Is anyone wondering why AI is also increasing in the development sector? Well, we certainly don’t and dived right into an experiment with our team. WhomLab is a gamified, AI-supported performance assessment, designed to enhance leadership development through interactive assessments – aka play sessions – and personalized learning pathways. If you are in for a fresh and fun impulse for your next employee or leadership development program, this article is for you.
Executive Summary
WhomLab is a performance assessment developed by the company WhomLab itself with experts from Psychology, Psychometrics, Human Resources, Learning and Development, Data Analytics, and Artificial Intelligence. It offers a personal assessment score in the fields of self-confidence, risk-taking, decision-making, learning rate, and flexible thinking. It might be worth a try for your next leadership development program if:
- You serve young(er), tech-savvy leaders, enjoying gamified approaches
- You need an unexpected impulse for experienced leaders who “did it all”
- You want to have a data-based starting point for follow-up modules on communication, collaboration, feedback, or change
In case you want to exchange with our team and find out if it’s right for you, you’re heartily welcome. In case you need more details, read on.
How does the assessment work?
What you most probably know very well are personality and communication assessments that are based on an online questionnaire. The WhomLab assessment has a very fresh and entertaining approach here: The heart of the assessment is playing time in the mobile app.
The game is played in two main categories in the app: Triple and Betting. Both are reminiscent of classic logic puzzles that some of you may still remember from university aptitude tests. It takes a minimum of 30 minutes of playtime, which participants fill at their discretion, and then the report is theoretically available. Needless to say, more playing time provides more detailed results.
During our test, we turned it into a mini team-building exercise and played side by side for two 30-minute sessions.
What is measured with the WhomLab assessment?
With the aid of artificial intelligence in the back, WhomLab analyzes leadership competencies across various dimensions. Key competencies assessed include:
- Reasoning and Problem-Solving: Evaluating how individuals approach complex challenges.
- Learning Agility: Measuring the ability to adapt and learn in dynamic environments.
- Self-Confidence: Identifying levels of self-assurance and its impact on decision-making.
- Decision-Making: Analyzing both analytical and intuitive decision-making styles.
- Creativity: Assessing innovative thinking and problem-solving capabilities.
- Risk-Taking: Understanding how individuals balance innovation with caution.
A variation of the individual reports can be created by admin users in the WhomLab online dashboard. Here you can create team profiles by choosing various team members and seeing their combined profiles in the five categories. This offers an interesting insight into the overall team constellation and can help to identify key development areas or also fields in which additional team members might be necessary to fill an important gap for the team to perform in a balanced, positive way.
Data-Driven Insights for multiple purposes
WhomLab states a very broad spectrum of use for organizations. Detailed analytics can help HR and L&D make informed decisions about team composition and development strategies. A few fields of use we can confirm already:
- Assist in crafting ideal team structures: By finding people with complementary skills for improved collaboration and performance within a team
- Offer data for internal talent management and career options: By matching employees with roles and responsibilities that align with their strengths
- Positively contribute to collaboration and mutual understanding: By exchanging about individual preferences – for example in risk-taking – as a group
- Targeted development initiatives: By meeting people exactly where they’re at and addressing specific skill gaps as individuals as well as a team
- Personalize Learning Journeys: Tailor development plans based on individual assessment.
What people experience using WhomLab
Starting in September 2024, we did a WhomLab pilot within our organization. Invited have been all team members and our CEO and founder. Excitement and interest have been high, and although AI is rising in all sectors, we have not experienced an AI-based development tool so far. Participation in the initiative was mandatory whereas the shared playing session was voluntary. Still, everyone joined and was keen on their own results.
Here are a few voices by our team members:
What did you think when you heard “AI-based leadership development”?
Interesting, let’s see what it can do. I liked the idea of having a game to find out.
What surprised you when using the app and/or looking at your report?
- I was surprised by the puzzles; I somehow expected a different form of a quiz. I was surprised by how detailed and accurate the report was, and could see some of my patterns recognized from the tool as well.
- I was surprised if it was really my report. I would rate myself completely different.
To whom would you recommend the WhomLab app and development process?
- To teams who want a basic, quick, understandable analysis of each member that includes useful parameters relevant to many team environments with a fun way of completion.
How was the usage of the tool for you? Why?
- Easy and fun to do in between
4 tips for smooth integration of WhomLab
Following our experience in rolling it out and the feedback of our team, here are some tips for smooth integration of WhomLab into your leadership development initiatives:
- Manage expectations: Mentioning AI as part of leadership development could create the impression that people get some kind of tips or advice from AI. Which is obviously not the case. Clarifying this is key as well as clarifying the whole process at the beginning:
– When will access to the tool start/end?
– How long will it take to receive the report?
– What will happen after the report arrives? (e.g. debriefing session)
– What is the goal of the initiative, and what should be different after experiencing the whole process? - Share the science behind: For some people more, for some people less, it’s important to understand how results are created. Share this information beforehand to enable trust in the upcoming process.
- Have tech support: As with all software and even if the use of WhomLab is rather simple and intuitive, for some people it will be hard to install and access. That’s normal. Have a person people can call for immediate support if they face any troubles.
- Ensure debriefing sessions: Individual reports create all kinds of feelings: From “Hah, I knew it!” to “Now I’m surprised?” to “What? I have a low learning rate? Now I’m insecure”. All personality, skill, and communication reports need a solid debriefing to help your people to understand the results and tap into new perspectives and ideas about themselves and their performance.
Current criticism of the tool
– Bias-free: On its website, WhomLab states that the tool is completely unbiased. We would like to add: It undoubtedly does a good job of reducing bias, but at the same time nothing comes 100% bias-free. We wonder for example how it would influence the results if a person has a hard time with tech tools such as mobile playing apps or severely hates logic puzzles.
– Rather small control group: Although several hundred users have already gone through the assessment and the tool is constantly being developed, the database is still relatively small compared to tools like PCM or DisG which have a record of 1 million+ profiles done.
Conclusion
We enjoyed exploring WhomLab in our team and had fascinating insights and interesting discussions with one another. One reason for the pilot group was also to see if it could serve as a plugin in leadership programs and as far as we can see now, the answer to this is a yes. So, if you are in for an AI experiment in your next leadership development initiative, WhomLab might be a good starting point for you. And we’re looking forward to hearing from you.
