Tag Archive for: Behavioral Assessment

The Weak Link in Predicting Private Equity Investment Success

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Talent decision analytics pay off across every business metric!

weaklinkbusinessclimberNo industry is more disciplined in analyzing data relevant to investments than are Private Equity firms. Their financial, operational and market analyses are comprehensive and rigorous to ensure the best investment decisions for their investors and portfolio companies.

On the other hand, evaluation of leadership, organization and culture is subjective at best. While many case studies demonstrate that the health of an organization’s culture and quality of leadership are top predictors of success, measuring those critical factors has been more an art than a science. Korn Ferry’s July, 2016 Briefings includes the article, Why Boards Make Bad Decisions, which emphasizes the importance of having a sound succession plan and the right team in place for ongoing success. This advice is equally vital for PE firms. Yet, measuring leadership fit and cultural health has been the weak link in predicting success for Private Equity investments!
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The Weak Link in Predicting Business Success

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Talent decision analytics pay off across every business metric!

weaklinkbusinessclimberBy Sheryl Dawson, CEO Dawson Consulting Group

No function is more disciplined in analyzing data relevant to business success than business development. Their financial, operational and market analyses are comprehensive and rigorous to ensure the best investment decisions for their investors. On the other hand, evaluation of leadership, organization and culture is subjective at best.

While many case studies demonstrate that the health of an organization’s culture and quality of leadership are top predictors of success, measuring those critical factors has been more an art than a science. Korn Ferry’s July, 2016 Briefings includes the article, Why Boards Make Bad Decisions, which emphasizes the importance of having a sound succession plan and the right team in place for ongoing success. Yet, measuring leadership fit and cultural health has been the weak link in predicting success for businesses across industries!
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LeBron James, Team Building and Assessments

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The Business Lesson LeBron James Learned (hopefully)

The 2015 NBA Finals went to six games. The day before the sixth game, when asked if Cleveland would win the game and tie up the series avoiding elimination, LeBron James replied “No. Cleveland will win because I am the best basketball player in the game.”

This was a bold statement, but as my father used to say , “It ain’t bragging if it’s true” and I believe LeBron was not bragging. In game six of the 2015 NBA finals, James again poured out with 32 points, 18 rebounds, and nine assists, but the Golden State Warriors hoisted the Larry O’Brien Trophy after finishing and the Spurs clinched the 2015 Finals in Cleveland.

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Nervous about Filling Your Talent Pipeline?

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Are you getting nervous about how to fill your talent pipeline during the next few years? If you said no, you may want to consider the cold hard facts of what we are facing. According to the Pew Research Center, 10,000 baby boomers will reach retirement age every day from now through 2030. In addition, staggering statistics abound; 50% of U.S. government workers are eligible to retire and 55% of registered nurses can be expected to retire between now and 2020.

While unemployment remains high, finding skilled workers to fill open positions is among the top challenges in virtually every organization. As the economy improves, top talent will have more choices and attrition will accelerate. In addition, “X” and “Y” generation leaders will require us to evaluate our approach to career progression/options, work-life balance and global factors. This, along with strategic uncertainty, the impact of social media and data overload, and the increasing velocity of business, indicates mounting people challenges ahead for businesses large and small.

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DESP… Pick the Right Employee

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Many organizations use various tools and techniques for identifying their talent pipeline. Some use a “nomination approach,” while others use traditional tools such as a performance and potential matrix, a tool used by managers to identify high-performing individuals who are potential promotion candidates, creating lists of probable candidates.

DESP: A New Approach to Traditional Succession Planning Models

We suggest that a more comprehensive and objective approach with four key components, or “pillars,” will provide the rigor and discipline to produce a solid and fluid pipeline of talent. The “four pillars” are the critical components to be considered with any strategy.

Each has its own set of contributing factors, and collectively they produce a solid foundation for execution. We refer to this as the “DESP” model.

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New Tech to Manage Hiring

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They say data is king. He who gathers and uses the data the best wins, no matter what the goal. So if your goal is to hire the best suited person for the job, are you optimizing your data?

For the last twenty years, the HR solutions for hiring used slow, inefficient processes to choose the right job candidates. Other departments, such as bookkeeping, sales and customer service evolved from using static, standalone contact systems to more sophisticated automatic systems. These new systems cut down on tedious entry work and added efficiencies and greater performance. They free up labor to perform more personal and human tasks allowing for better customer and prospect engagement and tighter financial performance.

Yet, HR talent acquisition remained limited to software filled with old data that required manual updating and was difficult to use. Time and space were being taken up with paper application or slow digital storing and sorting processes. With these systems, 80 percent of a recruiter’s time was typically spent performing low-level mindless tasks.

However, hiring and development of good talent is getting a boost from more sophisticated data management. Forward thinking companies are now utilizing more sophisticated software systems that use data science and predictive analytics to alleviate the menial work.

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New Role of HR Manager- HSM

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Hiring and development of good talent is getting a boost from sophisticated talent data management. Forward thinking companies are now utilizing more sophisticated software systems that use automation, data science and predictive analytics to optimize talent decisions while increasing efficiency in talent management processes. This new breed of “smart” hiring software is fueling an emerging category called hiring success management (HSM).

As HSM becomes more prevalent and computers take over much of the routine side of recruiting, some industry watchers have expressed concern that recruiters’ roles would become obsolete. In fact, the opposite is true.

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Tranquil Inertia

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Do you have a place you go to relax? Get away from work, stress, commitments? Disengage? That’s tranquil inertia.

Paradox theory in Harrison Job Suitability Assessments identifies “tranquil inertia” as part of the Paradox for “Motivation”. Self-Motivation and Stress Management may seem to be contrary traits, however when a high intensity exists in both traits you reach an area of “Poised Achievement”.

However, if your preference for self-motivation is low and your stress management is high, you probably operate routinely in tranquil inertia. When the preference to achieve is greater than your ability to manage stress, you may develop an underlying desire to have a respite from your hard work, in other words you seek a place of Tranquil Inertia.

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Using a Job Suitability Assessment

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There are many types of assessments and each has its own purpose.

A critical consideration in selecting an assessment is to use an assessment that fits your purpose. If you are attempting to hire, develop, promote, and retain talent, the assessments must produce reports that are related to the requirements of the job.

If you use a job suitability assessment, there are several important factors which make the assessment useful. These include:

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Do You Have a Drama King/Queen ?

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Drama Queen

Do you have a Drama King or Queen? You know the type….

Characteristics: Wants the whole world to know what’s happening in their lives and ever ready to share openly the ups and downs of their all too public soap operas.

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You are not a Style, YOU are Unique!

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Who does not enjoy taking behavioral personality assessments to better understand themselves? We are infinitely interested in who we are, how we interact with others and just what makes us tick! The problem is, most assessments measure a very narrow set of traits. Many common psychological and behavioral assessments look primarily at personality traits. For instance, Myers Briggs and DISC are widely used to measure personality styles. Imagine of the 6+ billion people in the world, you are one of 16 Myers Briggs styles! So what exactly does that make you — 1 in 375,000,000? No, YOU are unique! To appreciate just how unique you are, view this powerful video and be encouraged: You are Unique
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Crowd Pleasers

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Crowd Pleaser

Crowd Pleasers- How to Spot them!

Employees whose personality types are disruptive at work and typically put a wrench in productivity exist in every organization and can be “walking liabilities”.

One type is the “Crowd Pleaser”.

Characteristics: Plays the populist role naturally, likeable, affable, humorous, a live wire and life of the party; knows what and how to say it to the right crowd at the right time and place.

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Three Keys to Work Satisfaction

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three keys to work satisfactionIt seems basic. If you like what you are doing it doesn’t feel so much like work. If you enjoy doing something you are more likely to continue doing it and do it well. So shouldn’t a personality assessment being used to measure job suitability include measuring work satisfaction?

Measuring work satisfaction is essential to determine motivation and forecast whether an individual will prosper, succeed and stay with the organization. Most behavioral and personality assessments fail to measure work satisfaction and are therefore limited to predicting personality.

Harrison Assessments’ twenty five plus years of research prove that employees who enjoy at least 75% or more of their job are three times more likely to succeed than employees who enjoy less than 75% of their job. Measuring factors related to work satisfaction makes it possible to predict job success and therefore hire, motivate and retain top talent.

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Incessant Complainers

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incessant complainer

Incessant Complainers. Do you have this type of employee in your organization?

Characteristics: Non-stop complaining about the company, the working environment, colleagues and customers; does not see problems as opportunities to improve a situation. Complains about things but walks away when called to take up the challenge to change things for better.

Traits to look out for: Low willingness to take up challenges. Has a very strong mindset of what things “ought to be”. Low or moderate technical competencies to perform the job and has a weak desire to improve oneself by taking the necessary actions to learn new skills and adopt a mindset shift to address issues constructively.
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Ego Almighty

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Huge Ego

There are typically all sorts of various personalities working in an organization. In previous blogs we have reviewed a few. The Drama King/Queen, The Incessant Complainer, etc. Do you have a few “ego almighty’s” working in your company?

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Just DO it!

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just do it

“I HATE my work!” How successful do you think someone will be at a job who says this? “I don’t care if you hate it, just do it”. How long will this company be operating if this is the most often said comment from the team leader?

The Harrison Assessment’s Paradox Theory predicates that performance and enjoyment are closely linked, because when one enjoys doing something in particular, one tends to do it more willingly and often. This in turn makes one very competent in that task and thereby makes one an effective exponent of that particular job. Workers who have a great time doing whatever it is that captivates them, will be effective performers and ultimately add to the company’s success rate!

The key is to find what turns on a particular worker and provide an environment where this is readily found and you’ll have a recipe for employee success for sure!

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Succession Planning- Hire Leaders from Within

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Succession Planning Hire Leaders from Within

To Hire Leaders from Within, or to bring in Outside Leaders? That is the Question

During these times of high structural unemployment, finding skilled workers to fill open skilled positions is among the top challenges in virtually every organization. As the economy improves, top talent will have more choices and attrition will accelerate. In addition, “X” and “Y” generation leaders will require us to evaluate our approach to career progression/options, work-life balance and global factors. This, along with strategic uncertainty, the impact of social media and data overload, and the increasing velocity of business, indicates mounting people challenges ahead for businesses large and small.

Sometimes hiring external candidates to meet these needs is a sound strategy. However, according to research by the Center for Creative Leadership, an astonishing 66% of senior managers hired from the outside fail within 18 months. Clearly, our historic view of leadership and talent pipeline readiness will have to be redefined.

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What do Gen X and Gen Y want in a job?

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what do gen x and gen y want

Harrison Assessments International recognizes that as the population ages, the competition for attracting good, skilled Gen X and Gen Y employees heats up. Employers are finding that monetary rewards are not enough to attract and retain younger workers.

Jamie Gutfreund  of the Intelligence Group spends a great deal of time examining the differing motivations and preferences of the generations. Gutfreund (herself a member of Generation X) says it’s important to bear in mind that Xers were culturally different from the Baby Boom Generation that preceded them.

While boomers insisted on being heard by the world, “we [Xers] were a smaller generation [less than half the size of the boomer generation] who felt no one was listening to us,” she says. “We felt we had to fight” to have a voice, to make an impact, to earn a seat at the table of power.

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Enabling Innovation with the Help of Personality Trait Assessments

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Electric bulb in woman handInnovation, Innovation, Innovation. It is hard to read a newspaper or business journal without finding an article on innovation or a reference to how companies must innovate to stay competitive. But the question that few articles address is how does a company become innovative or foster a culture of innovation?

Most will agree that people are the key to innovation, which raises yet another question – how do you know if someone is innovative? There is no easy way to identify innovative people from non-innovative people. Fortunately, there are critical traits found within people who are considered innovative leaders. This creates the opportunity to utilize personality trait assessments to identify those with the most innovative potential.
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Finally, A Way to Effectively Predict Potential!

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A WIN-WIN Strategy for Leadership Development

fairHairedSyndromeOrganizations have been utilizing the 9-box approach to succession planning for many years, yet the challenge of measuring potential is often very subjective and based on who knows whom! Organizations have sought to reduce the impact of the “halo effect” or “fair-haired” syndrome by developing leadership competency models and applying them to the evaluation process. However, the challenge of actually measuring one’s potential relative to competencies generally remains subjective. Finally, there is a behavioral analytics approach that removes the subjectivity of predicting leadership potential. How is it accomplished?
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