SWB. While that might be somewhat surprising to some, one explanation for… Read More »When and How to Use Big Five and MBTI Personality Assessment Tools
7 Big CEO Succession Planning Mistakes & How to Avoid Them
When Steve Jobs left Apple in 1985, the company’s once-thriving profit margins took a nosedive. Within a year, Apple found itself on the brink of insolvency, losing over a billion dollars. When Jobs returned, he swiftly turned the company’s fortunes around, implementing a robust management structure and cultural norms that still define Apple today. As another expert put it, Jobs had to “revamp” the company. The cost of failed CEO succession is simply too great to ignore. We’re talking nearly a trillion dollars annually for the S&P 1500 alone. Yet companies often make critical mistakes in CEO succession planning, from… Read More »7 Big CEO Succession Planning Mistakes & How to Avoid Them