Who are you?

Hey 👋 - Brandon here.

Happy Saturday to 1,411 growth-minded accountants.

Here’s one growth tip for you and your firm.

Today’s issue takes less than 5 minutes to read.

Blindsided.

That’s how I felt when a top employee resigned, seemingly out of nowhere.

It left me frustrated and confused.

How could this person who I poured so much time into do this to me?

In talking with business owners, this seems to be a shared experience.

We’ve all been “burned” by employees who we thought were in it for the long haul.

But when this happened to me back in 2020, I did something I had never done before…

I reviewed the departing employee’s personality assessment.

And then it all made sense.

Regularly reviewing personality assessments will help you build high-performing teams

If you don’t integrate personality assessments into your 1-1s and team meetings, at best you’ll run a regular-ole-firm that struggles to innovate and achieve meaningful growth.

And you most certainly won’t build high-performing teams.

When we don’t take personality assessments seriously, we end up with highly analytical people in client facing roles. Or highly sociable people in heavy compliance roles.

We set people up for failure.

When you understand what type of personalities drive success in certain roles, everything becomes easier. From hiring to managing, your employees, and clients, will be happier.

Who are you?

Before taking a magnifying glass to your team, start with yourself.

Find a personality assessment online and set aside time to complete it. We personally use DISC as it provides great context and strategies on interacting with each personality time.

Are you the type of person who doesn’t take criticism well? Or perhaps you are a hard, business-only, driver to goals. Maybe you are analytical and conflict averse.

Many people lack this self-awareness and it holds them back.

Understanding who you are, your strengths, weaknesses, how you should be communicated with, how you process information, and your workplace habits are critical to your own success.

This will enable you to hire people who can cover your weaknesses and learn how to build high-performing teams of complementary personalities.

Hire personalities that fit the role.

If you need a client advisor, hire someone who is great at influencing and story telling. If you are hiring a compliance/quality role, look for analytical, exacting, and steadiness traits.

This may seem obvious.

Yet I find we constantly place people in roles that their personality does not fit.

Our DISC surveys have helped us hedge against this. We require candidates to complete a DISC survey during the interview process which helps us understand who is about to join our team and how we can more effectively communicate with and manage them.

Review personality assessments on an ongoing basis

Having your team complete a personality assessment is not enough.

To maximize effectiveness, you must commit to reviewing the personality assessment on an ongoing basis. In effect, it becomes a management tool.

When I have 1-1s with staff, I pull up their DISC survey.

Before performance reviews, I pull up DISC surveys.

When someone is complaining to me about something, I pull up their DISC survey.

Personality assessments add context to the words people use as well as their actions. By reviewing these assessments regularly, you will find you can predict people’s actions.

And that’s the major unlock.

That's all for this Saturday. See you next week.

Whenever you're ready, here's how I can help you.

→ Work with me 1:1 to grow your firm (now accepting waitlist coaching applications)

See you again next week.

Cheers,

Brandon

If you're enjoying this newsletter, please share it with your connections and you'll get rewards:

• 5 referrals = shout out in the next newsletter issue

• 10 referrals = shout out on Twitter

• 25 referrals = 1-1 Zoom meeting with me

You can easily share by clicking the button below.