The HK Index

The HK Index, our public working-style assessment, is forty short items: twenty-four statements you rate for accuracy and sixteen forced trade-offs between two ways of working, completed in about fifteen minutes. There is nothing to prepare and there are no right answers.

What it measures

The instrument scores your four Operating Modes, each on a ten-point scale between two named poles, read together as your Operating Signature:

• Grounding: where your stability comes from under load, and what happens to your judgement on the bad days, which is when it matters.
• Structuring: how you impose order on work: whether you build the system first or find the shape as you go.
• Initiating: how you start: whether you move on your own trigger or on the demands of the moment.
• Building: how you relate to what exists: whether you extend and refine, or replace and reinvent.

Why the result can be trusted

The four modes are drawn from the five-factor tradition of personality research; the method built on it, how items map, key and weight, is proprietary, which is also why the instrument cannot be studied for. Every mode is measured two independent ways and the readings are cross-checked; where they disagree beyond tolerance the result is flagged rather than smoothed over. Each sitting also passes six integrity checks, covering pace, mechanical answer patterns, fence-sitting, extremes, cross-format consistency and instructed attention items.

What you receive

The sitting is complimentary and ends with a first reading of your result: a deliberate glimpse, not the full picture. The paid written report is composed for your specific result and covers your Operating Signature, what you bring, what wears you down, how work should be handed to you, who you need alongside, and where your modes pull against each other under pressure. Comparison reports and team analyses read two or more profiles together and are priced per engagement.

Positions are reported as zones on the scale rather than raw scores, and every result carries a code in the form HK-XXXX-XXXX that, together with your four-digit PIN, lets anyone you choose verify your headline profile and nothing more.

Ready to sit it? Start the HK Index, or see report pricing.