BirkmanMethod

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What is The Birkman Method®

Introduction

Principles

Benefits

Compare the Competition

Birkman Reports

Summary

Introduction

The Birkman Method® is a comprehensive system for assessing individual, team, and organizational effectiveness. Just as we usually perceive the physical world through a pair of eyes, we also perceive the relational world through our internal eyes. How we see ourselves and how we see others are the two perceptions that the Birkman Method describes.

The way we view ourselves and most people (others) defines perceptions that create in us attributes which The Birkman Method identifies as USUAL behavior and motivational NEEDS. These dual perceptions work together to give us unique strengths and capabilities. Measured together, these perceptions form our reality---our internal vision. By understanding and acknowledging our internal perceptions we can begin to successfully manage our behavior.

The Birkman Method is not a test. There are no right or wrong answers and the results are positively portrayed. The questionnaire is a survey of a person’s opinions about them, other people and the careers they might find enjoyable. The positive information in The Birkman Method is generated through a questionnaire, and the resultant reports provide objective, quantifiable information about people and their work groups.

The basic, unifying conceptual framework of The Birkman Method is that different perceptions of organizational goals and job assignments result in contrasting behavior. In a typical work setting, this variance in perception tends to result in "simple" misunderstandings (because we are all operating on our own processed belief of the truth). However, "simple" miscommunications can—and do—have complex and powerful consequences in the workplace. They may produce so much stress that people begin to perceive things that are not there and act accordingly. Sorting all of this out after the damage is done takes time and energy away from the business objectives, costs money, de-motivates talented people.

Principles

In order to fully appreciate the foundation on which The Birkman Method is based, we begin with the following principles.

1.You are not "normal." No one is "normal." You are unique. Everyone is unique. Of course, we resemble one another in many ways, but many of the difficulties in our relationships stem from one fact. Most of us are convinced that we are each "normal" and judge others in terms of ourselves.

2.People who are different from you are just different. This is an extension of the first principle. If you stop regarding yourself as "normal," as a yardstick, you'll find it much harder to pass judgment on others.

3.The best way of doing things may not be your way. A manager in a seminar once commented, "Of course my way is the best way. If it weren't, my subordinate would be the manager and I'd be working for him." But people aren't usually promoted to managerial level because their way of doing things is best. It's because they're considered capable of discovering the best way and implementing it, which is a very different matter. In fact, the best way to do a job is determined by the personalities of the manager and his/her team and the nature of the job to be done. And that's not necessarily the manager's way!

4.There is no logical connection between the way someone behaves and the way he or she needs to be treated. This is the rule of rules, the insight of insights. It's also, of course, the reason that The Birkman Method considers four separate behavioral dimensions. Look at a Needs-at-a-Glance page, for example. You are given three scores for each area of behavior. One score for your Active Behavior (the way you behave when people treat you as you need to be treated); the other scores for Need and Reactive Behavior (the way you need to be treated and the way you will behave if that need isn't met).

5.There is no ideal managerial model. Different groups of people require different approaches to management, even when they're performing the same task. Two new team members can greatly change the required style of the manager.

This last principle is controversial, and is in direct contradiction to some recent thinking. But we stand by it. If the manager's function is to get the job done by coordinating the activities of others, and if that involves helping people meet their needs so that they behave productively, then the manager must adopt a model that satisfies his or her team as much as possible.

Benefits

The Birkman's uniqueness, depth, and accuracy create significant benefits for businesses and organizations that use it.

Companies will have accurate profiles of their individual employees that describe each person’s strengths, motivators, areas of interest, and reactions under stress.

Employees can be hired/promoted based on objective data rather than subjective intuition.

The reports are written in business language for business people. The application is instantly obvious.

Provides a common language for talking about self and others that leads to better cooperation and communication among team members.

The information is presented in an attractive, readable format that is easily understood. This promotes long-term retention.

Time wasted on resolving interpersonal conflict can be reduced or eliminated through comparison profiles that identify potential sources of conflict.

Companies can be secure in the fact that the information is legally defensible. In 40 years they have never been cited in a lawsuit.

Turnover can be reduced by using objective profiles of successful people that can be used as a benchmark to select the most appropriate candidates for a job.

Managers can be more efficient with their time by knowing who needs what kind of support. They have a "dictionary" on each of their people to use as a guide.

High performance work teams can be structured based on comparisons of individual strengths.

Compare the Competition

What is distinctly different about the Birkman methodology? This comparative chart shows clearly that our single inventory is the instrument of choice for the development of personal and team productivity in the business-industrial workplace.

Birkmam

16PF

MMPI

Disc

Myers

Edwards

Strong

Features

Method

(Cattell)

Briggs

Personal

Interest

Inventory

Clinical Syndromes

Yes

Non-Judgmental

Yes

Personality Characteristics Yes

Yes

Behavior Styles

Yes

Attitudes

Yes

Stress Profiles

Yes

Motivation

Yes

Motivational Need Profiles Yes

Yes

Relational Needs

Yes

Personal Values

Yes

Perceptual Profiles

Yes

Occupational Interests

Yes

Occupational Comparisons Yes

Yes

Occupational Themes

Yes

Occupational Library

Yes

Occupational Strengths

Yes

Organizational Comparisons Yes

Interview Guide

Yes

Job Analysis

Yes

Work Requirements

Yes

Job Behaviors

Yes

Job Profiles

Yes

Performance Reviews

Yes

Integrated Database

Yes

Certain other instruments may emulate the Birkman Method in certain select areas, but no competitor even pretends to offer the breadth and scope of the Method. Add to this the unique qualities and benefits discussed earlier, and the choice for any individual or organization is clear—The Birkman Method.

In a sense, the Birkman Method has no direct competitor. No other survey has the breadth of business-industrial applications of the Birkman Method; the same questionnaire can generate over forty reports, which address issues ranging from strategic organization development problems to one-day team building training courses for non-exempt workers.

The simpler Birkman reports that are available—the Color Style Grid Reports—are frequently used instead of the Myers-Briggs, Performax's DiSC, Wilson Social Styles, LIFO, and so forth. These instruments are excellent, but they have limitations, and they do not offer the natural upgrade path of the Birkman Method. Further, the information they offer requires strong reinforcement from a trainer or other facilitator. The ten-page Birkman Color Style Grid Reports are almost self-explanatory. They're easy to remember and use. Yet they have considerable sophistication.

While the Advanced Birkman Report is in a class of its own, clients sometimes do not need the sophistication of the Advanced Report. Often they may only want an overview of the person in an easy to understand and colorful format. Or, perhaps they want an inexpensive means of determining if the respondent will fit into an existing team or are on the right career track.

Birkman Reports Overview

It is helpful to look at the various Birkman Report formats as snapshots—each taken from a different distance or angle, and even with a different focus. Yet each of the snapshots is a picture of the same thing: an individuals' behavior. From a great distance, the planet Earth would appear Blue in a snapshot, for water covers the majority of our planet's surface; however, a powerful zoom lens might capture the lush green colors of the Amazon rain forest, the shimmering whiteness of the polar ice caps, or the bluntly brown, sandy Sahara desert. All of these snapshots are perfectly accurate given the context in which they were taken.

The Life Style Grid

The Life Style Grid, like the long-distance snapshot of a Blue Earth, serves a vital purpose. It provides an accurate overview that is readily understandable and usable. Students should know this and use it only as such. To create the grid, the questions from the Birkman questionnaire are merged to plot the three symbols: an asterisk, a diamond a circle, and a square. The response to each question moves a particular grid symbol up, down, left, and/or right—depending upon the mathematical weights and values assigned to it. Depending upon where each symbols ends up, various comments about the respondent's behavior are generated, comments you have read in both your own report and as well as the descriptions of the Life Style Grid earlier in this manual.

Advanced Reports

However accurate an individual's Life Style Grid might appear, it would be a mistake to conclude that it's the whole story. After all, the Earth is not ALL Blue because it looks Blue when viewed at a distance. The Advanced Birkman Reports, such as the Strengths and Needs Pages, use a completed Birkman Questionnaire in a more complex way: Instead of using the questions to push or pull a symbol around on the grid, the questions are now grouped in different meaningful ways, and the relationships among these various groups are explored in detail. Advanced reports allow the information to be presented in a way that is targeted towards a specific application.

The Birkman Method questionnaire and resulting Birkman Report have been in use for over 40 years. During that time, the Report has evolved from a description of the respondent dictated by Dr. Birkman to many sophisticated formats dealing with individuals and their relationships to one another and the work they do. The science and mathematical algorithms behind how the various questions are scored, how much weight each is given, which questions are assigned to which interest or component category, how the symbols are plotted, and so on, are all tightly guarded secrets that would be too complex for most of us to understand even if they were available! Still, here are some additional facts that will deepen your understanding and your ability to answer student questions.

The Birkman Report uses computerized, in-depth analysis to produce over 35 different formats which fall into two broad categories: the Occupational and Relational formats.

The Occupational formats show the extent the respondent answered the questionnaire like typical people in a wide range of broad and narrow jobs categories. These formats also indicate the extent to which the respondent is likely to be able to handle stress and relate to the demands of management positions. The Occupational formats are used by clients for assistance in recruitment, selection, promotion, career pathing, outplacement, and so on—anywhere, in fact, that help is needed in matching people and jobs.

The Relational formats show how the respondent is likely to relate to other people and to the demands of work. These formats are used to help teams work more effectively with one another, to give managers a quick overview of the motivational needs of the people who work for them, and to provide a common and neutral language for enabling people to discuss individual differences. The relational formats are also used as a basis for conflict resolution and for understanding and guiding organizational development work.

Group formats can be generated at any level—Grid or Advanced—once the individual is in the database. There is no need to re-administer the questionnaire for future applications and comparisons.

The Birkman Method Summary

The Birkman Method is a motivational assessment tool—not a psychological evaluation. It was designed for use by managers in the corporate environment. As a management tool, it is used to better understand how to create an environment where each employee can thrive and maximize his or her strengths.

The Birkman is non-judgmental. The questionnaire is phrased in such a way as to be non-threatening and non-judgmental. What this means is that when taking the Birkman, you aren't asked to rank your answers on a scale of 1 to 5, reveal your thoughts on intimate subjects, or compare yourself to other people's answers. The questionnaire is made up of 125 true/false questions about how you think most people think, 125 true/false questions about your thoughts on those same topics, and 48 multiple-choice questions about the types of jobs you would like to do if you could. No single answer to any question can ever be identified in the results, which promotes total honesty in responses.

The Birkman is the Rolls Royce of assessment instruments; its basic and advanced reports place you on the cutting edge of human resource technology. The Birkman Method was created for use by healthy, functioning individuals and their managers in the business/industrial workplace. It is not a psychological or clinical assessment tool—the origin of many other instruments (MMPI, 16PF); it profiles behavior of normal, functioning people. Many other instruments in the marketplace today simply rephrase your answers in their terminologies (Strong Campbell, DiSC), or try to label you in off the shelf categories (Myers-Briggs). Whatever the competition, no other assessment instrument offers the depth or accuracy of the Birkman Method. More than 2.5 million people in over 6,000 companies have completed a Birkman questionnaire over the last 50 years. The Birkman Method is endowed by the National Foundation for Science and over 12 million dollars have been invested in its research. The database used for generating the results of the Method is one of the most powerful ever created, with individuals from almost every walk of life and nationality represented. Each questionnaire is scored by the Birkman computer by a trained consultant who sends the questionnaire via modem to the corporate headquarters in Houston. The results can then be printed anywhere in the world (that has a modem!).

Is perception-based and non-judgmental. People have a unique perspective that becomes a filter for their perception. The Birkman defines what that perceptual filter is which then allows a person to gain a more accurate understanding of how their viewpoint correlates with those of their colleagues. This leads to a validation and acceptance of differences rather than personal judgments.

Generates relational and occupational information. The Birkman describes the individual's behavior in relational terms through a variety of reports that look at how the person interacts with other people in the work environment. In addition, each profile is compared to occupational categories to determine potential suitability for a specific career.

Provides incisive, quantifiable, objective information. Information is presented in not only narrative formats but also numerical. This allows for a quantitative benchmark to be established for purposes of comparing behavioral types of individuals.

Is four-dimensional—Interests, Usual Behavior/Style, Needs, and Stress Behavior. Interests look at what a person likes to do but does not evaluate their competency. Usual behavior or style describes the observable behavior that an individual exhibits most of the time. These can be considered strengths. Needs look at the underlying motivational factors that, when met, allow people to operate out of their strengths. It is the environment in which this person is most likely to thrive. Stress behavior is defined as the reaction to some unique need not being met.

Does not assume usual behavior is indicative of motivational needs. Because the Birkman evaluates each of the dimensions individually, there is not always a correlation between the way a person behaves and the way they prefer to be treated by other people.

Provides over thirty-five different report formats in graphical, narrative, and numerical form—allowing clients to choose reports that fit their needs. These formats include both individual reports as well as group or team ones. This allows for a view of the micro, the individual, and the macro, the organization.

Team and Individual Effectiveness Assessment

Reaching Further