The Thinking Pattern Profile

The Thinking Pattern ProfileTM

The Thinking Pattern Profile is built on a methodology that directly measures actual talent. It measures competency quickly and easily and accurately. And it is quietly being used by some of the best companies to close the performance gap.

It shows what a person pays attention to as they make decisions — and also what they don’t pay attention to. Therefore it provides a helpful indicator of the sources of a person’s strengths and vulnerabilities.


“Your work with that profile has done more than just help our company. It has helped my wife and me. In fact it’s changed our lives and our marriage.”

Robert E. Rich, Jr.
CEO, Rich Products Corporation

“We use the [Thinking Pattern] Profile to better target our recruitment, staffing, and people development dollars. It has always given us information that is amazingly accurate, without being intrusive. We use it as our competitive edge, for it highlights the strengths that actually exist.”

Jean Lydon, Executive Director,
Institute for Excellence, Rich-SeaPak Corporation,
“YOUR COMPETITIVE EDGE”

 


Why the Thinking Pattern Profile

Thoughts direct actions, and actions lead to results and feelings. New results come from new actions which are generated because of new thinking.

Thus the understanding of one’s thinking style and process is the key to harnessing this power to achieve continuous improvement and excellent results. The Thinking Pattern Profile provides this understanding as no other instrument can.

What the Thinking Pattern Profile Measures

Because it measures the pattern of decision-making which the person uses when processing information about the world and themselves, the Thinking Pattern Profile empowers both individuals and groups to identify strengths and blocks relating to the:

  • people with whom they must work
  • tasks they are to perform
  • the environment in which they work
  • inner capacities involving confidence and self-esteem

In short, the Thinking Pattern Profile system measures the capacity, clarity, and balance that individuals and groups have regarding people, tasks, systems and themselves.

Some of the competencies it can assess are:

  • initiative
  • strategic thinking ability
  • common sense
  • self-confidence
  • optimism
  • intuitive insight
  • insight into people
  • listening ability
  • ability to interpret messages
  • desire to service customers
  • ability to handle rejection
  • flexibility
  • drive
  • problem-solving ability
  • planning ability
  • attentiveness to planning

What the Thinking Pattern Profile Is Used For

The Thinking Pattern Profile is a multi-purpose profile. Organizations around the country are using the Thinking Pattern Profile to:

  • enhance efforts to achieve quality
  • improve selection procedures
  • identify high potential employees
  • Planning development opportunities
  • Understanding willingness to perform
  • target training more accurately than other assessments
  • build team strength and team understanding
  • Determining the real competencies behind other assessment results
  • identify individuals’ and groups’ actual concept of excellence, service, sales, and the work environment
  • promote self-acceptance and self-confidence
  • position empowerment as accountability and self-management

Read more about the uses for the Thinking Pattern Profile.

How The Thinking Pattern Profile Ranks Against Other Assessments

The Thinking Pattern Profile is unlike other assessments in several ways.

First of all, it is not a self-report instrument. Self-Report Assessments (like the Myers Briggs) do what they say, and do it well. They measure how a person says they will behave or what competence they say they have. 360° Feedback does what it says, and does it well. It measures one person’s perception of another person.

The Thinking Pattern Profile does not ask the respondents to describe themselves. Thus it is not as vulnerable to bias as the Myers-Briggs and other personal inventories are. It is not possible to bias one’s answers in the Thinking Pattern Profile the way it is with these other instruments.

Rather than asking you to tell me how well you play the piano (self-report), I will gain a more accurate assessment of your style if I ask you to actually play. This way I can see for myself how well you play. The Thinking Pattern Profile is like this. It asks the respondents not to tell how they think; it asks them to actually think, to make minute decisions by rank-ordering several items. Thus it tracks the actual pattern of their thinking.

Secondly, the profile places its emphasis upon thinking, not behaving. It recognizes that behavior can spring from different decision bases in different people. Procrastination in one person, for example, results because that person approaches the world through a mental model and thus they must think things through thoroughly before they act.

Another person, however, might seem to procrastinate simply because they have no mental model operating. Rather, they see so many possibilities for the meaning of what they see that they stall trying to assess the value of each of them. It is obvious that a “Time Management” tip that addresses the first person’s problem will only aggravate the other’s!

Read more about the types and uses of assessments, and how the Thinking Pattern Profile compares to these profiles.

How the Thinking Pattern Profile Generates Such Accurate Information about People

The Thinking Pattern Profile allows us to determine this root thinking style that lies at the base of a person’s decision-making. In this way the Thinking Pattern Profile is an invaluable tool for assisting in personal and group development.

Whether it is measuring one’s ability to plan, to pay attention to concrete detail, to use intuitive thinking, or to read other people, the Thinking Pattern Report pinpoints capacities a person actually possesses and suggests ways to leverage strengths in order to optimize their impact.

The Thinking Pattern Profile is like a “fingerprint of your thinking process.” It has you do a rank-ordering task, then tracks the pattern in the decisions you make.

It is objective, quantitative, universally applicable, and virtually impossible to bias.

More than 99 studies have been conducted testing validity. Most of these studies are available from the Hartman Institute at the University of Tennessee.

Read a technical review about the Thinking Patterm Profile.

The History and Founder of The Thinking Pattern Profile

The Thinking Pattern Profile is based on the Hartman Value Profile.

Robert S. Hartman was a mathematician and philosopher who devoted his life to studying how people think. He developed a symbolic logic-based system that indicates clearly and accurately, what a person’s thinking patterns actually are. The system that the profile is based on has been tested against norms of validity, reliability, discrimination and face value and has been found to be EEOC sturdy and reflective of people’s decision-making and valuing processes.

Hartman, with Maslow, is credited with initiating the Human Potential movement in the United States. In 1973, Hartman received the Nobel Peace Nomination for his work in human decision-making. A philosopher and mathematician, he became a Visiting Professor at both Yale and Harvard and taught at the University of Tennessee and the University of Mexico in Mexico City.

When Hartman died in 1973, one of his UT students, Wayne Carpenter, developed a computerized system of reports building on Hartman’s work. Since then, the profile has been the basis for an extensive series of validity studies and refinements. Today, it is the next generation of assessment instruments. In its accuracy, objectivity, and simplicity of administration, it is unmatched.

How to Obtain the Profile

Just call the Center for Applied Axiometrics. They will discuss with you which profiles are suited to your organization’s needs. They will also explain pricing and billing requirements and issue online passwords required for access to the profiles.