Evaluating means giving information subjective meaning. From early childhood onwards, each of us evaluates millions of things and thus builds up our own value system. Ultimately, we are our values. Applying measurements and making recommendations as to which positions best suit individuals and how personal potential can be developed appropriately helps everyone. The Grundl Leadership Institute and profilingvalues use modern ranking methods and correspondingly sophisticated algorithms to make an important contribution to improving the performance of companies in this regard.
The renowned American economist Jim Collins is not the only one to have empirically proven that the right employees are a company's most important resource. Filling positions with the right people is the key to corporate success and therefore one of the most important management tasks. For decades, we have been supported in this by psychometric procedures. The same applies to identifying the potential of employees in order to pursue suitable development paths. Even the ancient Romans assigned officer positions in their armies based on personality traits.
Meta-studies have also shown here that scientifically valid methods do indeed provide added value. However, they usually only measure behavior and attitudes, are more or less manipulable, and often take a lot of time. In addition, they generally only provide information about what is known as personality disposition, i.e., they paint a static picture of a person.
Value metric method enables holistic recording of the value system
It is worth taking this a step further. The Grundl Leadership Institute and profilingvalues are pursuing this path using a value-metric method that is extremely effective and efficient. Participants rank 18 terms or statements from good to bad several times and receive not only the level of ability for basic personality traits, but also the degree of attention they currently place on this ability. Put simply, ability and desire are measured. The Grundl Leadership Institute and profilingvalues do not remain on the surface of behavior. Values lie deeper within the person, so knowledge of them allows for a better prediction of future behavior.
There are a whole range of value-metric methods that focus on a person's individual values. Values are, of course, diverse. Whether it's honesty, openness, solidarity, justice, freedom, family, harmony, creativity, inspiration, or love, the list is endless. Finding a meaningful and practical system here is essential, because otherwise we only talk about the respective interpretations and remain vague. The Grundl Leadership Institute and profilingvalues have followed the German-born American scientist Robert S. Hartman, who identified three clearly distinguishable value dimensions and, in addition, two general value spaces to which the value dimensions are applicable. It is worth thinking about this in a little more general terms.
The internal concept defines our individual evaluation criteria.
What happens when we judge? Ultimately, we absorb all information from our environment and from ourselves—often unconsciously—and transform this information into subjective meaning. This is also the reason why there is no objective reality, but rather everyone has their own idea of reality. Judging, detached from the respective value content (see examples above), means that we simply come to the conclusion: This is good for me – or bad – or, if necessary, irrelevant. Ultimately, judging is the decision of "good or bad" for me as a person.
But what is "good"? We use this word hundreds of times a day and know relatively little about its actual meaning. Robert S. Hartman took up this issue and introduced a groundbreaking logic to the field of evaluation. In short, "good" is whatever fulfills his concept, i.e., whatever has the characteristics that the respective person considers necessary to fulfill the purpose. A simple example: let's take a car. As we know, opinions on the necessary characteristics vary widely. While person A may consider horsepower, sportiness, design, and modern technology to be the most important, person B would be more likely to focus on safety, ecology, and utility. Everyone would have their own list of criteria in mind and would compare how many of their desired characteristics are actually present in the object at the car dealership. This creates a clear benchmark for the degree to which these characteristics are fulfilled, i.e., the quality of a thing, in this case the car.
Reflection of the current value system in the world view and self-image, as well as development potential
Cars are important, but they are not the only possible types of value concepts. In addition to the useful things around us, there are also principles that we humans understand. Rules and systems that we need in order to live together. And then there are us humans ourselves. We are all unique in terms of our genetics and the experiences we have had in our lives. Ultimately, it boils down to the questions of who (human being), what (thing), and what for (principle) in order to bring order to the jungle of values. If we then consider the world around us separately from ourselves—the organ of the skin separates these two "value spaces"—we obtain a simple value matrix that tells us a lot about the person.
In summary, it can be said that the Grundl Leadership Institute and profilingvalues outline the current state of a person's value system with a view to how the person is positioned, i.e., which tasks and functions suit them. In addition, however, they also recognize how the person is currently doing, which is relevant in terms of motivation for change and development and can also be important information in terms of health. The Leadership Excellence Report that has been developed impressively shows where the leader skills and areas for development leader , as well as what "form" they are currently in.
Yours, Uli Vogel
