Do your Assessment Centres favour extroverts?
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Assessment Centres are part of many early talent selection processes. Also, Development Centres are often used to direct the development of high talent populations. There are good reasons for this – if you want an accurate and objective picture, a combination of different approaches to assessment has a good correlation with performance a year down the track. But as with all selection and development processes, it is important that you look carefully to consider whether certain types of people have less of a chance to perform at their best than others. In this context, I’ve recently been raising the question – does your AC allow high calibre introverts to show their true potential? This article looks at why ACs and DCs may favour extroverts – and how you can change them to be more even-handed.
Why might ACs discriminate against introverts? There are a number of reasons.
- Extroverts are good at introducing themselves, striking up conversations, and expressing their views to strangers. Introverts are good at listening, absorbing and processing information and expressing considered views to known people. Which skills does your AC test? And which is required in your organisation?
- You can watch extroverts solve problems by evolving ideas in discussion with others. Introverts evolve their ideas internally, before sharing them with the group. In a group exercise, extroverts may be judged as more active and effective, purely because their idea-generating process is more visible.
- In groups dominated by extrovert debate, or in ‘speed-dating sessions’ with quick changes of subject, an introvert’s thinking style may be disrupted. They never get the chance to do their best work, which requires a quiet environment to map out their thoughts prior to speaking.
- Extroverts are practised at cutting in quickly to get their points heard. Introverts may wait politely for a moment’s pause. In a group exercise where there are several extroverts going at it hammer and tongs, introverts will get much less air time. Indeed sometimes they may decide that to make the group effective, the best action is not to add fuel to the fire! In a dysfunctional group, good extrovert candidates may be more noticeable than good introvert candidates.
- If you want people to introduce themselves or engage in a discussion, explain what is needed, and provide a minute or so to reflect before starting.
- Have 4-person group exercises rather than 6-person group exercises.
- Test powers of reflection and self-criticism by giving time to write an assessment of your own or group performance after exercises.
- Design exercises to reveal introvert strengths, rather than viewing all strengths through the lens of extraversion. For example, do you assess the quality of a candidate’s thinking via their contribution to a discussion in a group of 6 people? We now develop multi-stage exercises that test both introvert and extrovert qualities, allowing each to perform to their best capacity.
Introverts make up around 50% of the population (Myers-Briggs research), and are known for thoughtful self-improvement. Can you really afford to ignore their strengths when designing Assessment and Development Centres?
If you want to spend an enjoyable 15 minutes exploring the world from an introvert perspective, there’s a great TED talk by Susan Cain on the subject.
Interesting Fact: Extravert vs Extrovert. Extravert is the correct psychological term created by Jung, based on the Latin ‘extra’ meaning outside or beyond, as in ‘extracurricular’. Extra + vert = to turn (attention) outside. Intro is from the Latin meaning ‘inside’. However language is alive, not static, and the spelling ‘extrovert’ has become common usage. Note that introverts are not necessarily shy or lacking in confidence; they just focus more on internal things such as thoughts and feelings; this can be a key component of creativity, among other things.