Leveraging AI with the Composite View of Personality Assessments for Change Management

Today, we're wrapping up our series about using personality assessments while navigating change. It's been a fun ride talking about the Enneagram, Ayurvedic Doshas, and combining those for a composite view.

• Part 1: proposes why personality assessments matter for change management
• Part 2: dives into the Enneagram and how it relates to motivations, communication, and conflict
• Part 3: explores how Ayurvedic Doshas relate to energy and stress
• Part 4: explores how those assessments complement one another in practice
• Part 5 (you are here now): injects generative AI into the mix to see how it can improve how you and your team interact with stakeholders based on the assessments

Before we end, it's time to turn our focus to how to put this tactic to use with the help of AI.

Let's first look at the prompt template, then see how it evolves with an example.

Prompt Template
Start with the following paragraph.

"Act as a change management consultant. I want you to assist me with analyzing the dynamics between the people involved as it relates to our initiative in context of the intended outcome. Use their composite personality assessment (Enneagram and Ayurvedic Doshas) to assist with framing your response."

Then, add three bulleted lists to provide additional context.

1. People Involved: each point is formatted as "Name, Role: Enneagram Dosha" like "Roger, Management Consultant: Type 1w2 Pitta/Kapha"
2. Our Initiative: provide as much background context as possible about the initiative, any interactions that are relevant within the people involved or between them and other stakeholder (groups)
3. Intended Outcome: a few sentences about what you want to see happen as a result

End with the following sentence: "Based on this information, provide specific strategies to align their motivations, manage their energy, mitigate stress, and ensure there is productive collaboration."

Note that you can tweak this slightly to focus on improving yourself by providing more details about how you interact with others within the "our initiative" section, and describing the ideal state or areas where you'd like to grow as the "intended outcome".

Let's dive into an example, which is entirely fictional and does not represent any prospect or client of Dodge Labs.

Example Prompt
Act as a change management consultant. I want you to assist me with analyzing the dynamics between the people involved as it relates to our initiative in context of the intended outcome. Use their composite personality assessment (Enneagram and Ayurvedic Doshas) to assist with framing your response.

People Involved:

• Anais, Management Consultant: Type 1w2 Pitta/Kapha
• Elliot, COO at a client of Anais's: Type 5w4 Vata

Our Initiative:

• Elliot has reached out to Anais to assist his organization's modernization program as they have recently engaged a private capital partner to assist with growing their company
• Elliot has experience with these initiatives in a smaller scale that is limited to implementations of operational systems at a prior company where he was the Head of Operations
• This is Elliott's first time being tasked with a complete audit and overhaul of business processes and systems to align with a fresh strategy that is digital-first
• Anais has picked up on Elliot's reluctance to provide control of the discovery phase to an outsider, and she has not directly asked Elliot about the reasons for this
• Both Elliot and Anais have expressed confidence that it is possible to achieve the outcomes desired, although there is still friction between the two

Intended Outcome: Anais and Elliot need to find common ground on their roles and responsibilities as it relates to the initiative, as their efforts combined will have a huge impact.

Based on this information, provide specific strategies to align their motivations, manage their energy, mitigate stress, and ensure there is productive collaboration.

Limit your response to no more than 3 bullet points that are each only one sentence.

For brevity, I added that last sentence to the example prompt, which influences the response; I encourage you to try this prompt in your AI of choice to see the full response.

Example Response
ChatGPT's response to the example prompt are these bullet points (again, this would be longer had I not added a sentence requesting it to limit the response).

• Align Motivations: Anais should validate Elliot's expertise by co-creating a discovery framework that acknowledges Elliot's insights while clearly defining areas where Anais's external perspective adds value.
• Manage Energy: Leverage Anais's structured approach (Type 1w2, Pitta/Kapha) to provide clarity and timelines, while giving Elliot (Type 5w4, Vata) space to analyze details and contribute ideas independently, reducing the pressure of immediate collaboration.
• Mitigate Stress and Build Collaboration: Anais should initiate an open conversation to address Elliot's reluctance, framed around building trust and emphasizing that a shared vision can create long-term organizational impact, balancing Anais's proactive leadership and Elliot's analytical independence.

If you're picking up that it sounds academic and devoid of emotion, you're right!

It's important to continue the conversation in whatever way you see fit:

• Ask clarifying questions like "how should Anais propose or start the conversation with Elliot about his reluctance", which can then be continued in a role play format asking AI to play either Anais or Elliot
• Provide examples that align with AI's suggestions like "Anais has suggested a discovery framework that aligns Elliot to his domains of expertise, but Elliot did not want to be limited to only those areas"
• Request for more specifics around suggested frameworks like "provide a sample discovery framework that Anais can use and how it works"

TLDR: Using the tactics described in this series is a great start to understanding how people factor into initiatives and ways to make change smoother. However, not even AI replaces the benefits of having an experienced coach guide you along the journey.

P.S. I hope you enjoyed this series, especially as it has already sparked a number of conversations with readers like you. Assessments and AI are valuable tools, but recognizing their full potential often relies on the nuance and guidance that comes with coaching.

While I would love to offer it, I do not provide that type of coaching as part of my advisory work, but I do know someone that does. They have both the expertise and experience from consistently helping organizations of various sizes scale their teams and instill a culture that embraces change.

If you’re interested in diving deeper or integrating these insights into your organization, feel free to get in touch with me and I’d be happy to make an introduction.