The HumanGuide Concept for Teams

The picture shows Rolf Kenmo, Humankonsult AB, Sweden, management consultant and inventor of the HumanGuide Concept and Giselle Welter, psychologist and CTO for RH 99 (Resources Humanos), Brazil. What you see here is the release of the book “Let the Personality Bloom” 2007 in Sao Paulo, as a milestone of a cooperation. It started in 2000. We have mostly acted as a global virtual team. In this cooperation the HumanGuide concepts have been invaluable, i.e. mostly because both we have clearly understood each other's personality (our PersonProfiles) and their effects  – from the first moment!

Speaking of team development, you can see further down the page an information video on how to use the HumanGuide TeamPlay exercise for team development.

A strong argument for HumanGuide is that the underlying personality theory consists of eight basic dimensions. Then you get a more nuanced testresult and sharper analysis. Compare with MBTI, where you only “be” one of 16 types. The popular DISC-model (and similar) has only four basic dimensions. And the Five factor model has only five basic dimensions.

What is absolutely crucial for climbing up and down on Mount Everest?

We got the answer from a mountain climber, who has climbed Mount Everest and many more high mountains in the world. He asked the question and then he said: It isn’t to be a good climber. It isn’t to be well-trained. It isn’t to be in good health. It is to understand the other team members drives. Their personality and values. How they act in stressful situations?

OK you don’t plan to climb up and down Mount Everest, but now and then everyone comes in stressful situations. Then it is important to understand how your team members in that situation will act. If not, then you and other can get big problems…

With the HumanGuide PersonProfile you will know every team member’s corefactor and co-factor, i.e. the strongest and second strongest strength among the eight basic dimensions in the Eight boxes personality theory. Learn more below…

Diversity in teams is best, but...

A lot of research shows that diversity in a team gives the best result. Mostly because then you don't see narrowly and one-eyed as when you, for example, need to solve a problem. However, the catch is that many people believe that it is more difficult to cooperate with someone who is different. Therefore they are keener on recruiting and staffing someone, who "is like we are". When the team members are very similar to each other, then there is the crucial risk of getting so-called "group-thinking", i.e. they have more or less the same opinion and oppose the one who has other opinions. There are many examples of fatal results from this kind of thinking. One was when a spaceship exploded in USA just after take-off. Another was when we lost the ship Wasa in Sweden. This was also a kind of  group-thinking because no one dared to tell the king that this ship would sink.

The HumanGuide concepts support you so that you can more easily can get a team with diversity to cooperate better. 

For example we have developed a special concept to staff and develop a team that participates in UF, which is a Swedish development program for schools (the participants are around 18 years old), and the purpose is to train in a practical way entrepreneurship combined with lessons. The origin of the concept's development was that the teachers were not pleased when the pupils mostly staffed their UF-team with their buddies and thus the team most often became very "cloned" (homogeneous). More under "Testimonials" below.

To get a team to function very well you need good answers on these questions...

• How to staff teams well?
• How to get a good start and teambuilding?
• How to handle conflicts?
• How to get tips about how to cooperate with different members in the team and how they react during stressful situations?
• How should we think, if we need to change the staffing?

A team with diversity has the best potential to solve its tasks well, but in teams with diversity there is the biggest risks for bad results and destructive conflicts. How should you then handle the risks and how to develop the team in a good way?One way to act, of course, is to be proactive whenever you can e.g. to staff and start the team in a good way. How to do that? Well, by learning more about each other, e.g. via the HumanGuide concept and using the applications for teambuilding and team development. 

Of course you can also improve cooperation in established teams by using some of our HumanGuide applications. You always start by doing the personality test. Then there are many ways for team development depending on the circumstances and the ambition level. 

How can then personality knowledge support team development? In many ways e.g.

• if you understand other people well, then it is much easier to cooperate. You will understand e.g. their drives, what can make them angry, how to give them an advice they can accept, etc
• to understand what type of personalities are a cooperation challenge
• to understand how you can contribute best in a team
• to solve many conflicts, if the cause is a challenge concerning personal chemistry, which is a very common cause

Team Building/Team Development (from 2 hours...) - see video below with the exercise TeamPlay

 You use HumanGuide Cards, i.e. a deck of cards with the associated web app cards.humanguide.se. Run the exercise TeamPlay with Cards. Register the results in the app, i.e. you get a rough profile of each participant's personality and can thus reason about it and its consequences. The results can be documented in the document template TeamVy.

The purpose of TeamPlay is to increase participants' self-awareness and practice giving and receiving feedback. All cards are positive (based on positive psychology), so you can also see it as practising praising and being praised;-) The video shows how to play TeamPlay. (Talking in Swedish, but undertext in English)

There are many other possibilities because the HumanGuide concept is basically a modular system.

HumanGuide is particularly useful for conflict management. Many unhealthy conflicts fade away when there is a better understanding of each other. If the conflict concerns two people, you can follow a special methodology in the form of a so-called Personal Chemistry Analysis - see more under Products - Team Tools. If several people are involved, a so-called Team Chemistry Analysis is carried out in a similar way - see more under Products - Team Tools.

Result

The overall result is that you get a better cooperation in the team via increased self-knowledge, increased openness, and increased trust. These team qualities have a crucial effect on a team's cooperation capacity and performance.

As a "bonus" the team members learn a very useful personality theory that can, for example, be used in discussions about staffing and recruitment. This personality theory will also be like a language.

A strong argument for HumanGuide is that the underlying personality theory consists of eight dimensions. Then you get a more nuanced testresult and sharper analysis. Compare with MBTI, where you "be" one of 16 types. The popular DISC model (and similar) has only four basic dimensions. And the Five Factor Model has only five basic dimensions.Please also note that in the other service areas there may be services, which may be relevant, as they partly merge, e.g. team development always involves individual and leadership development. In addition, most of the human development can be applied in private life.

Other services...

Please also note that in the other service areas there may be services, which may be relevant, as they partly merge, e.g. team development always involves individual and leadership development. In addition, most of the human development can be applied in private life.

Did you get any useful idea? Will you act?

Testimonials

”Rolf Kenmo has adapted Szondi’s theory to everyday life. It is a great idea of conveying the theory to a broad use. That is an essential asset for making the test results immediately accepted and it works in any culture. We use HumanGuide in recruiting and team development for an internationally operating company.”

Thomas Seiler, CEO, U-blox AG, Switzerland (2003)

”The theory is explained very pedagogically in the HumanGuide concepts and it is a good support for my clients (since 2002), in vocational guidance and in coaching. HumanGuide supports well in working life as well as in private life.”

Giselle Welter, psychologist, spec. in vocational guidance, RH99, Sao Paulo, Brazil  (2000)

"Personality has always been a debatable topic throughout research and countless psychometric tests available for use. However none of these tests have the HumanGuide approach, which is practical, simple, easy to use and accurate to act upon. Supported by extensive research, HumanGuide takes in consideration eight factors, using the psychology of colours and symbols for meaningful comprehension.

The HumanGuide test does not stand alone, it goes beyond any other test. It provides unique opportunities to measure further person chemistry, passion index, job and culture profiles...It has all what an organisation needs to overcome today's more than ever complex human resources challenges.

HumanGuide has considerably improved my personal and professional life and I always appreciate our collaboration with Rolf Kenmo."

George Ubbelohde, hospitatlity Industry Executive and Educator, Brussels, Belgium (2020)

”The tests are simple and easy to use. The availability via the internet make them excellent. I have had great use of the concepts for recruitment, development of individuals and teams.”

Sven-Erik Ringström; VD WM-data IT Support AB, now CGI AB, Sweden;  (2003)

"I've been using the HumanGuide since 2012, with excellent results! It has been an assessment tool much requested by my organizational clients."

Adriana Torres Guedes, Psychologist, Brazil (2020-02-10)

"I hire probably the wrong yellow people". A manager used DISC's four dimensions. DISC's yellow dimension is represented by three dimensions with the HumanGuide. The colurs in HumanGuide are: Orange, grey, green, violett, blue, yellow, brown and red, i.e. Then the test result will be much more nuanced. Above on this page there is a video with the symbolics for the eight colours.

Manager for a restaurant chain, Sweden (2018-03-02)

"For eight years I had  a personal meeting about my PersonProfile á la HumanGuide. I have done many other personality tests cince then, but my opinion about this "method" is that it was fascinating and the most accurate. The PersonProfile is still pinned up at work."

IT manager, Sweden (2018-04-19)

"As a consultant I have done many personality tests. The results made me feel confirmed, but I didn't get any answer: Why I didn't was happy to 100%? This autumn I did the HumanGuide-test, which only took 15 min to do. It explained for me, where I had most motivation and because of then easiest to be my best version. So now I know!"

Nuclear engineer, Sweden (2018-03-27) 

”We got better staffing in our UF-teams. In the start of the school year we had a course by Rolf Kenmo in the personality test HumanGuide. The pupils did the test after our course. Then they were to staff their teams based on qualities and personality instead of gender. This resulted in more teams with more of a mix between girls and boys. Moreover, more chose to cooperate with new persons instead of their best buddies. In the distribution of roles in the UF companions the pupils based their staffing on who had the best qualities and knowledge -- instead of gender."

Henrik Samuelsson, teacher in UF (Young entrepreneurship and business), JENSEN gymnasium Södra, Sweden (2014-08-27) 

*) The school became Sweden's best UF-school in 2014.

"Rolf Kenmo assisted us in a relaxed and pedagogic way to start to work to create understanding of each other as individuals. The objective was to further improve the cooperation in our team. Rolf's work was appreciated by the participants and created a positive foundation for further development."

Eva Kimber, manager at Svensk Exportkredit, Sweden (2010-07-21) 

"Our delivery is a function undertaking with a big management responsibility; therefore, it was important that HumanGuide's Team Chemistry Analysis gave the management team not only individual understanding of strengths and risks but also knowledge about the whole team's chemistry. The management team's total strength is crucial in order to deliver at least at the agreement level."

Leif Öjestedt, manager at WM-data, now CGI AB, Sweden (2011-04-06)