As part of the purchase of this book, you can discover your innovation strengths by completing The Six ‘I’s® assessment online. It will take you about 10 minutes to complete.
The questionnaire assesses your skills profile, around the six distinct stages of innovation. As a self-assessment tool, it is only indicative of your strengths, as perceived by you. Your results are not absolute and cannot be interpreted as competences or true abilities.
In order to improve innovation skills, it is useful to understand the
perception of your current strengths. Use your results to increase self-awareness, build on your strengths and create dynamic teams and organisations that can innovate effectively and productively.
Once you have completed the questionnaire, you will receive a Report. Inside the Report is a graph that gives you an overview of your innovation strengths.
This will show your scores on each ‘I’. You will see that you are not just one ‘I’, but a combination, some stronger than others. This is what we call your unique innovation style.
The graph overleaf shows someone whose core innovation strength is identify. You will see, however, that he has varying scores on the other five ‘I’s, with investigate as his lowest score. He is likely to be good at identifying opportunities and igniting ideas, also, to a degree, looking at how to improve on existing ideas. He may well miss the investigate stage altogether, jumping straight into invest and implement, but these are not his core strengths either. These areas are his potential blind spots and areas he will need to compensate through either developing skills or collaborating with those who have these areas as strengths. Within a team environment he will be a good strategic thinker and idea generator, but less interested in making the idea work. This is where he will need to partner with other people who are stronger in those skills so that he can improve his likelihood of success.
The Six ‘I’s® results – innovation strengths profile
The overall score is not an average of his results, it is normed against a database of other people who have completed the questionnaire who also deem themselves strong, or not so strong, on the different ‘I’s.
Within this book, there is a description of each ‘I’. This includes strengths and challenges as well as the role each ‘I’ plays within the innovation process and the type of mindset that is required. Actively use this information, alongside your report, as you work through the book.
As you are a mix of ‘I’s, take that into consideration when you read your report as the various mix of ‘I’s will have an impact on how you innovate. For example, if you are high on ignite and implement, but low on investigate, you may well perceive your strengths as someone who is strong at generating new ideas and jump straight into action. It may well serve you to learn how to appreciate the investigate stage, by either developing some of the investigator skills in your own skill set and/or teaming up with other people who are strong in this area of innovation.
It is also useful for you to know your lower scoring ‘I’s so you make sure that you are developing skills that are important to your work. If you do not compensate for the areas in which you are not strong, and they are important to you, you are in danger, from a skills perspective, of not being able to innovate successfully. Seek out those around you who have these as strengths, as they can help accelerate your ability to do something well. Increasing your self-awareness will help you realise the importance of other skills to generate new ideas and make them work.
WORKING WITH DIFFERENT STYLES
As you learn to enhance your strengths and build new skills, invariably you will be working with people who are different from you. Take into account how the different styles on The Six ‘I’s® like to be communicated with. This will help you see from their perspective and build better team relationships.
STATISTICAL RELIABILITY
As people have a very different way of scoring themselves on a questionnaire – for example, some use a full scale, others do not, some have a tendency to score high on all questions, others low – the raw scores have been standardised. This takes away bias and helps to make the assessment more robust and meaningful. The standardised results have also been normed within a global population of people that have completed the questionnaire. This will give you a sense of not only what you think about your strengths, but also how you compare to a broader sample of people who also consider themselves strong or not on each of the ‘I’s.
Please keep your proof of purchase and visit our website www.yesyoucaninnovate.com. On the site, you will see details about how you can access the questionnaire.