I have just joined MarchFifteen and of course, as a certified coach and assessor myself, volunteered to be assessed by my new partners. What better way would there be for us to get to know one another. Then, after two short weeks on the job, one of my partners, Martine Sanscartier debriefed me on my assessment results.

Q: What was it like to have an assessment debrief?

A: As you probably can imagine it is both exciting and nerve-wracking to hear feedback about yourself.  As an assessor myself, I do take the feedback in context a bit better, but still there is a bit of anxiety.

Martine was just right in terms of setting the context as my future partner. This was a bit of a different debrief for her too. That, however, did not stop her from giving me the facts. The exercise was enlightening as I found out I am good both at team work and at working alone. I was somewhat surprised to hear about a positive cognitive score, and that one still is a surprise to me, the fact that I show up in the testing as a good thinker.  And I am not exactly sure why I am still surprised.

Continuing on to the facts, I am more dominant than I originally appear, and less relaxed. This as you can imagine was not news to me, but it was a reminder about living in who I am authentically more often.

Finally, I am not prone to any major swings of emotion, and believe me this has taken a lot of work over my 20+ year career to achieve, because I come from a highly emotional European family.

Q. What was I left with to take away from the debrief?

A. Truthfully, I walked away feeling more informed and less worried about my fit in this new role. Yes, there are one or two more ‘personal’ things that I haven’t mentioned, but all in all I feel better for having the experience of being assessed. It really is good to hear an outside perspective about your skills and areas for improvement. It has helped me to better ‘own’ them and move forward using the information.