Using Persona with a team without ranking people

Before anyone takes a test, decide what the results are for and say it out loud. Persona is built for self-insight and development: helping each person understand their own habits, and helping a team talk about how it works. It is not built to screen, hire, promote or rank people, and every result says so: "Self-insight, not a diagnosis or a hiring decision."

Writing the purpose down protects the team and the results. People answer more honestly when they know their answers will not be used against them, and an honest result is the only kind worth discussing.

Teams is the manager's view of Persona. It shows each assignment's status, from assigned to accepted, in progress and completed, and group figures for the tests a group has taken. It does not show anyone's scores, and it has no ranking and no list of lowest scores.

• Group figures appear only when at least 5 people other than you have results. Smaller groups show no figures at all.
• Head counts are rounded down to a multiple of 5 and shown as "at least" numbers.
• Averages use each person's latest result for a test, so a retake does not count twice.
• A result whose top patterns are level counts as Even profile, never forced into one pattern.

When part of a picture would let someone work out a small group, Teams holds it back and says why. That includes two reads that overlap so closely that subtracting one from the other could point to a single person.

Insights show how a group's results are spread across patterns, and how much answer evidence they rest on, as shares of people rather than counts. Read them as a description of how this group answered at one time, not as a measure of how well the team performs.

Small differences mean little, especially when a figure rests on only a few more people than the floor. Look for patterns that are clearly common or clearly rare in the group, and ask what they mean for the way the work is done.

A group figure only protects people if no one can be picked out of it. Research on releasing data about people has shown that small groups and overlapping cuts can identify individuals even without names (Sweeney, 2002). Persona's floor of 5 people is counted without the person reading, so a manager's own result can never be the one that makes a figure appear.

If your team is small, expect to see status only. That is the floor working, not a fault, and it is the same everywhere group figures appear.

Teams shows status and group figures, but that is not the whole picture, and people deserve to know it. In Persona's own words: "Teams shows status and group figures only. Persona managers can still open a person's own result from Data tables."

Say this when you assign a test; the invite repeats who can open a result before anyone accepts. A result is never shown publicly unless its owner shares it, and a share link shows band names only and expires. Sharing a result safely explains the details.

Persona sends no email for you. Each person gets their own invite link, which you copy and send yourself, and each person sees only their own assignment.

Feedback does not always help. A large review of feedback studies found that it improved performance on average, yet a sizeable share of feedback interventions made things worse, most often when the feedback drew attention to the person instead of the task (Kluger and DeNisi, 1996). Results about personal habits sit close to the person, so frame the conversation around the work.

Teams also learn more when people feel safe to speak up, admit mistakes and ask for help (Edmondson, 1999). A team session on Persona results should make that easier, not harder.

1. Start with the group figures: which patterns are common across the team, and where the team leans together.
2. Ask what that means for how work is planned, handed over and reviewed.
3. Invite people to share their own reading if they want to. Never ask anyone to show a result.
4. Pick one team practice to try, such as a clearer hand-off, and agree when to look at it again.

A mission is one test, or a ready-made template of tests, assigned to people with a due date. Choose tests that fit the purpose you wrote down, and keep the number small: one well-chosen test that people discuss is worth more than several they rush.

Give people time to finish before you look at group figures, and remember that figures will not appear until enough people have results.

• Using results to decide who to hire, promote or let go.
• Comparing two people's results in front of others.
• Asking someone to share a result as a condition of anything.
• Reading a pattern as a fixed type: a result describes how someone answered at one time.

Used this way, Persona gives a team a shared language for how work gets done, without turning anyone into a number. Persona for teams describes the tools in more detail.