LIFO® Life Orientations Survey

Friday

Aug202010

What Life Orientations says about Lifo®

The term Lifo® stands for Life Orientations®. It is a tried and tested, practical, strengths-based methodology based on a sound psychological model which can be applied effectively to individuals, teams and organisations.

The Lifo® Method has been used for over thirty years in over 30 countries around the world and in more than 18 different languages. It uses a Personal Style Survey which enables individuals to understand how they operate under stress and in calmer circumstances. Lifo® focuses on behaviour not personality so can allow for great flexibility during coaching interventions. It is about identifying “ How we do who we are”.

The Lifo® Survey is not a test; there are no right or wrong answers. It is a key to open the door to greater insight into clients’ behavioural strengths and provides a safe, non judgemental, language for discussion during coaching sessions. Lifo® allows the client to identify how strengths can become weaknesses when relied on too heavily.

The Lifo® Method as a training or coaching tool has many benefits:

Its power lies in its discovery and celebration of individual or team member strengths. This constructive approach means that individuals or team members focus on the positives, not just what may be going wrong
Lifo® helps people understand where their impact on others does not match their intentions and provides a language to discuss any issues that may arise from this
Lifo® can help to identify the values that drive individual behaviour versus the values of a organisation and the problems this mismatch can cause
The Lifo® survey can be delivered online or by a paper version and is backed up by a wide range of resources including workbooks and training materials to enhance the personal development for both the client and the coach
The Lifo® feedback survey allows for 360˚ feedback to be given by the boss, direct reports, peers and clients
Lifo® also has specific tools to support development around team building, leadership, negotiation and stress
When used to work on time management, Lifo® allows clients to identify their own time management challenges and solutions to those challenges that will suit their own behavioural preference
The Life Orientations method helps with issues surrounding change and stress, particularly by demonstrating that one person’s exciting challenge is another person’s worst nightmare
Lifo® can be a powerful tool to help people evaluate strengths, understand weaknesses and, with the guidance of the coach, develop and implement strategies to leverage strengths, adding new capabilities to their management style.

How it works

You need a licence from Life Orientations Ltd to use Lifo®. Once you have your licence, you can either buy hard copy survey booklets (questions, answers and scoring sheet in one document) or get the client to do the whole thing online (less expensive and looks professional). Once the questionnaire is completed and scored, client and coach can discuss the Lifo® scores, the extent to which the client uses each of the four orientations or styles, and the implications of this for the client. The scoring is very straightforward, and you can easily get clients to do this bit for themselves.

Why I use Lifo®

It is non-threatening. Its aim is to help the client to identify and build on existing strengths
It helps a client to understand how he/she prefers to operate in favourable situations and what changes he/she may make in strategy and behaviour to cope with stress or conflict situations
It recognises that our weaknesses are sometimes a result of using our strengths over-enthusiastically or in a situation where a different approach would be more suitable
It has a 360° feedback element to accompany the main survey. You can have as many people as you and the client think are useful fill this in. This helps the client to see how he/she may come across to others
It starts from the values and goals of each individual and describes how the client wants to be seen
It identifies any mismatch between the client’s values and intentions and his/her actual behaviour. This is a rich source of data for conversations around why a client does what he/she does and what it might be costing him/her in effort or stress to act in a way that is contrary to his/her values
Lifo® is context sensitive. It seeks to describe not who you are as a type, but what you are doing in the current situation
Each client who completes a Lifo® survey receives a very accessible resource book that describes the tool and helps that client to understand his/her results. The book also spells out how others might see the client’s style and offers tips for adapting behaviour
It’s useful as a tool to prompt a conversation with a coaching client around why he/she might behave in a certain way in a given situation and how that behaviour might be interpreted by others
It helps clients understand the behavioural differences between them and their colleagues and the impact that those differences will have on team performance
Lifo® is good for pinpointing mismatches between how the client wants to be seen and how the client actually behaves; and between how the client wants to be and what the organisation values
The Lifo® survey is simple and accessible.