Last Thursday, we finally launched our brand-new, upgraded TIPS online test platform. A week has passed since, and more than a hundred new users have taken the TIPS test and enjoyed the improved user experience as well as their TIPS report with their profiling result. Now here is an interesting question: What should you do once you’ve been TIPS-ed (or in other words, after you’ve completed the TIPS online test and received an email with your results)? How can you best apply your TIPS result to advance your own career and at the same time benefit your organization? Today and in two weeks, let me suggest to you 12 actions that you can take as an individual test user after you’ve been TIPS-ed.

1. Check your result and read your profiling report

Say you’ve just received your 36-page long TIPS profiling report with your profiling result. Take a few minutes to browse through pages 3-6 of your report, which give you an overview of your profiling results and your TIPS profile. Later on, once you have more time at hand, read through your profile and the related styles in greater detail (pages 14-21), thereby keeping in mind the following questions:

• To what extent does your TIPS Profile fit to your self-perception of your personality and your personal styles?
• What aspects of the TIPS profile describe you well?
• What aspects of the TIPS profile are incomplete or feel “wrong”?
• What aspects of your TIPS Profile do you find particularly interesting — or maybe even surprise you? Why?

Remember that in any cognitive profiling method, your test result is just an approximation of the complex reality of your unique personality (which may also be affected by certain moods, as well as your situational work and life context at the time of taking the test).

The conceptual model underlying a cognitive profiling tool may or may not be able to capture your unique personality in most of its nuances. For example, some personality tests like DISC or Enneagram don’t work for me, but other people rave about their results. So, if you notice TIPS doesn’t capture your essence well enough, forgive me. Then, keep on trying other cognitive profiling tools to find out if another one is better able to decipher the essential core of your unique personality.

2. Interpret the nuances of your profiling results

Even if you come out with the same TIPS profile as your colleague or your best friend, you may still differ from each other in some small but important nuances. The TIPS charts on page 6 of your TIPS report may explain these subtle differences:

• The TIPS profile level describes if your TIPS profile is emerging, developed, pronounced or even extreme. Many people are still at an emerging level, meaning that they’ve just “sneaked into” a profile; others have already progressed to a developed level, and rather few people are classified as “pronounced” or even “extreme” profiles (such as myself). Why are these differences important? As a general rule of thumb, the higher the development level of your TIPS profile, the more important is that you follow the “game plan” of your profile (we will discuss this later in action point 9). So, how well developed is your profile?
• The TIPS base orientation offers you yet another distinction if you come out as one of the six “dual profiles” in TIPS. While most dual profiles locate in the center in between two bases, some users clearly lean more towards one base. For example, suppose Oprah Winfrey were to take the TIPS test, then she would very likely come out as a “Popular Promoter” (due to her strong passion for people and her communicative talent). So, if you profile as a dual profile, what’s your base orientation?

3. Take note of the “life metaphor” of your profile (and also the ones of others)

Each TIPS profile comes with a unique “life metaphor” — a catchy description of what life revolves around (or “is all about”) for a person with a particular profile.

• Page 3 outlines the “life metaphor” of each TIPS profile. For example, for a Partner, life is all about people and relationships. In contrast, for a Coach, life is all about the development of human potential. What’s your profile’s life metaphor?
• Page 12 of the TIPS report gives you an overview of the life metaphors of all 11 TIPS profiles, which is a handy way to remember what makes you tick and everyone else tick.

4. Appreciate your home base and your dominant style

Each TIPS profile has a TIPS base and a dominant TIPS style that differentiates it from other profiles. Take note of how you come out with regards to these two factors, as they give you important hints on how to align your talents and how to make a difference at work:

• One important conceptual feature of TIPS are the four TIPS bases (Theories, Ideas, People, Systems), and quite a few of the questions in the TIPS online test focus on those bases. Each TIPS profile has a “home base” that specifies related “ecosystems” that a person naturally feels most attracted to. Your “home” is either located at one of the four corners of the TIPS profiling map (for the four pure profiles), or in between two of those TIPS bases (for the six dual profiles that play on two tips bases). If you profile as an All-Rounder, however, you call the center of the TIPS profiling map your home. For example, as an Ideator, I am one of the four pure TIPS profiles, and my home base (Ideas) is on the upper right of the TIPS profiling map. So, what’s your home base in TIPS?
• The four TIPS styles (to think, work, interact, and live are the other key conceptual feature of TIPS that we probe for in the questionnaire. Each TIPS profile also has a dominant style that is more important than the other TIPS styles. You can find information about your primary style on page 4 of your report. At work, focus on opportunities to employ your dominant style as much as possible, because it’s this primary style that differentiates yourself from the styles of other colleagues. For example, as an Ideator, my dominant style is the lifestyle “Flow”, meaning I am better than all other profiles with flexibly embracing change —or even better, initiating and driving it. What’s your dominant TIPS style?

5. Learn more about your profile’s strengths and weaknesses

Page 23 of your TIPS profiling reports outlines your “assets” (things that you enjoy, and are good at, doing) and “liabilities” (things that you dislike doing, as well as possible negative traits). It is important to understand your profile’s “balance sheet”, as TIPS suggests you to focus on emphasizing and playing on your strengths, while having others take care of those things you dislike and are not good at.

For example, what are the assets of Conceptualizers? They are self-reliant, strategic big picture thinkers with a balanced cognition who are born problem-solvers and concept and tool creators. So, what are the assets and liabilities of your profile?

6. Appreciate those who are very different from you

Who exactly is taking care of those things you don’t enjoy doing? The profile that is opposite yours on the TIPS Profiling Map. Interestingly, these are likely to be the people with whom you regularly clash or argue with at work, because your preferred styles of thinking, working, interacting and living are so different.

For example, if you’re a Conceptualizer (sitting on top of the TIPS profiling map), you dislike sweating the small stuff, dealing with all the operational details of business, and doing “hands-on” work. Organizers (who are grounded at the bottom of the map) love to do exactly those things, thus being able to compensate for your weaknesses.

Interim conclusion and outlook:

Today, I’ve suggested you six actions you should take after you’ve been TIPS-ed: Read about your profile; interpret the details of your result; understand the importance of playing on your profile’s life metaphor, home base, and dominant style; learn about your profile’s strengths and weaknesses —and how you can use your assets to add value to your organization and produce tangible outputs. In two weeks, you can learn what other six actions you may take to make a difference to your business and to innovation after you got TIPS-ed.

So, how can you become TIPS-ed? Simply register your user account and confirm your registration, then buy your TIPS test coupon for just USD 88.88 and do the test. It’s as easy as that!

Care to learn more about our TIPS training course? Or could you imagine introducing TIPS to your clients as a licensed trainer or coach? Contact us to tell us more.

© Dr. Detlef Reis 2018