The CVI Guy

When it comes to measuring, and predicting the true nature and potential for contribution in people, according to Dr. David Mashburn, adjutant professor at Seattle Pacific University, we’ve all been waiting for a Franklin/Edison moment.

Sure, we have categorized the external behaviors and the antics of different types of people. We can see that some people speak more directly and forcefully than others. Some prefer to sit back and watch and ask questions. Others jump in and share their vision and their passion energetically with a group of people. Others record information and remain formal and reserved even in intense situations. 

We can see and accept that there are behavioral differences. We just don’t know what causes these differences. There has remained an assumption- probably never really stated- that the deepest innate capacities of a person can’t be known. Maybe there is no innate unchanging nature in a person.

The Ben Franklin of human performance might have been Abraham Maslow. Everyone knows about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs pyramid- but few are familiar with his study of Peak Performers. He spent copious amounts of time studying people who were firing on all cylinders at work. These people were engaged in their work at a level and in a manner that made everyone else look hopelessly bored and restless in their jobs.

These were people that others looked at and saw they were living and working in greener pastures.  

A conviction began to grow in Maslow. There was something in people, that if understood and harnessed, could greatly increase performance and engagement in one’s work.

Maslow declared:  “We have, each one of us, an essential inner nature which is instinctive, intrinsic, given, natural, i.e. with an appreciable hereditary determinant, and which tends to strongly  persist….This inner core shows itself as natural inclinations, propensities or inner bent. That authentic selfhood can be defined in part by knowing what one is fit for and not fit for. ~  Maslow, Toward a Psychology of Being

Until now, there has not been a way to consistently and reliably identify these unique personal capacities, this intrinsic nature. No way to discern reliably what causes each of us to engage in tasks in a particular way or to choose to be a certain kind of presence in the room. There has been no way to describe and quantify our essential, individual human nature.

 Like predecessors to Edison, experts have spent their time measuring things they could see; Levels of skill, IQ, behaviors and depth of experience. They have created quantifiable measurements of math knowledge, language proficiency and dozens of other competencies.

Many experts have even studied and measured the behavioral types of people. The behaviors are the closest outward manifestation of the inner nature. But, understandably, no one has been able to characterize the source of our unique motivation to choose certain strategies of behavior.

We have all been asking the wrong questions; Observing and labeling the visible lightning rather than studying its invisible and mysterious source.

The Core Values Index is the only assessment that characterizes and measures the innate unchanging nature of an individual person, providing greater than 94% repeat test reliability.

Take the first step toward learning about your Core Values Nature by taking the Core Values Index Assessment.  You will find the Core Values Index Assessment and my books; The Core Values Handbook, and Choices at the Taylor Protocols store, www.taylorprotocols.com.