ABOUT IDI

A unique outside-in approach to people development

We use the external perspective to enable people develop a positiv growth mindset. Founded decades ago, we have amassed vast amounts of data on the interpersonal dynamics between people. A number of iterations later, we have managed to built a unique platform that enables people development with a context-driven outside-in approach.

Three decades and we're just getting started

1980

First version of IDI is used in the Swedish Armed Forces by Dr. Zackrison and Dr. Risling.

1991

25,000 profiles in Sweden by circa 25 facilitators. First Swedish norm is produced.

2003

The web version of IDI is launched. Over 50 000 profiler generated.

2004

More studies are being conducted as more practical tools for data analysis are developed.

2013

The psychometric capabilities of IDI are enhanced after a first technical report is presented by Professor Bo Ekehammar.

2016

IDI is now available in 22 different languages and is used worldwide.

2020

IDI is upgraded with a new technical platform based on a revised theoretical foundation.

2023

After several years of work, we are taking a leap and launching a unique platform for employee development.

Beyond the theoretical perspective

We seek deep understanding of the challenges a customer beyond what can be gleaned from a theoretical perspective.

Our platform is built with people in working life at the center. We use data gathered from practical applications to generate actionable insights that enables a climate for growth.

83.3m

Questions answered

1.2m

Forms filled

170 000

Profiles generated

4000+

Organizations

40

Countries

22

Languages

Add new "soft skills" to your toolbox

Soft skills

Soft skills is an umbrella term for productive skills under multiple functional elements that characterize one’s relationships in a social environment that include categories such as interpersonal, communication and leadership skills. Soft skills are noncognitive skills that tend to be more people focused where cognitive abilities, also referred to as ‘hard skills’, are technical in nature.

Creating an inventory

Our platform is built to create a data inventory of certain aspects of your soft skills and presents it in a practical manner as a starting point to your development. The inventory (IDI Profile) consists of information on how you are perceived in three independently different dimensions by others in your role. People that you work with in your role in a context provides the data to your profile.

Getting the external perspective

The external perspective and specificity of the collected information provides practical and actionable insights from your current circumstances. This results in increased understanding of how you are perceived to play your roles in different contexts. Learning about other skills different from your own that helps broaden your horizons and expand your toolbox is another key feature in our platform.

The starting point

The combination of understanding how you use your own skills in different situations together with learning about a wider range of soft skills, starts off a development journey to continuously improve and add new skills to your existing soft skills.

Continuous development

The goal is to cultivate a growth mindset and become more conscious. Being more conscious makes you aware of how to better use your expanded set of soft skills.

People science has been embedded into our platform from the start

Our platform is based on long experience of practical application and interdisciplinary insights from organizational theory, personality psychology, psychometrics, pedagogy and social psychology.

IDI has been developed by a cross-functional team led by Thomas Larsson and Aram Marqus. With contribution from Professor Bo Ekehammar, Dr Anders Wendelheim, Organizational Psychologist Frida Nilsson, Dr Anders Hytter, Dr Johan Grant and Dr Eric Zackrison.

What we mean by context-driven

The problem with generalizations

Whenever an overly general statement is made about you, facts are likely to be distorted, conveying very little useful information. The reason is that most generalizations fail to differentiate between traits and states. Traits and states are among the most important concepts in personality theory and research. Trait and state are concepts that people use to both describe and understand themselves and others.

Trait and state

A state is seen as a temporary way of being (i.e., thinking, feeling, behaving, and relating) while a trait tends to be a more stable and enduring characteristic or pattern of behavior. Someone with a character trait of calmness and composure can, under certain circumstances, act agitated and angry because of being in a temporary state that is quite uncharacteristic for that individual.

Attributing actions to character or personality

Not being able to differentiate between states and traits is a common mistake. In psychology it’s sometimes called the fundamental attribution error—meaning that people often mistakenly attribute peoples’ behavior to some internal motivation rather than external circumstances. In other words, people have a cognitive bias to assume that a person’s actions depend on what “kind” of person that person is rather than on the social and environmental forces that influence the person.

Focusing on the social roles

We focus on the state, the environmental forces, by getting information of how you are experienced in your role in a certain work context by other people. The external perspective (other people) and the restricted environment (specific work context) are two key factors that make it possible to get specific information about your current circumstances. The state perspective provides insights of what intentions you have in a context, what you focus on in your role and how the outcome of your actions are perceived externally.

The Board

Thomas Larsson

Thomas is a senior organizational consultant with 40 years of experience from assignments in Sweden and in other parts of the world. He has been using IDI for more than 30 years andfor the past 20 years he has been primarily responsible for the development of the IDI tool and the training of our licensed IDI facilitators worldwide.

Thomas holds an M Sc in Human Services from Springfield College, Massachusetts, USA and is a Certified Management Consultant, CMC, according to ICMCI – The International Council of Management Consulting Institutes.

Aram Marqus

Aram is a developer and entrepreneur who co-founded the digital agency QBD, a company that develops its own IT systems and offers consulting and agency services with a holistic approach. QBD received the DI Gasell award in 2020 and was named Super Company by Bisnode in 2018, 2019 and 2020.

Since 2016, IDI’s technical platform has been developed by a team led by Aram. In 2019, he became a partner at IDI Profiling and took a seat on the board taking responsibility for our technical development. Aram is also a licensed IDI supervisor.

Emma Nyquist

Emma works at ICA Sweden as Learning and Talent Lead. Since 2010, she has held several different positions within HR at ICA, including as a specialist in values, leadership, inclusion and diversity and as a leader developer.

Emma is a behavioral scientist with a degree in Innovation Technology with a focus on work life psychology. 2003-2010, Emma worked at Effectiveness Consultants, which was then the owner of IDI. She assisted in the training of new facilitators and worked with the administration and the development of the tool. Emma was elected to the board in June 2022.

Per Siljeklint

Per Siljeklint, senior consultant, supervisor and university lecturer, has extensive experience in business and leadership development after an educational background as a naval officer and Bachelor of Economics. Per has worked with education in product and service development for more than 35 years.

Per works with courses in strategy, leadership, marketing and product development for the Högskolans economics program students, but also with skills development for professionals for the Kristianstad University. Among other things, he is the program manager for Kristianstad University’s “MBA in practice”.