It has been a while since I have read this. I think there is likely still some value in the Flag personality system, but there are a lot of personality tests and many of those are readily available.
If you are considering a Laugh Your Way to a Better Marriage or doing a Flag Page test, I would encourage you to read this post first. And then maybe read the book The Great Sex Rescue.
Takeaway: We can always learn more about ourselves.
If you read this blog regularly you may know that my wife and I are leading small group for newly married couples. We finished the curriculum early, so we decided to have the group take the Flag Page test. It is yet another personality test, but I think it is both very easy to take and useful to discuss in a small group setting like ours.
The Flag Test is focused on your motivations and security. The first section determines your “country”. The four countries are Peace, Fun, Perfect and Control. If you want to motivate a fun person, you talk about how fun something will be if you do it together. A perfect person is motivated to make things better, a control person is motivated when they are in charge and peace person is motivated when they believe situations will be more peaceful as a results of doing something.
The second measure is “Hard and Soft”. Hard views things as Black/White, only one right way, make decisions quickly and stick with them. Soft people see lots of gray, usually are more deliberative.
The third area are motivations. There are 56 areas of motivation in the test and it narrows them down to the five that are most important to you. This is the part that a spouse, parent, co-worker can find useful because it is how to make people feel secure in the relationship. My wife’s highest value is “Thrives on Encouragement”. She will do anything for you, but very much appreciates being thanked and acknowledge for her work. This was a significant reason for her last job change. My highest is “Peaceful”. My Country was Peace (nearly off the charts high) and three of my top five motivation areas are related to that. I highly value peace and highly avoid conflict.
The final area is a talent description. This is the most straight forward, but the talents are divided into five categories: Let’s Relate, Let’s Work, Let’s Create, I’ll Take Charge and I’ll Entertain. In general you will be more comfortable and successful the more you focus your energy in the areas that are your talents (no big surprise).
The main weakness is that there is not any type of introvert/extrovert measure. One of the members of our small group brought this up and I very much agree, especially for use in a small group or situation where you do not know everyone well.
The book gives more information about the test and descriptions and if you buy it from Gungor, you get a code to take one test. The regular price for the test is $15 and the book is $15. So if you buy the book, you basically get one free test. (The test is no longer included with the purchase of the book.)
The next time we lead a small group, we are going to make the flag test one of the first things we do, instead of one of the last.
Purchase Links: Paperback (Amazon), (Cheaper at Gungor’s Laugh Your Way To a Better Marriage site)