Personality Dimensions® – PD on PD

I have been thinking a lot about professional development lately… I can’t help it, I’m up to my eyeballs in it being enrolled in two courses, and going to the Perspectives Conference on June 11th -12th.  As professionals, consultants, and trainers we are often so focused on the professional development needs of our clients, and overlook what we can be doing for ourselves, and our coworkers, using the skills and materials that we already have at hand.  How many of you have set some time aside to do a Personality Dimensions® Awareness or Application session with your colleagues?  Not only does it help build a better understanding of ourselves, but help understand the motivations and behaviours of clients too.  Also, don’t forget that attendance in a Personality Dimensions Workshop counts towards CEUs for a number of organizations, including CCDP (Certified Career Development Practitioner) re-certification across Canada.

With staff constantly reporting higher caseloads, and the pressures of home increasing, consider facilitating a Personality Dimensions® Work-Life Balance workshop with your colleagues, where they will:

• Identify how each of the four colours perceives
• Identify unique ways others prioritize roles and responsibilities
• Learn strategies and techniques to ensure a level of balance that is personally “just right”
• Recognize different ways people act and react when they are struggling to find balance in their lives.

Not only will this help the attitudes and productivity in the workplace, but this knowledge can be taken home and shared with partners, family, and others who are important.

Of course part of achieving a solid work/life balance includes having a cohesive work team. To help this along, consider a Personality Dimensions® Team Building workshop.  Your colleagues will:

• Identify their personal styles and preferred methods of communication
• Recognize and appreciate the diverse styles of colleagues
• Learn strategies for adjusting communication to be heard by others
• Minimize destructive conflict while maximizing understanding and open communication
• Recognize behaviours that indicate that a team member is stressed or struggling
• Gain a deeper understanding of the individual contributions to the team and how collaborations can make the team’s results greater than the sum of individual contributions

Work teams that have a better understanding of each other just makes for a more pleasant workplace.  Understanding why people act the way they do, makes us less likely to take things personally, and see things from a different perspective.  Not only does this help us in the workplace, but in all areas of life as well.

Let us know in the comments below if you have run a Personality Dimensions® workshop for your colleagues.  How did it work out?  Were there any great “ah ha” moments?  What kinds of professional development are you and your staff engaging in?

Brad Whitehorn, BA is the Sales & Marketing Coordinator at Career/LifeSkills Resources Inc.  He was thrown in to the career development field headfirst after completing a Communications degree in 2005, and hasn’t looked back!  Since then, Brad has worked on the development, implementation and certification for various career and personality assessments (including Personality Dimensions®), making sure that Career Development Practitioners get the right tools to best serve their clients.