A 10-Minute Assessment to Help You Excel at Work (And Get the Raise You Deserve!)

Motivated professionals often ask me the secret to getting promoted. They tend to focus on data-driven results as the key to promotions. Results are important but may not be the most important factor in moving up the corporate ladder. If you and others in your organization have similar results, promotions can often be based on the candidate with the most powerful interpersonal and leadership skills. It’s pretty easy to measure data and numerical-based results but it can be challenging to measure and improve one’s “soft skills.”

SCOPE is an app-based assessment tool developed by iPEC that can be taken in about 10 minutes with immediate access to your results. The app measures how you might be “showing up” and can tell you what may be holding you back from successful outcomes related to specific scenarios. For example, let’s say you are pitching a new idea to your boss and other senior leaders in the organization. You can take the SCOPE assessment and it will tell you if you are experiencing catabolic energy or anabolic energy in the moments prior to your pitch.

Catabolic energy is energy related to the fight or flight response. It can be thoughts, feelings, or behaviors in which we feel sorry for ourselves, lack confidence, feel angry, guilt-ridden, or shamed. It can look like showing up in a way that suggests you are all about winning at all costs. 

Anabolic energy is energy related to taking full responsibility for ourselves; it can be compassionate energy, joyful emotions, and often a win-win view of the world and our personal situations. 

Think about how different your pitch might be if you do it from a place of catabolic versus anabolic energy. Which one do you think might lead to a powerful pitch and a possible promotion? Learning how to become more aware of our energy gives us the opportunity to be more strategic in how we show up. Choosing our energy and thus, how we present ourselves leads to powerful leadership and successfully handling challenging situations, both personally and professionally. 

Many young professionals find themselves struggling to get ahead in today’s competitive world. They push themselves harder and harder to “produce” results. This is admirable, yet may be a source of great frustration for them if it doesn’t lead to pay raises and promotions. What they may not realize is they are being passed over for promotions because of their attitude and emotional intelligence versus their ability to be top producers.

The most successful leaders know how to address and manage their emotions for powerful relationships that lead to both long term results and collaborative relationships.

The SCOPE app also identifies influencers that may be holding us back or keeping us in catabolic energy. The influencers are spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, environmental, and social. So let's say our high-producing Millennial is exhausted because they’ve been working nonstop for days. Their energy is most likely being dragged down by the physical influencer of being physically exhausted. However, the emotional and mental influencers might also be at play because exhaustion often leads to challenging emotions and a lack of clarity in thinking. By identifying which influencers might be at play, our motivated Millennial can choose to make some changes to their day to improve the physical influencer, think more clearly, and be more emotionally intelligent in all of their interactions. Those changes can help others see our motivated Millennial as a future leader who is deserving of both a promotion and a raise. A true win-win for all.

Try iPEC's SCOPE app here.