Has anyone ever asked you that? It is an expression that has been around a long time. While we all have general ideas or feelings about what our strengths may be, wouldn’t it be nice if we had a way to gain more insight into our strengths, how we are best motivated, how well we adapt to change, and most importantly how we are being perceived by others?
 
That is what began the Forté journey more than 38 years ago. Forté is a French word that means “one’s strengths.” Strength is defined as “a good or beneficial quality or attribute of a person or thing.” Yet back in the late 1970s, there were no assessments that focused on individual strengths, and specifically communication-style strengths.
 
There is a bit of cause-and-effect in play here. In 1947, the National Institute of Health initiated a process of assessing members of the military and federal employees that not only included work skills, but also personality traits. As you can imagine, that created demand and hundreds, if not thousands, of assessments were developed. Many, however, were not statistically validated instruments – many times they were someone’s master’s or doctoral thesis.
 
High levels of validity have always been a cornerstone of the Forté Communication Style survey. The result has to be highly accurate and actionable. As the first computerized communication-style profile, initially on an IBM Series 1, then migrated to the IBM PC in 1981, ease-of-use and ease-of-interpretation joined validity as Forté cornerstones.
 
Forté focuses on the “who” you are as it relates to communication-style strengths. Then, it analyzes how you have been adapting your strengths over the most recent 30 days to an identified environment. Using predictive analytics, Forté then shares how you are “most likely” coming across to others. Ultimately, this drives a communication-style strategy for you to use over the next 30 days to reduce or remove any possibilities for miscommunication or misunderstanding.
 
The first time you complete your Forté surveys it is called the “benchmark” survey. Life goes on and Forté is not “once then done.” You can complete your Forté Adapting Updates as often as every 30 days, and each update includes a brand-new communication-style strategy for the next 30 days. The system also trends the adapting updates so that you can learn the optimum adapting strategies that best accomplish your goals. You can also complete adapting updates to different environments, such as “how my team expects me to act at work;” “how my boss expects me to act at work;” and “how my direct reports expect me to act at work.” You will receive a different communication-style strategy for each environment. When you think about it, you’re adapting throughout the day, so why not adapt in the ways that are most effective?
 
If you’d like to take the journey with us, please click here and you will be directed to our website, where you can complete your own complimentary Forté Communication Style Report. 
 
C.D. “Hoop” Morgan, III is the founder and chairman of The Forté Institute, LLC, a global behavioral sciences firm best known for developing and providing innovative people, process and interpersonal performance improvement solutions. Forté provides online communication style reports to more than 6,000 corporate clients throughout the globe. To learn more about the company, go to www.theforteinstitute.com or call (910) 452-5152.