Every association staff team includes a mix of motivations, working styles, and communication preferences. That mix is what makes teams capable of complex work, and it’s also what makes them frustrating when things aren’t clicking. Maybe you’re navigating a conflict between two colleagues who are clashing over how decisions get made. Or perhaps you’re noticing a high-performing staff member quietly disengage. We’ve all seen this before, but these aren’t personality problems—they’re gaps in how teams understand each other. Behavioral assessment tools can help solve this.

Over the past three years, I’ve used the The Predictive Index extensively with staff teams and have worked with other tools such as StrengthsFinder (now CliftonStrengths)and Enneagram at various points in my career. Each has its merits, but what they share is more important than their differences: They give teams a structured, neutral way to understand how individuals prefer to work, communicate, and collaborate. That shared understanding is where trust and alignment start to build.

Why ‘How You Work’ Matters More Than ‘Who You Are’

What’s valuable about The Predictive Index in particular is the focus on work style rather than personality type. This distinction matters. Association professionals don’t need to analyze each other’s inner personalities. They need to understand why one colleague thrives with a detailed agenda while another gets energized by an open-ended brainstorming session. They need to know who on the team will gravitate toward steady, repeatable work and who will want to bounce between tasks.

These differences aren’t inherently better or worse, but when they go unspoken, they become the source of everyday friction that slowly erodes trust and collaboration. Understanding how people prefer to work through an assessment makes those differences visible and gives the team a shared language to talk about them. That alone can shift a dynamic.

Start With Yourself

The most effective way to introduce an assessment to a team is to lead with your own results. Sharing that openly demystifies the tool and it signals vulnerability, which gives everyone else permission to engage with their results honestly rather than defensively. Most people, once they see their own profile, recognize themselves in it immediately. Of the more than 50 people I've guided through this process, I've never had someone say the results didn't reflect them.

For association leaders considering this approach, that modeling matters. If you want your team to take it seriously, you have to go first, and you have to be willing to share what you’ve learned about your own blind spots, not just your strengths.

Where the Real Value Shows Up

Individual profiles are useful, but the deeper value comes when you start overlaying them, looking at how two people’s styles interact, and then zooming out to see the team as a whole. A one-on-one comparison might reveal that two staff members who frequently butt heads are both high on the drive to influence outcomes, but low on the instinct to collaborate first. Neither is wrong, but without that awareness, both assume the other is being difficult. With it, they can start to navigate their working relationship differently.

At the team level, patterns emerge. Many association teams I've worked with, for example, score high on adaptability and flexibility, which makes sense given the nature of the work. But that same profile often comes with a caution area: The team may be so collaborative that it struggles to drive toward decisions and results. Knowing that as a group creates space to actively compensate for it.

Keep It Alive, but Keep It in Perspective

The biggest risk with any assessment is that it becomes a one-time team-building exercise that fades from memory within a month. To prevent that, embed it in your team's rhythms. Dedicate a few minutes at a staff meeting each month for someone to share what they've learned about their own style. When friction arises between colleagues, revisit their profiles together. Check in at the three- and six-month marks to see what's stuck and what's been forgotten.

At the same time, guard against the tool becoming a crutch—or worse, a label. A profile should never be used to limit someone's opportunities or excuse a lack of growth. The goal is awareness, not categorization.

These tools work best when leaders treat them as an ongoing investment in how the team operates, which is a signal that the organization cares enough about its people to understand what makes them work well and what gets in the way.