Group Styles Inventory
The Group Styles Inventory (GSI) is a research-based, 72-item assessment designed to measure how team members interact with one another and approach problem-solving when working in groups. Taking approximately 15 minutes to complete online or on paper, the tool helps organizations analyze both “Constructive” styles that promote high-quality decisions and “Defensive” behaviors that hinder progress. It provides teams with a objective, experiential way to address group dynamics and shift toward better communication, consensus, and innovative solutions.
About this Test
Develop consensus decision-making skills and promote constructive team environments with the Group Styles Inventory™. The GSI provides team members with visual, experiential learning on how Constructive group styles lead to superior solutions. The Group Styles Inventory (GSI) is the only research-based tool that provides a valid and reliable measure of how people in groups interact with each other and work as a team to solve problems.
The Group Styles Inventory (GSI) is a research-based, 72-item assessment designed to measure how team members interact with one another and approach problem-solving when working in groups. Taking approximately 15 minutes to complete online or on paper, the tool helps organizations analyze both “Constructive” styles that promote high-quality decisions and “Defensive” behaviors that hinder progress. It provides teams with a objective, experiential way to address group dynamics and shift toward better communication, consensus, and innovative solutions.
What Is The GSI?
Developed by Drs. Robert A. Cooke and J. Clayton Lafferty, the Group Styles Inventory (GSI) is an assessment of the way in which team members interact with one another and approach problems when working together. Four of the styles measured by the GSI are Constructive and facilitate high-quality problem solving and decision making. Eight of the styles are Defensive (Passive and Aggressive) and detract from effective performance. Thus, the GSI enables teams to analyze their styles and identify practical strategies for enhancing their overall effectiveness.
Extensively researched and internationally proven, this assessment provides group members with a ‘safe’ way to talk about their behavior and how it affects the group’s performance. Through highlighting styles of interactions that are helping or hindering their teamwork, it empowers them to change the way they approach problems and interact with each other — leading to better cooperation, communication and consensus, more innovative thinking, and higher quality solutions.
What It’s Best Used For
- Measuring and Monitoring Team Performance: Evaluating ongoing or project-specific team dynamics and tracking effectiveness over time.
- Pre-Interview and Promotion Screening: Testing job applicants or promotion candidates for vital group capabilities like communication, interpersonal, and problem-solving skills before making a hiring decision.
- Developing Consensus Decision-Making: Guiding groups on how to arrive at mutually accepted, high-quality choices rather than fractured decisions.
- Fostering Innovation: Creating an open, safe team climate that actively encourages idea-sharing and collaborative creative thinking.
- Sharpening Analytical Skills: Training team members to collectively manage workloads and break down multi-layered operational problems systematically.
It’s legal for use in Canada.
How it works
The Group Styles Inventory™ is designed for both temporary and permanent groups that are responsible for solving problems and making decisions. It can be completed by team members after they have solved a problem (to identify the behaviours that facilitated or inhibited their performance) or mid-way through solving a problem (to identify and practice more effective ways of interacting with one another and approaching the problem). The GSI can be used with our survival simulations, our business simulations, or an organizational problem that the team is currently confronting. Team members score their own surveys and profile their individual and combined results on the Circumplex provided. The GSI Participant Guide helps them to interpret their team’s results and identify strategies for improvement.
The GSI takes approximately 15 minutes to complete. An additional 10 to 15 minutes is needed for participants to score and profile their results.
The use of the Group Styles Inventory™ involves four major steps:
- Individual group members respond to 72 statements describing the styles exhibited by the group while solving a problem plus a few questions focusing on team effectiveness, solution acceptance, solution quality, and team synergy. This takes about 15 minutes.
- The team members score their own surveys and profile their individual results on the included Circumplex to provide a picture of their own perceptions of the group and its styles. This takes 10 to 15 minutes.
- The descriptions of members are combined to generate an aggregated profile displaying the group’s styles and a bar chart summarizing their collective assessments of performance.
- Participants meet with their teams and, using their GSI Development, develop effective strategies to use going forward.
The data can also be collected and processed electronically. The Group Styles Inventory Leader’s Guide and Workshops provide information on developmental activities to help teams use its insights to Constructively change the way team members think, behave, and interact.
Complementary tools
We recommend that you use the GSI in conjunction with the Life Styles Inventory™ and Organizational Culture Inventory®. Together, they provide an integrated approach to developing Constructive personal styles, group interactions, and organizational cultural norms. You can also use the GSI for team development in combination with the Survival Simulation series.. Ask us about other exercises, such as Coach and the Observer’s Guide, for providing groups with feedback on their interpersonal and rational processes.
The benefits for your organization
The Group Styles Inventory is an excellent tool for helping teams and groups solve problems more effectively. It’s particularly valuable for team development initiatives, such as:
- measuring and monitoring team performance
- creating a team environment that encourages innovation and idea-sharing
- sharpening team members’ analytical skills
- developing consensus-based decision making
- achieving synergy and higher quality and acceptance of group decisions
Make the Group Styles Inventory part of your drive for change
While not mandatory, the Group Styles Inventory is best applied by someone who as completed the General Certification Workshop. We offer two options:
- An experienced consultant can help you to use the GSI and implement the change you seek. Simply contact us to find a consultant who’s right for the teams and organization you’re working with.
- You can do-it-yourself. By attending our General Certification Workshop, participants learn how to apply the GSI and properly administer follow-up exercises. To get started, ask us how to register for the General Certification Workshop.
The Group Styles Inventory assessment is a registered trademark of Human Synergistics®, Inc.
Additional information
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