The IPSAT is designed to give you a comprehensive and integrated understanding of your Identity Profile, the unique combination of personality, strengths, skills, passions and values. In short, it will help you discover, optimize and unleash your potential.
In a now classic speech about self-renewal, the late John Gardner said:
There’s something I know about you that you may or may not know about yourself. You have within you more resources of energy than have ever been tapped, more talent than has ever been exploited, more strength than has ever been tested, more to give than you have ever given.
Completing the IPSAT and meeting with your coach has given you a clearer picture of your untapped potential. Now it’s time to optimize and unleash it for the benefit of others. Here’s five steps forward on that important journey.
1. Refine the working draft of your Identity Overview Statement.
You don’t understand your identity until you can explain it concisely, using common language that would make sense to anyone, even if they have never heard of the tools and resources that helped you discover your identity. That common language explanation is your Identity Overview Statement.
Your first “now what” step is to apply the input from your coach to upgrade your Identity Overview Statement from 75% to 100%. Here’s how you can tell if you have a top shelf, 100% statement.
Would you use your Identity Overview Statement, as it is currently written, on a resume you submit for a job you really want?
If the answer to that question isn’t an enthusiastic “Yes,” you aren’t there yet.
You created the initial draft of this statement when you completed the IPSAT. Most people who apply themselves to this process create an initial statement that is about 75% in terms of clarity and quality. Your coaching session focused on how each component of your Identity Profile contributed to your overview statement and you probably noted tweaks you could make to push your statement closer to 90%. But most people don’t do anything after the coaching session to upgrade their statement.
Your Identity Overview Statement is meant to be shared others. It should be viewed as something you would post in your office, not hide in your journal. If you don’t refine it, you won’t be motivated to share it. That defeats the entire purpose. You need to get your statement as close to 100% as possible.
To help you take your Identity Overview Statement closer to 100% we created a step-by-step worksheet. If you didn’t access this worksheet during the IPSAT onboarding process, you can download here. You will not be able to gain full value from the remaining next steps if you don’t invest the thirty minutes of time with this worksheet to take your Identity Overview Statement from where it is now to 100%.
2. Use the sharable IPSAT Report link to invite feedback about your Identity Overview Statement.
The refined version of your Identity Overview Statement reflects your internal self-awareness. Now it’s time to grow your external self-awareness by inviting feedback from a few people who know you well and want to help you optimize and unleash your potential. Typically, this will include a member of your family, and several people from your friendship network.
We’ve simplified the process of inviting feedback by creating a sharable link available on the dashboard of your IPSAT Report page. Just login to your account, click on the view report link, then the share report button on the righthand side of the page. The share report button will generate a URL you can use to allow others to view your IPSAT results.
The sharable report doesn’t include any IPSAT scores. It simply summarizes the results of the five pre-IPSAT assessments and includes your latest IPSAT overview statement.
Consider using an email like this to invite feedback:
Hi (first name),
I’m on a journey to discover, optimize and unleash my potential using the Identity Profile Self-Awareness Tool (IPSAT). One of the key results of this experience is a less than 100-word statement I’ve created, with input from my coach, explaining how my personality, strengths, skills, passions and personal values work together in my life.
Would you be willing to read my Identity Overview Statement and give me top-of-mind feedback?
You can see the results of assessments that are part of the IPSAT experience along with my Identity Overview Statement here. (Be sure to make “here” a hyperlink to your shareable IPSAT Report.)
After reflecting briefly on my Identity Overview Statement, just click reply with your answer to these three questions:
On a scale of 1–10, with 1 being “this isn’t you” and 10 being “this is totally you,” what number would you apply to my statement?
What part of the statement do you agree with most?
What in this statement, if anything, do you find confusing, missing or inconsistent with your understanding of me?
Thanks in advance for considering this. I look forward to hearing from you.
Sincerely,
Your name
P.S. If you want to explore the Identity Profile Self-Awareness Tool (IPSAT) for yourself visit myIPSAT.com.
Make it your goal go obtain feedback from at least three people. Focus on people who know you well and want to help you grow. If one of the people in your feedback group is a spouse or significant other, you may want to talk about it in person before you send the email.
Review the results from your feedback group and make any edits or updates to your statement. If the numerical scores average six or lower, you may want to invite additional feedback, especially if the information shared in response to the third question is incomplete (anything confusing, missing or inconsistent with your understanding of me?).
3. Schedule a meeting with the person you report to at work to talk about your IPSAT.
People with high self-awareness know who they are, what they do best, where they have gaps, and they take the initiative to share this information with others. Remember, your Identity Statements, including your Overview Statement, are not just for you. They are also for the people around you.
One of the most powerful action steps you can take to demonstrate your commitment to the mission of the organization and your place on the team is to model high levels of self-awareness. Start by scheduling a meeting with your boss.
Getting the meeting with your supervisor should be straight forward if your organization is using the IPSAT as part of a developmental initiative. If you engaged the IPSAT outside the context of your company or organization, send an email like this:
Hi (first name),
I’m on a journey to discover, optimize and unleash my potential using the Identity Profile Self-Awareness Tool (IPSAT). One of the key results of this experience is a less than 100-word statement I’ve created, with input from my coach, explaining how my personality, strengths, skills, passions and personal values work together in my life.
You can see the results of assessments that are part of the IPSAT experience along with my Identity Overview Statement here. (Be sure to make “here” a hyperlink to your shareable IPSAT Report.)
I’d like to meet with you to share what I’m learning about myself and get your input.
Please suggest some dates/times that would work best for you.
Sincerely,
Your name
Bring your IPSAT report with you to the meeting with your boss, including an extra copy of the page labeled, Communicating Your Identity with Others. This page of your report lists all five of your Identity Statements.
Here’s the outline of the talking points for the meeting:
- Intro: The Identity Profile Self-Awareness Tool (IPSAT) defines self-awareness as being honest with yourself, about yourself, and honest about yourself with others. Working through the assessments and talking with my coach has helped me get honest with myself. Meeting with you is part of my commitment to get honest about myself with others.
I have worked hard to refine my Identity Overview Statement, including a conversation with my coach and feedback from a few people who know me well.
I have two objectives for this conversation:
- I want to bring my best to work every day. And I’m committed to taking responsibility for my personal development, informed by my increased self-awareness.
- Once we agree on what I do best, I’m asking you to help me do as much of that for our team as possible. And I’m asking for your support in the pursuit of my personal growth, which includes proactively addressing my potential derailers.
- I brought a copy of one of the key pages of my IPSAT report for you. I drafted these five statements, with input from my coach. I think this would be a good place to begin exploring what I’m learning about myself.
Even if your supervisor doesn’t fully agree with the Identity Statements you have developed, she/he will almost certainly celebrate the ownership you are taking of your personal development and commitment to make your best contribution to the team.
4. Build a specific action plan, informed by your meeting with your supervisor.
The two most powerful next steps you can take after growing your self-awareness are creating a personal growth plan informed by your developmental priorities and designing a mitigation strategy for a potential derailer in a specific vulnerable setting.
Your highest ROI personal development will be informed by your IPSAT results, and focus on taking some combination of your personality, strengths, skills, values and passions to the next level. Similarly, when you know how your identity predisposes you to self-defeating behaviors (potential derailer) and where or when that is most likely to happen (vulnerable setting) you are strategically positioned to design a mitigation strategy.
You can’t expect anyone to do this for you. Follow through on the commitment you made to yourself and your boss by taking ownership of your developmental journey.
5. Publish your Identity Overview Statement wherever appropriate.
Your Identity Overview Statement was never intended to be private. That’s why it is the first part of the report page labeled, “Communicating Your Identity with Others.” Frontloading your statement with the most important information about you in the first 20–25 words makes it easier to repurpose it on your LinkedIn profile, your resume, in a speaking bio, and any other place you explain yourself to others.
We recommend that you print the shareable version of your IPSAT report and post it in your work area as a reminder to yourself and provide helpful information for others.
One way to “publish” your Identity Overview Statement that you might not consider is a conversation with people who have leadership responsibility in organizations in which you serve as a volunteer. It is admirable to invest your time “where needed most” as a volunteer. It is strategic to offer what you do best based on your Identity Profile. Now that you have a higher level of identity self-awareness it is your responsibility to communicate this information with others.
Consider scheduling a meeting with the leader who oversees your volunteer activity and modify the talking points from step 3 above to explore how you can maximize your contribution by offering what you do best in your volunteer service. Keep in mind very few non-profit leaders will have ever been approached by a volunteer in this way, so you may need to get creative in exploring a good fit.
Who Does This?
Despite the fact this “now what” list has only five steps, you might be feeling a bit overwhelmed. Maybe you are asking, “Who does this?”
People like you. The individuals crazy enough to believe part of what makes life meaningful is becoming who you were meant to be and loving what you do because it adds value to others and contributes to the common good.
You have already done most of the hard work by completing the IPSAT and meeting with your coach. Now it’s time to refine your Identity Overview Statement, get feedback from a few close friends, talk with your supervisor, make an action plan and share your identity with others. You can do this. Get started today.
