MINDONE Potential was developed by ITO Individuum Team Organisation GmbH from March 2014 until the end of December 2016. Ongoing adjustments were made to the questionnaire. The instrument was validated with selected experts from WU Vienna. The validation sample included more than 3000 managers.
The following is a list for the item number per tests:
- Interests: 132 items
- Motivation: 72 items
- Personality: 176 items
- Thinking Style: 60 items
MINDONE Potential is a battery of tests developed by ITO, which consists of 4 separate subtests:
Motivation
This subtest has its theoretical foundation in Maslow’s need hierarchy and its variation, Alderfer’s Existence, Relatedness, and Growth (ERG) Theory, Herzberg’s 2 factor theory of motivation and McClelland’s concept of learned needs.
Derived from all of the above theories, this subtest measures the following 9 dimensions:
- Recognition – Opportunities for professional advancement, praises and higher professional status
- Material award – Financial and other similar incentives, a strong system of financial bonuses
- Affiliation – Good team atmosphere, opportunity for working with other team members on accomplishing common goals, feeling accepted and supported, team work
- Autonomy – Opportunity for independent work, freedom in making decisions, working without control and supervision
- Flexibility – Independent management of own time, good balance of personal and professional, informal atmosphere, opportunity to independently decide about the way in which the goals would be reached
- Influence – Influencing others, opportunities to change their opinion, influencing future company development
- Achievement – Challenging tasks, great expectations, competitive environment, clear goals, responsibility for own results
- Personal development – Opportunities for education and further development, both personal and professional
- Meaning and values – Participation in activities perceived as meaningful and harmonised with one’s personal system of values
Occupational interests
This subtest is based on Holland Occupational Themes (RIASEC), a theory of careers and vocational choice based upon personality types. It was developed by the psychologist John L. Holland.
MINDONE Potential goes a step further and inspects two separate, independent dimensions per each of 6 Hollands types, thus providing information on a total of 12 dimensions in this subtest:
- Physical – Physical activities requiring significant use of hands and arms as well as working outdoor
- Practical – Manual work, working with machines and simple mechanical repairs
- Analytical – Research and data collection, theoretical discussions and analysis of complex concepts
- Technical – Technology, development of technical devices and/or software, repair and maintenance of complex devices
- Art and Culture – Exposure to different artistic experiences (books, movies, theatre, music, museums…)
- Creative – Expressing oneself in a creative, original way, creating something new
- Helping/Supporting – Assisting, teaching and supporting other people, social activities in different fields
- Networking – Spending time with other people, socialisation, creating contacts and network of acquaintances
- Leading – Leading others, convincing, telling others what to do and how
- Commercial activities – Business development, sales, generating profit, decreasing costs and other similar commercial activities
- Administrating processes – Organising and administering existing projects
- Transforming processes – Developing and implementing new work procedures
Thinking styles
Thinking Styles test is based on model proposed by Antony F. Gregorc, describing different learning styles rooted in the way individuals acquire and process information. This model is based on the existence of perceptions—our evaluation of the world by means of an approach that makes sense to us. These perceptions in turn are the foundation of our specific learning strengths or learning styles.
Based on this, MINDONEpotential takes account of 4 dimensions:
- Action – initiative in transforming plans into concrete activities and strong focus on solutions.
- Reflection – interest in discovering reasons why something happens, interest in abstract concepts and theories or in understanding people and interpersonal relations in a intuitive way.
- Flexibility – adjusting to changes and quick processing on new information, experimenting, creativity, intuitivism and innovativeness.
- Structure – organising information into logical and structured/sequential forms, striving for order and clear rules
These dimensions stand in opposite one to another in the following pairs: Action vs Reflection, Structure vs Flexibility, which means that a high result on one dimension implies a low result on the other, and vice versa.
Personality
Based on the Big Five model, MINDONEpotential takes into account 11 separate dimensions:
- Resilience – Stability in stressful and emotionally complex situations, resilience to pressure and difficulties
- Self-discipline – Preparedness for quick and timely response, ability to resist challenges and distractions, undertaking responsibility
- Assertiveness – Self-confident and strong appearance, dominance in social interactions
- Activity level – Readiness for action, high energy level, proneness to multitasking
- Decisiveness – Making quick decisions in difficult situations
- Sociability – Proneness to spending time with people, enjoying company of others
- Trust – Trust in people and their good intentions, positive attitude
- Orientation on norms – Proneness to order and tidiness, following rules and keeping promises, feeling of responsibility
- Willingness to compromise – Tendency to resolve arguments in a mutually acceptable way, cooperativeness
- Emotionality – Empathy and sympathy, recognising own and other people’s emotions
- Intellectual curiosity – Intellectual openness, curiosity, interest in new ideas and theories
Sociodemographic questionnaire
1. Year of birth?
2. What is the highest level of education and degree you have received so far?
- No compulsory school
- Compulsory school
- Doctrine/apprenticeship
- Vocational school without A-level
- Vocational school with A-level
- Highschool graduate
- Bachelor’s degree
- Master’s degree/MBA
- University (PhD, Doctorate)
- Others
3. How many years of work experience do you have in total? (in years)
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4-5
- 6-10
- 11-20
- more than 20
4. Where is the corporate headquarter located?
- Lower Austria
- Upper Austria
- Burgenland
- Styria
- Salzburg
- Carinthia
- Tyrol
- Vorarlberg
5. What industry does your start-up do business in?
- Construction/Real Estate
- Apparel
- Education
- Biotechnology
- Chemistry/Plastics
- Electronics/Electrical Engineering
- Energy
- Finance/Financial technology
- Healthcare sector
- Trade
- Industrial Technology/Production/Hardware
- IT/software development
- Communication/marketing
- Consumer products
- Aerospace
- Media, Creative Industries
- Medical technology
- Food products
- Nanotechnology
- Optics/Acoustics
- Pharma/Laboratory Technology
- Tourism
- Transport/Logistics
- Management consulting
- Other
6. Have you worked in the same or similar industry before?
- yes
- no
7. If yes, how long were you in the said business? (in years)
- Less than 1
- 1 up to under 3
- 3 up to under 5
- 5 and more
8. Have you ever been involved in any start-ups before?
- yes
- no
9. If yes, how long were you in the said start-up (in years)
- Less than 1
- 1 up to under 3
- 3 up to under 5
- 5 and more
10. If yes, does that start-up still actively exist?
- yes
- no
11. What is the name of your start-up? (open field)
12. How old is your start-up/company? (in years)
- less than 1
- 1 up to under 2
- 2 up to under 3
- 3 up to under 4
- 4 up to under 5
- 5 and more
13. Is your current business a spinoff from another business?
- yes
- no
14. If yes, has the parent business survived, i.e. still active?
- yes
- no
15. How would you assess the results of your start-up so far?
- Better than expected
- As expected
- Worse than expected
16. How many hours do you work in your start-up company weekly?
- 1-10
- 10-20
- 20-30
- 30-40
- 40-50
- 50-60
- 60-70
- more than 70
17. Is your start-up your main or secondary source of income?
- main source of income
- secondary source of income
18. What was your start-up capital in euros approximately when you started the business?
- Lower than 50.000
- 50.000 up to under 100.000
- 100.000 up to under 300.000
- 300.000 up to under 1 Mio.
- 1 Mio. and more
19. What was the starting number of the headcount involved in a start-up?
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6-10
- 11-15
- 16-25
- More than 25
20. What is your current Headcount number of active team members?
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6-10
- 11-15
- 16-25
- More than 25
21. What is your function within the company?
- CEO: Chief Executive Officer
- CFO: Chief Financial Officer
- COO: Chief Operating Officer
- CTO: Chief Technology Officer
- CPO: Chief Product Officer
- CPO: Chief Procurement Officer
- CMO: Chief Marketing Officer
- CIO: Chief Information Officer
- CCO: Chief Communications Officer
- Other
22. How would you describe your role at the start of start-up? (Minimum 1, Maximum 3)
- Implementer: Needed to plan a workable strategy and carry it out as efficiently as possible.
- Co-ordinator: Needed to focus on the team’s objectives, draw out team members and delegate work appropriately.
- Shaper: Provides the necessary drive to ensure that the team keeps moving and does not lose focus or momentum.
- Plant: Tends to be highly creative and good at solving problems in unconventional ways.
- Specialist: Brings in depth knowledge of a key area to the team.
- Resource Investigator: Uses their inquisitive nature to find ideas to bring back to the team.
- Monitor Evaluator: Provides a logical eye, making impartial judgements where required and weighs up the team’s options in a dispassionate way
- Teamworker: Helps the team to gel, using their versatility to identify the work required and complete it on behalf of the team.
- Completer, Finisher: Most effectively used at the end of tasks to polish and scrutinise the work for errors, subjecting it to the highest standards of quality control.
23. Did your role change?
- yes
- no
24. If yes, how would you describe your role now? (Minimum 1, Maximum 3)
- Implementer: Needed to plan a workable strategy and carry it out as efficiently as possible.
- Co-ordinator: Needed to focus on the team’s objectives, draw out team members and delegate work appropriately.
- Shaper: Provides the necessary drive to ensure that the team keeps moving and does not lose focus or momentum.
- Plant: Tends to be highly creative and good at solving problems in unconventional ways.
- Specialist: Brings in depth knowledge of a key area to the team.
- Resource Investigator: Uses their inquisitive nature to find ideas to bring back to the team.
- Monitor Evaluator: Provides a logical eye, making impartial judgements where required and weighs up the team’s options in a dispassionate way
- Teamworker: Helps the team to gel, using their versatility to identify the work required and complete it on behalf of the team.
- Completer, Finisher: Most effectively used at the end of tasks to polish and scrutinise the work for errors, subjecting it to the highest standards of quality control.