Why Use Psychometrics?

Quite often when we are first approached by schools it’s because someone has already recommended our INSET to them, but they still usually ask ‘Why should we use psychometrics?’

The answer is because they are specifically designed to promote self-awareness through knowledge of personality type or trait characteristics, which, in turn, allows us to direct that awareness outwards to others whom we work with. Once we begin to see behaviours as the outward signs of personality [‘straws blowing in the wind’], we tend to adopt a far more positive approach to differences in behaviour.

In turn, those positive attitudes help us in all of the daily transactions which we have with others – improving communication, developing relationships, reducing conflicts, enhancing leadership, inspiring teams and transforming teaching and learning.

Of course, once our partners actually do the training and begin to see, feel and understand the benefits which psychology can bring to school, to work and to life that original question is soon forgotten. Instead, we are asked ‘What other psychometrics can we use?’

C-GROW Model Coaching

Often when we are asked to provide coaching training, we find that schools have one or two members of staff who are familiar with the GROW model. The stages in GROW coaching are usually listed as follows:

• Goal
• Reality
• Options/Opportunity
• Will/What Next

We like GROW because it provides a useful [and easily-remembered] structure, and because it’s already commonly used in education.

We always add a ‘C’ [Contracting] stage before we commence work, when we establish boundaries and confidentiality, so for us the model is always C-GROW.

We like also to make ‘R’ the next stage in the process after contracting, since it’s always a good idea to discuss and explore the realities of a situation or issue before stating one’s goal; otherwise, the stated goal can exert a sometimes undue influence on the whole process before it properly commences.

Our process is therefore really CRGOW – which works really well, though not as a mnemonic! So we call it C-GROW and just remember to exchange those two letters and stages in the coaching dialogue. It works, very briefly, like this:

• Contracting – boundaries and confidentiality
• Reality – what are the issues, obstacles and possibilities?
• Goal – what is the intended outcome for this issue?
• Options – what can be done?
• Will – what will you do, when, and how will it be evaluated?

We like our coachees to write down the items under that final W; we find that it makes the next steps concrete, and also is a great and effective coaching starter for our follow-up session.

Staff Engagement

One of our most popular training sessions in the field of leadership is around staff engagement. We use an electronic voting system [rather like on ‘Who Wants to be a Millionaire?’] to gather attitudes from participants. Responses are relayed to a powerpoint session which is played live, so the answers come up straight away, but anonymously for the group taking part.

So we display statements like: ‘”My professional development is encouraged” and “I feel valued for the work I do”, and we immediately get percentage responses for those who do and do not agree. It’s not possible to duck the issues which are brought up in these sessions, especially when the participants are, perhaps, the entire senior leadership team at a large school, or an entire teaching staff.

So what are the conditions which tend to engage staff?

What should we be doing to engage our staff, or teams, or the children in our classes?

We say AMP:

Autonomy  – give your people as much autonomy as they can appropriately handle

Mastery – give your people the tools to become as proficient as possible at what they do

Purpose – and here we are talking about ‘big-picture’ purpose – how does this help me and others?

We say that if you can supply the conditions for all these three to be met, your people will be engaged in what they do, whether it’s leading or teaching or learning.

We say if you can’t, you will likely have your people at best not engaged, and at worst actively disengaged.

One definition of leadership is : “Accomplishing change through the efforts of others”. If we agree with that, and value distributed and situational leadership, we need to get our people engaged, so they work with us and for us.

So we say: “How should we lead? Promote AMP”.

Welcome to the Blog

Coincidental with our website re-design, we’ve taken the opportunity to launch the blog which our partners have been asking us for some time!

We hope that you like it, and that you will find it useful.

We intend to add blog posts on an ad hoc basis, either following on from discussions which have taken place during our trainings, or as further information and thought-provokers.

Let us know if there is something you would like to see here, and we’ll try to provide it for you.

With best wishes, from Intelligent Leaders.