How We’re Using Personality Profiling to Build a Stronger Team

As RAWSO continues to grow, it’s important that we protect our team culture so that everyone onboard can succeed. That’s why working with Amber Hurdle, founder of Velvet Machete, was a no-brainer. Velvet Machete is a branding and leadership coaching company that helps people become influential, confident, compassionate leaders.

Amber is a highly sought-after speaker and was recognized among the “Top 40 Under 40” by the Nashville Business Journal in 2019. She has a straight-shooting way of speaking coupled with a genuine passion for helping people that characterizes her as “the Velvet Machete”.

Using science and branding, Amber helps leaders build strong personal brands and form an effective people strategy for their businesses. “There are two ways to increase profitability: make more money or save more money,” said Amber. “Payroll is a business’s biggest line item, but leaders rarely have an effective strategy for getting the right people on board and protecting their culture.”

When we shared our goal to keep building a strong work culture, Amber introduced our team to the Predictive Index (PI) Behavioral Assessment. The PI is a tool that helps people identify their workplace behavior based on four motivating factors: dominance, extraversion, patience, and formality. In simple terms, it gives you a clear picture of the way you typically function at work.

For example, if you score higher in extraversion, there’s a good chance that you enjoy working in roles that engage other people or receive public recognition. If you score lower on extraversion, you probably prefer to be in roles that don’t require high levels of collaboration.

The more we understand each other’s strengths and weaknesses, the better we can work together. All of our leadership team has taken the test and we’ve already learned a lot about each other thanks to Amber’s expertise. Soon we’ll have our foremen take the assessment and receive training on how to use the information about their work style to communicate and lead better.

Our Human Resource Manager, Carol Groom, has been excited to learn about the people she works with on a daily basis and how this tool can help us grow: “We really want everyone to work well together and get along. Every team member adds to the culture at RAWSO, so if we can understand each other more, that’s just one more piece to the puzzle of building a great team.”

Amber has brought a wealth of leadership knowledge and warmth to our team and we’re really honored to get to learn from her and apply her insights to our business. It’s amazing people like her that help us stay hungry to keep getting better.