Our Story
Created in the 1980’s and brainchild of Norman Buckley; Facet5 was born in response to market desire for a speedy, practical and intuitive personality tool.
Born in the 1980’s, officially established in 1990
A Facet5-shaped gap in the market
Our story begins in the mid 1980’s when the assessment industry was expanding at a rapid rate – organisations had a choice. Traditional models were well-researched and robust yet complex; they required a high level of training and experience and the data produced needed ongoing expert interpretation. Alternatively, they could choose much simpler, often well-marketed measures, but quality and substance were often sacrificed for ease of use – despite the data being used to make critical decisions about people.
“During the mid-1980’s in the UK, I was consulting to organisations using the best available psychometrics of the day. I knew that good psychometric tools were out there, but they needed a great deal of training and experience to use them properly. Someone challenged me, without any warning, to come up with something that was quick, easy to use, and gave more than the existing tools of the day. And it hit me; there was the design brief for what was to become Facet5.”
Norman Buckley, Author
To this day, our philosophy remains the same. We continue to turn reliable data into valuable insights and present the information in the most practical and usable way possible – making it actionable.
Meet the Authors
Norman Buckley
Founder & Author
Norman has been leading the conversation around personality assessment and profiling for over 40 years. His unwavering focusing during this time has been on delivering practical organisational benefits underpinned by deep psychological understanding.
Rebekah Williams
Director & co-author
Rebekah joined Facet5 in 1996 following a career in clinical psychological research before transitioning into the field of business psychology. Not wanting to stop there, Rebekah gained her masters degree in Organisational Psychology.
A word from our global community
People sit at the heart of Facet5. Our success is truly a reflection of the incredible relationships we have with our clients and practitioners.
What is it that people love about Facet5? Let some of our friends tell you more. . .
Keeley Addison
WithIN Consultancy
Facet5 fan since: 2008
Facet5 & I:
‘You had me at sociability’…
I was a self-confessed psychometric addict before Facet5 – you name it; I had a report (and the t-shirt!) I had always been mildly satisfied with my reports from other instruments and mused that they had done as much of a ‘good job’ as personality profiles could do. I had never had an ‘OMG that’s totally me!’ moment, however that wasn’t an issue because I didn’t expect that to be ‘a thing’ . . . until Facet5.
For me, the subtlety of the sub-factor ‘Sociability’ explained exactly why I have never felt like an extrovert (when all other instruments had me pegged as one). Finally, something to explain the complexity of my energy preferences!
The second ‘ok, this is weird, this is me all over’ moment was the ‘Emotionality’ factor. As someone with a high score, Facet5 gave me a language to fall on when describing my strengths, as well as the risks that I would beat myself up for on this domain. I felt like Facet5 gave me permission to be me. From here I started using Facet5 with my clients. I just love to see them have their own ‘OMG’ moments – that moment of realisation when it resonates so well for them!
The mix of accessible language, simplicity of layout and the depth the of sub-factors, for me, is unparalleled.
Nina Sosinka
Facet5 Poland
Facet5 fan since: 2013
Facet5 & I:
I love Facet5! Its use of positive language helps individuals to understand their potential in comparison to others.
The accuracy of Facet5 is amazing and results in happy faces! People leave the conversation understanding both their talents and challenges and how their newly-found self-awareness can help them to meet their development goals.
The insight from Facet5 can be applied in multiple ways, in-fact the possibilities are endless. . . you can never become bored when working with it and the Facet5 team!
Tracy Arnold
Double Yolk Consulting
Facet5 fan since: 2010
Facet5 & I:
I love Facet5 for many reasons, but for me, the standout reason is Emotionality, Emotionality, Emotionality!! It is such a unique element of Facet5 and such a significant part of anyone’s personality; whether they have a low, mid or high score because it’s all about understanding how that person feels and responds to the world around them. Honestly, this factor alone could be explored for hours, weeks, months, years; actually let’s be honest; a lifetime – because at our heart we are human-beings who feel ‘stuff’!
I cannot tell you how many times, when using Facet5 for coaching with leaders or teams, it’s the Emotionality factor that gets to the crux of what’s going on for someone. It enables conversations around vulnerability, confidence, self-belief and mindset in a way that is helpful and fosters understanding and appreciation. No other instrument that I’ve come across covers it in quite the way Facet5 does, if at all.
The combination of depth and simplicity, which Facet5 provides, makes it so powerful when used to assist coaching – the insight it provides can be mined time and time again.
Personally, my favourite way of working with Facet5 is with teams; seeing those moments where someone’s assumptions about someone else shifts, and understanding and appreciation grows, is brilliant. Just the act of sharing profiles in a non-judgemental way lays the foundation for teams to work effectively together.
Charlotte Hinks
Acacia Coaching & Development
Facet5 fan since: 2013
Facet5 & I:
I love Facet5 because it shines a light on the darkest corners of human relationships.
When I first started using Facet5, in-house at a previous organisation, I was experiencing some challenges connecting with one member of my team. Looking at our Facet5 profiles side by side was a real ‘ah-ha’ moment. I am ‘Low Control’ and they are ‘High Control’! It explained everything about our different working styles – and this attributed towards the ‘disconnect’ we felt. Understanding this meant that we could both start to develop a new way of communicating that would work for both of us. It transformed our working relationship as it provided us with a language so that we could talk to each other when things weren’t going so well!
Since setting up my own training company, we tend to use Facet5 predominately with leadership teams who are keen to ‘fine-tune’ their performance though greater understanding and stronger relationships. It’s so great to see those ‘ah-ha’ moments replayed and help teams to move forwards.
Piotr Sosinki
Facet5 Poland
Facet5 fan since: 2007
Facet5 & I:
I love Facet5 because it is an extremely reliable, valuable and robust measure of personality. In fact, it provides a measure of human potential; it identifies human capability like no other instrument in the world.
As a Facet5 Practitioner, I like to think of my role similar to that of a diamond cutter; with the individual being the diamond in need of a little polish – Facet5 guides me to where a buff and polish will help reveal an individuals’ true potential to shine.
Jess Symes
The Symes Group
Facet5 fan since: 2010
Facet5 & I:
Following an incredible debrief with Grant I signed up to become Facet5 Accredited. The Accreditation experience truly opened my eyes to understanding myself and others.
Facet5 improves the value of the work that I deliver to clients. Put simply; Facet5 is 100% accurate and 1000% valuable to clients.
Tanja Vlug
Humancollective
Facet5 fan since: 2012
Facet5 & I:
Having used various, and multiple, personality measures throughout my career I have never encountered so much enthusiasm and connection from clients as when they experience Facet5.
Facet5 is so strikingly accurate. It uses ’normal’ language and is completely relatable. Similarly to our clients, I immediately fell in love with the tool!
Michiel Castelijns
Humancollective
Facet5 fan since: 2008
Facet5 & I:
My love for Facet5 was cemented the moment I read my facet5 profile. I was astounded by how accurate it was – my reaction went something like; ‘how do they know that of me. . . did they interview one of my former managers?!’
One of the areas of Facet5 I am particularly fond of is TeamScape. Facet5 is the only personality tool which offers team data that truly provides insights on the working style of the team. For this reason, we use Facet5 TeamScape within many of our Startup clients to support their investors and management teams to recognise and understand how personal working preferences can impact on the team – and how they can best strengthen their relationships.
Loved worldwide
With continual development, we’ve grown and evolved – and continue to do so. Today Facet5 is the personality tool of choice for thousands of organisations across the globe. We’re extremely proud to work alongside some of the worlds most successful organisations in helping them to realise their potential.
Today, we support our clients in delivering superior performance across the entire employee lifecycle.
