
Ask HN: Personality Assessments in the Workplace? - AndrewO
I was talking with a family member recently who told me that his company is going to be administering DISC assessments [1] as part of a human resources workshop in the near future.  While he's not so concerned that these would be used directly in future promotion decisions, he does have some other concerns.<p>* He worries that the decision making process of the business could be short-circuited (perhaps only sub-consciously) to allow easier dismissal or acceptance of some suggestions or proposals based on the categorization of the person behind it, rather than on its own merits.<p>* Both of us having been raised in the households of psychologists are inclined to believe that personality inventories such as this are pseudoscientific.  We're well acquainted with the Forer (or Barnum) Effect [2] and are not very willing to trust anything based entirely on self-evaluation of 45 or so questions.<p>* Even so, he feels that it's the psychological equivalent of being asked to drop trou in front of one's coworkers and is understandably uncomfortable about that.<p>* He seems to be the only one that has severe problems with this.  Everyone else seems to be embracing it or at least accepting it as something that you just have to do.  The later option feels intellectually dishonest to him, given the objections above.<p>Management is selling this as something that will enable better communication since people will be able to craft their interactions based on the other person's type.  I've recommended that he ask for concrete examples of how they would tell him X if his type were Y vs. Z.<p>So, does anyone have any experience with these personality assessments in the workspace (or even specifically with DISC)?  Any good recommendations for how to make these objections clear without becoming a pariah?  Or are these concerns exaggerated somehow?<p>[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DISC_assessment<p>[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forer_Effect
======
HeyLaughingBoy
Unless they're planning on training on how to use these assessments, I see
loads of fun ahead for all involved!!! NOT

I have taken personality assessments at work both as part of a management
course and for another course in persuasion & influence. _In both cases only I
saw the results_ The point of the assessment was to understand your
personality type and see how it could affect your behavior. Part of the
class's purpose was also to determine someone's personality type so you could
change your interaction with them. _This was what we were being trained to do_

Just giving someone this information with no knowledge of how to use it is a
complete waste of time.

~~~
AndrewO
Sorry, I should have mentioned: they are getting a couple of hours of training
on how to interact based on type.

Do you think that kind of training makes the whole exercise productive?

------
tokenadult
_Both of us having been raised in the households of psychologists are inclined
to believe that personality inventories such as this are pseudoscientific.
We're well acquainted with the Forer (or Barnum) Effect [2] and are not very
willing to trust anything based entirely on self-evaluation of 45 or so
questions._

You have the right idea. I think there are some litigation possibilities for
job-seekers who are screened out of jobs by psychological tests that haven't
been SPECIFICALLY validated for the jobs in question, and an employer would be
well advised not to use such tests.

~~~
AndrewO
Yeah, neither of us think the company is brazen enough to actually try to use
this for hiring or promotion purposes. We're both more worried about the more
subtle consequences.

