From 48 answers to one reading
The whole method, with nothing hidden. WorkStyle Compass is deliberately simple enough to explain on one page, so that anybody who receives a reading can see exactly where it came from.
Answer 48 either/or pairs
Each pair puts two reasonable ways of working side by side — for example I make quick decisions and adjust as I learn more versus I take time to think thoroughly before making decisions. You choose whichever sounds more like you when you are working remotely. There is no neutral option and no scale from 1 to 5, because the point is to see which way you lean when you have to pick. It takes about twelve minutes.
Each answer adds one point to a direction
Every pair contrasts two of the four directions. Question 1 is North against East; question 18 is North against West; question 41 is South against West. Whichever side you choose, that direction gets one point. Because there are six possible pairings of four directions and eight questions for each pairing, every direction appears in exactly 24 of the 48 pairs.
Points become a score out of 100
Your points for each direction are divided by 24 and shown as a percentage. Someone who chose the North side in 18 of its 24 pairs has a North reading of 75. The four readings always add up to 200 across the compass, so a high reading in one direction necessarily means a lower one somewhere else — that is the whole idea. It describes where you lean, not how much of something you have.
Your top two directions form a code
The direction with the highest reading comes first, the second-highest comes second. NE means North first, East second; EN means the reverse. If two directions tie, the order North, East, South, West breaks the tie. That gives twelve possible two-letter codes.
The code maps to a named profile
Each code is a profile with a name from the world of navigation — Navigator, Ambassador, Captain, Lighthouse and so on — plus a short description, the settings that people with that reading usually find easy, and who they pair well with on a team. The profile is a label for the pattern, not for you.
You use it — alongside everything else
On its own, a reading is a conversation starter. Its value is in what you do with it: the hiring manager who asks better questions, the student who chooses a programme with their eyes open, the team that finally names the friction between its two most senior people. Every partner that uses WorkStyle Compass commits to using it next to skills, experience and a conversation, never as a gate on its own.
A reading of N 75 · E 42 · S 46 · W 37
This person chose the North side in 18 of North's 24 pairs, East in 10, South in 11 and West in 9. North is highest and South second, so the code is NS — The Captain: drive with steadiness. Notice that the four numbers add to 200; that is always true.
What the numbers are not. A reading of 75 is not a grade and not a percentile. It does not say you are better at ownership than 75% of people; it says that in 18 of 24 head-to-head choices you leaned that way. Two people can have identical readings and work very differently.
Why either/or? Rating statements from 1 to 5 tends to produce a flat line of 4s. Forcing a choice between two good options shows the lean that actually drives behaviour when a remote worker has to decide alone. It also keeps the questionnaire short.