Clark
Very disappointing framework!
This is by quite a long way, the worst (of the many) corporate personality assessment frameworks I've come across. Yes, Myers-Briggs, Birkman, Insights etc. have their weaknesses, but I think they are still well-considered enough to be fundamentally useful & insightful. I cannot say the same about 5 Voices. In fact, in some ways, 5 Voices is actively detrimental. The methodology seems critically flawed. And for something that is supposed to support people in strengthening their communication, the ambiguity and at times inaccuracy in language used - and the two-dimensional approach to the way results are communicated/presented - are very disappointing. Many of my colleagues found multiple questions baffling. The approach of giving everyone a basic 1-5 ranking for the 5 Voices, and defaulting to calling the 4th one your 'blindspot' and the 5th one your 'nemesis' is simplistic to the point of making it a bit useless (even if the questions were better designed/worded). It makes an assumption that well-rounded people don't exist and creates a situation where someone who has very minor preferences across the 5 will come out the same as someone who genuinely does have significant blind spots in specific 'voices'. On top of this, as a senior leader who cares about culture, I was very concerned to see that colleagues assigned a 'guardian' result, were described as "risk-averse"; this demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of risk management concepts and perpetuates a damaging stereotype that our organisation has been actively trying to dispel. This will now make it harder to have effective communication in our organisation as the messaging we've been working hard at is being undermined by ill-considered and simplistic blanket statements in these 5 Voices reports. Note to GiANT: please put more thought into your language & communication of results. Please also read up on what cultural & operational factors actually make organisations successful. And try to understand the reality that - in the same way as the better the brakes, the faster a car's top speed can be - the better the managers in my team are at identifying, assessing & controlling risks, the more risk they can (& do!) take.