Performance at Heart

Individual performance is represented by GRI with adaptive profiles like the one on the right. This article presents some of the key characteristics of those profiles.

What the Profiles Tell

The adaptive profiles inform about a person’s most natural way to perform (Natural, the graph at the bottom), the perception to adapt to the environment (Role, the graph in the middle) and how both graphs translate into the effective way to perform (Effective, the graph on the top), the behaviors that will most probably be observed.

Each graph shows four factors (the four small dots) and scales (above and below the graphs) that indicate the strength and mode of action. An adaptive profile represents a person’s way to think, feel, and act. It can be defined differently depending on how you look at what is assessed and how. The profile is also a person's:

• Way to function
• Mindset about how they feel and act
• Preferences of thinking and acting
• Values of how they behave, feel, and think about it
• Way to learn, make decisions, lead, manage, innovate, etc.

A profile has intensity and direction. It’s not about their personality traits or types, although those concepts can be inferred from the adaptive profiles, but about how they function, informed by four personality factors.

Looking Beyond Obvious Characteristics

The information from the adaptive profiles focuses on individual performance, offering a perspective on people that goes beyond their interests, skills, and intellect. It considers how they fully function, thinking, feeling, and behaving within the context of their unique experiences and environment. By helping people get into their flow state, adapt to the environment in an engaging way, and clearly identify how they will underperform, the adaptive profiles redefine how individuals and their organizations can enhance performance. The practicality of this information makes it applicable in many settings close to where decisions and actions regarding people are made.

The Same Happened with Other Measures

What happens with the measures provided by the adaptive profiles is no different from other measures of, let’s say, time, temperature, distance, and weight, once their measurement is available with an instrument and can be trusted. Their results can be used in a way that enhances the objectivity of the concepts being measured and allows for their use in ways that were not possible before.

Of critical importance is the quality and practicality of the measure, which are discussed in other articles. Operationalizing performance with the adaptive profiles allows for viewing the various existing performance models from a new perspective and making the most of them..

Relearning Performance

Like with any instrument, trusting their metrics and utility when you use them for the first time requires envisioning their benefits. Having a more objective understanding of how people function, behave, and adapt with the adaptive profiles opens new perspectives at an individual and organizational level. The profiles can help improve individual performance, while also boosting a group's overall performance, improving the communication and decision-making within the group, reducing its chance of underperforming, and benefiting each of its stakeholders in return.