Behavioral Assessments

This is the conclusion of “The Entrepreneur’s Plateau” blog series. The plateau is the state of a relatively new business (started and run by an entrepreneur) with stable and profitable operations but stalled growth. 

How can you avoid the plateau or leave it behind if you find yourself there?  Here are key strategies to follow:

·         Know the Risk – The critical knowledge is that growth cannot continue in the same way your business grew during the initial start-up phase. If a business does not continue to grow it risks being sidelined and left behind as the market changes.

·         Balance Your Leadership Style – The key personal qualities that make an entrepreneur risk a business start-up can create leadership issues as the management challenges change with a growing organization. A larger organization needs leaders who can either balance their own personal instincts with learned behavior or create a team and undertake executive team building so others can provide that balance. 

·         Motivate – Entrepreneurs are by definition “self-starters” and as such it can be a baffling concept that other people need external motivators to excel. The exact same things that energize an entrepreneur – independence, action, challenge – can stymie others. Giving other people what THEY need to perform should be the challenge for the entrepreneur who wants to avoid stalled growth.

·         Communicate – When a business grows beyond “line of sight” management, one of the primary challenges to succeed is effective communication.  Delegation of both authority and details becomes necessary in a growing business and the trust required in this effort is not possible unless communication is excellent.

·         Plan Ahead – The problems highlighted in this series are predictable and foreseeable. Constantly assess your situation with strategic planning methods that will identify the points where organizational change will be necessary and plan for them. When you add people who will be responsible for delegated authority or details of execution, conduct due diligence to ensure you’re putting the right people in those roles and that you know how to manage them.

Clarity regarding self-knowledge on personality traits is a valuable commodity for any entrepreneur. Using external, objective personality assessments can provide this information for yourself as well as candidates for key managerial positions. This knowledge also points the way toward how to supervise people that will avoid the typical roadblocks to growth.

This is the second in a series of blog entries on “The Entrepreneur’s Plateau.” The introductory segment defined this plateau as the state of a relatively new business (started and run by an entrepreneur) with stable and profitable operations but stalled growth. 

This entry explores some common characteristics within the personalities of entrepreneurial leaders that lead businesses to get stuck on the plateau. This perspective has been gained through my work with dozens of such clients and my use of personality assessments.

The following management challenges that lead to The Entrepreneur’s Plateau often exist because of the personality of the entrepreneurial leader:

·         Delegating Authority – Entrepreneurs are often successful exactly because they are “take charge” personalities who thrive on broad authority and high degrees of control. Given resource limits (e.g. even the most-energetic leader still has only 24 hours in a day) the entrepreneur who cannot relinquish authority and control to others will inevitably hit a limit on their growth.

·         Delegating Details – Many entrepreneurs’ success springs from their expertise in a particular area. When such expertise drives a sense of “perfectionism” a leader can limit their business’ growth by becoming a one-person quality assurance checkpoint/bottleneck.

·         Creating Systems – The dynamic, high-energy entrepreneur who relentlessly drives business results through personal intervention in the marketplace often is the same person who can’t be bothered to create a structure that others need to effectively assist in pursuing results. To expand beyond the plateau, a leader has to be able to communicate the parameters of expected contribution. In other words, he or she must create a management system that builds on the strengths of a complete team to achieve organizational alignment.

·         Motivating Others – By definition, entrepreneurs are self-starters. People like this are motivated by their own internal drive for goals and results. Given the importance of motivation, this is a great personal quality. However, one who is internally motivated may lack an understanding of other who are not exactly like thme.  They may not realize that other people may need something other than an alarm clock to get them motivated for the day’s work. 

Any one of these challenges can result in The Entrepreneur’s Plateau. As with any dysfunction, awareness of the problem is the first step to correcting it and behavioral assessments can play a useful role.

Next in The Entrepreneur’s Plateau Series: The Limits of “Line of Sight” Management

About “The Entrepreneur’s Plateau:” This ADVISA blog series by Paul Dumouchelle focuses on common organizational alignment challenges encountered by new business initiatives after the initial startup phase. Please add your own insights about entrepreneurial challenges - I welcome your comments!

This is an occasional series describing (anonymously) a real challenge faced by one of my clients and my recommendation to them.

Unexpected Introverts

Scenario: An employee who talks a great deal takes a personality assessment survey and receives a score consistent with a strong drive for introversion.

“I Don’t Believe It!” – Employee #1 has personality assessment results that show High Dominance and Introversion.

“How Can This Be True?” – Employee #2 has personality assessment results that show High Patience and Introversion.

The Issue: One use of personality assessments is to describe work-related behavior. 

Many jobs require high-quality interpersonal communication and teamwork. For such jobs, “extroversion” is often identified as an important quality. In many personality assessments you will find a measure of extroversion.

Extroversion can be defined as the need for, and behaviors related to social interaction. When a person talks a lot we often consider them extroverted – but this is not always the case.

Employee #1, referenced above, was NOT identified as extroverted in their personality assessment and took strong exception to this. In fact, he could hardly keep his mouth shut during several days of training with comments about his strong opinions on this and many other topics.

Employee #2 also did NOT score high on extroversion and her colleagues were very surprised, given her behavior. They said she was very talkative and was at the center of planning for many of their team’s social gatherings.

ADVISA Analysis and Recommendation: People talk for many reasons – an extrovert talks to persuade others, build enthusiasm, encourage consensus and draw others’ attention.

Employee #1 was surely talkative, too, but his purpose for talking was to dominate the environment and push his own point of view – consistent with his High Dominance Drive. Verbally combative, he relished conflict and was less interested in persuading than forcing acceptance of his view. His need to have things his own way led to noisy interaction with others but it was not caused by extroversion.

Employee #2 talked extensively with her colleagues but her purpose was to reinforce the familiarity and affiliation she felt with this group – consistent with her High Patience Drive. Not interested in persuasion or personal attention, she genuinely cared about her colleagues’ lives and wanted to be involved with them. A supportive, family-like environment was important to her and she engaged in frequent conversations to stay up-to-date on what was going on with her long-term acquaintances.

Result: Recognizing that being talkative IS NOT the same thing as being extroverted provides managers with superior ability to leverage the importance of motivation and use this superior understanding of their people to achieve organizational alignment.

Strong hiring is critical for company success. But I’ve found that great hiring is less about applicant screening and recruiting strategy and more about simply knowing what you need.
 

For example: You need someone to answer the phones, so you need a receptionist. But will he/she work with a 60-line phone system with 300 calls/day, or manage about 25 calls a day, but be expected to “triage” customers? These are two very different positions, and being clear about the needs of your position will guide the rest of the process. 

Here is a framework I find helpful for defining a job and capturing that in the format of a job description:

1.       Position Summary  (2-3 sentences) – Why does this position exist?  How is it critical to the company’s success?

2.       Responsibilities (3-5 broad areas with 3-12 detailed bullets in each) – What does a person in this role do? What are the 3-5 areas into which their responsibilities naturally fall? What will they be evaluated on?

3.       Core competencies (6-12) – How should this person perform their job so that they align with the company overall? What behaviors must one exhibit in order to fit into your company culture and meet your definition of professionalism? 

4.       Position specific competencies (3-6) –What traits must someone have in order to be successful in this specific role? HINT: Personality assessments like Predictive Index® can be very helpful for defining these. 

5.       Critical skills & knowledge (3-6) – What are the teachable skills or formal knowledge that one must have for this position? 

6.       Working conditions – How will this person work on a daily basis? How much travel and what kind of travel is involved? 

When you can clearly answer these questions, you’ve done half the work necessary for strong hiring. You can use the information from these question to guide where you post the position, how you screen resumes and how you interview candidates. 

This is an occasional series describing (anonymously) a real challenge faced by one of my clients and my recommendation to them based on analysis and understanding of motivation as measured by personality assessments.

Please let me know what topics you’d like to see included in this series.

- Paul

Becoming More Extroverted

Scenario: An employee who aspires to become a supervisor of his team seeks counseling on what he needs to change to meet the expectations of the higher-level position.

Personality Assessment Results

The ambitious employee's personality is characterized by a high degree of Formality, very strong Introversion, Patience and low level of Dominance.  His results also indicate he is making efforts to become more Extroverted.
 

The Issue: The individual is a technical expert who is very introverted. A primary issue holding him back from advancement is that he has not paid attention to how he is perceived by others. As an introvert, this is only natural. 

He is a technician and he dresses like one – while people who are supervising employees in this company wear dress slacks, long-sleeve shirts and ties.  His office is very disorganized and he has positioned his seat in such a way that he is not visible unless you actually walk in the room – neither of these situations is consistent with expectations of management personnel.

ADVISA Analysis and Recommendation: As a High Formality individual, the ambitious employee should be receptive to specific feedback regarding expectations. I recommended to the company’s leadership that they be very detailed in their expectations regarding interactions with others. 

Some of this type of feedback had already been done as part of their standard employee development program and the personlity assessment results indicate the person is already trying to be more extroverted. He had reorganized his office to provide a more-professional look and make himself visible to others passing by. He also got clothing recommendations and has begun to dress for the position he seeks, not just the one he’s in now.

Result: Continued management skills training on the need for being more interactive with his colleagues has paid off for the ambitious employee. Management is getting feedback from his colleagues that they have noticed a positive difference in the person’s behavior. This successful behavior change by the ambitious employee is consistent with our understanding of the Introversion/Extroversion Drive – since the behaviors of the Drive are the least-difficult to bring up when the drive is Low, or vice versa.

In my Organizational Behavior class last Saturday (I'm slowly, but surely, working on my MBA), my professor uttered a line that I'll be quoting for years. 

"If you need a squirrel to climb the tree, hire the squirrel.  Don't hire the duck." 

Ding, ding, ding!!!! 

We were talking about the use of personality assessments, which is a niche of the professor - his work in a Fortune 500 company includes determining what assessments to use and managing their use, especially in hiring.  He gave very specific examples that quantified the impact of using a reliable and valid assessment in hiring.  Fascinating and meaningful, but the squirrel/duck analogy said it all.  Don't hire the duck.

There are several layers to why I found his summation so powerful.  These relate to previous posts I've done about best hiring practices. 

1. Know what you need.  In this case, a tree must be climbed.
2. Any personality assessments you use  should help you quantify and "package" the behaviors you need.  You need a squirrel.
3. Then the candidate assessment should help you see what you have in front of you.  You have a duck. 
4. Finally, you have to do the fit/gap analysis.  Can the duck climb the tree?

• Is your search attracting squirrels?  Do you need to do more to attract a squirrel (e.g., offer stronger compensation or add relocation)?
• Can you wait it out until a squirrel comes your way?
• You need a tree to be climbed because you need to get what's at the top.  Is there another way to get what's at the top?  What about a bird that can fly more than the duck? It's not a squirrel, but it'll get the job done.

At one time or another, nearly all managers have wished for the secret formula for staff motivation. 

The answer is not an overly complex one, but can take practice to internalize. The answer is that we are all motivated and gain work satisfaction from different needs and drives. 

Think this over, and I believe you will recognize its truth:  Some of us love taking chances, thrive in chaotic environments and are motivated by competition. Others are more productive in familiar, calm surroundings performing compliance tasks to a nearly perfect degree and are de-motivated by competition. Still others are most productive somewhere in the middle of the continuum of these two extreme scenarios.

Some of us adore the spotlight, think best by “talking out” our ideas and are motivated by recognition among our peers. Others prefer time to absorb and ruminate over data and ideas before being asked to offer an opinion and are less concerned with showy awards.  

Providing for these different motivating needs isn’t necessarily difficult if you have the right tools and knowledge.  And the result? Measurable productivity gains in the workplace. 

But if these needs and drives are not obvious, how does a manager learn what they are?  When asked in a one-on-one setting with their boss, many employees give answers that are well-meaning, or politically correct, but inaccurate. Some people don’t honestly know what drives them because they have never seriously considered the question. Others are not comfortable admitting to their needs.

So what is a manager to do? One way to “look under the hood” and add hard data to your people-management tool kit is by using a personality assessment. If the assessment is a solid, statistically-valid instrument based on behavioral science principles, there’s no need for guesswork. Consider making one part of your employee development program. 

Of course, we think our personality assessment – the Predictive Index® is the best of such tools. Ask for a demonstration today. We’d be happy to show you how to strengthen your leadership and achieve measurable business results.

I'm a sports freak...I love every sport and I'm an excellent, knowledgeable spectator. Football, basketball, tennis, baseball (well, just the playoffs because the regular season is simply too long at 162 games) - the list goes on and on. The only sport I actually play is tennis and I can tend to be just a tad too competitive on the court but I love being out there. Plain and simple, I like winning but more than that, I hate losing.

My job at Advisa is a Hiring Partner. I'm here to assist clients in hiring selection, utilizing applicant screening, the PI® behavioral assessment tool and best hiring practices to help them fill positions. These could be any positions, such as a Synergy Group Leader position in China or a Network Engineer  in Dayton.

I take great pride in filling any position, but especially the "needle in the haystack" ones where our clients have come to us because of our expertise and ability. I'm always aiming for a 1.000 batting average and when I'm not able to find the perfect candidate and my average slips a little, as occasionally happens, it bothers me...a lot.

Nobody throws a touchdown pass or hits a home run or serves an ace every single time but that doesn't mean they're not trying to. And it's the same with not only me but the entire Advisa Hiring staff as all of us are committed to providing you with the highest, most professional assistance with employee recruiting...every time out.
 

When it comes to best hiring practices your best bet is to be consistent.  Personnel selection itself presents enough challenges and by maintaining consistency in the process used for candidate selection you can avoid curve balls along the way.  

Take a scenario that I was recently presented with in working with a client.  The typical selection process for this client was to vet resumes, send prescreening information to those candidates who looked to be most qualified, further screen select candidates through a phone interview using behavioral interview questions and then narrow down the pool to only the top candidates for the position to bring in for in-person interviews.  

With one candidate who was being considered,  the hiring manager after reviewing the candidate's prescreening information thought it might be best to check the candidate's references before spending the time doing a phone interview.  Did you catch the curve ball?  Curve balls create questions on our side and on the part of those candidates who are being considered for an opportunity.  In order to most effectively compare candidates you are considering for a position the steps you take each candidate through must be consistent.  This allows you to compare apples to apples and make the best hiring decision possible. 

In the end, this client decided against checking references at this early stage of the game and instead put this candidate through the same steps that others had gone through.  The end result?  The process is moving forward and this candidate is being evaluated fairly against the other candidates up for consideration. 

The rule of thumb to remember in assessment and selection of candidates for a position is be consistent!!





 

This is an occasional series describing (anonymously) a real challenge faced by one of my clients and my recommendation on how to motivate employees.  Please let me know what topics you’d like to see included in this series.

“Am I Doing a Good Job?”

Scenario:  A New Manager was hired to run a key operation in a client’s business.  The New Manager had done the exact same job at another similar business and reported to a Boss who had come from a supplier to the business but who did not have direct experience in the New Manager’s position. 

Personality Assessments of Key Players

“New Manager” personality is that of the complete extrovert – very driven to engage in social relations with others.  He is also a team player though only somewhat concerned with details

“Boss” likes things done by the book.  Reserved and analytical, he does things by the book and only communicates essential facts as necessary.

The Issue:  The Boss believed that the New Manager should know how to run his operation given his experience and told him that.  The Boss expected the New Manager to take this direction and run with it.

One month after starting on the job the New Manager called the Boss on the weekend to ask, “Am I doing a good job?”  The New Manager also talked to the Boss daily with questions about how to do certain things or confirm the Boss agreed with a decision the New Manager planned on making.  The New Manager asked if he could get a written Job Description.

The Boss was surprised by the New Manager’s questions, which undermined the Boss’ confidence that this new hire was a good choice, and wanted some suggestions for how to handle the New Manager.

Consulting Analysis and Recommendation:  The weekend call asking “Am I doing a good job?” was like a cry for help!  Employee productivity for the New Manager depends on feedback from the Boss.

As an extrovert, the New Manager defines success in terms of how he is accepted and viewed by others.  As a “by the book” leader, the Boss defines success in terms of achieving an objective standard of excellence, doing what is “right.”  The Boss expected the New Manager to know what “right” was based on the New Manager’s prior expertise.  The Boss did not have such expertise so he felt he had little to contribute for the New Manager and, being reserved, the Boss preferred to be left on his own to focus on this work and assumed the New Manager would share this preference.

I suggested a number of steps:

1. Develop a Job Description TOGETHER in a face-to-face discussion between the Boss and New Manager.  This will clarify expectations and build on the New Manager’s desire for interaction with the Boss.

2.  Look for opportunities to praise the New Manager (particularly in front of others) to build his confidence that the Boss approves of the New Manager’s performance.  When supervising employees recognition is always valuable, verbal praise works well with extroverts but other personality types are best addressed with different approaches.

3.  After a conversation with the New Manager about an issue clarify with him that he understands what the Boss expects in this type of situation and confirm that a conversation should not be necessary on this topic in the future.

Result:  The Boss was relieved that the New Manager’s behavior was due to his personality and not an inability to fulfill his new job’s responsibilities.  With an understanding of the New Manager’s need for personal approval the Boss felt he had a “roadmap for success” in dealing with his new subordinate.
 

Turbocharging an engine provides more power with less fuel. You can turbocharge your hiring and selection processes using an advanced form of job vs. personality fit analysis in a process called "Turbocharged Screening and Selection." This saves you time and money by providing a more-efficient approach to more-effective applicant screening and selection.

Turbocharged Screening & Selection (TSS) is a methodical approach to generating superior and consistent results in matching people to work. We get superior results because we transform the powerful but complex process of using personality assessments in selection decisions into something simple and fast.

The TSS method consists of seven phases:

1. Developing an “Ideal Personality Target”
2. Validating the “Ideal Personality Target” with incumbent analysis
3. Creating a “Job Matching Scoresheet”
4. Scoring Candidates in the Scoresheet
5. Developing Behavioral Interviewing Questions for Fits
6. Developing Behavioral Interviewing Questions for Gaps
7. Evaluating Candidates’ Responses

These seven phases will be addressed in detail in separate blog entries that follow. 
 

The time invested in preparation is paid for by the efficiencies gained in implementing each people-selection decision and the quality of those decisions.

See my next blog entry, below, for phase 1 - "Developing an "Ideal Personality Target"

This the second entry of the "Turbocharged Screening & Selection" Series
 

To systematically match people to work in ways that maximize employee productivity and work satisfaction we need a personality assessment tool that can be used in the hiring process. With some personality assessments we can define the behavioral target of an “ideal” performer for any job.

We typically develop this theoretical target based on the Job Description and management judgment. These inputs are converted into the “language” of appropriate personality assessments using  advice on HR best practices provided by either an internal expert (typically HR or OD personnel) or an external consultant.

This “Ideal Personality Target” (IPT) is summarized in a variety of ways, including key behavior characteristics such as:

•      Communication Style

•      Decision-Making Approach

•      Drive for Goal Attainment

•      Team Orientation

•      Sense of Urgency

This clarification of the desired behaviors simplifies future decisions by clarifying exactly what we need – decisions can then be made faster.

Before using this description we must “validate” our target by comparing it to what we see in the personality patterns of our incumbent personnel.  This is the focus of Phase 2 -"Validating the “Ideal Personality Target” with incumbent analysis" which is described in the blog entry below.

This is a continuation of the "Turbocharged Screening and Selection" blog series.

Exploring gaps identified in the Job Matching Scoresheet is a very important part of the process. After all, we’ve invested considerable time in describing what we’re looking for in the job to maximize employee productivity and work satisfaction and when a gap occurs it indicates our personality assessments have identified a mismatch on that personality element.

It is important to remember that not all gaps are created equal. Some may be so important for engaging employees and our confidence is so strong in the measure that we place a mismatched candidate at the very bottom of the priority ranking (or even, as discussed previously, exclude them from further consideration altogether). Others may be relatively unimportant.  In most cases, we want to conduct a targeted probe with the candidate regarding the mismatch to determine if they can address the personality mismatch with learned behaviors.

In preparing questions we follow the behavioral interviewing principle that past behavior is the best indicator of future actions. Our questions get candidates to describe their past behaviors with open-ended behavioral questions.

Using our sample job and sample candidate on one of their gaps:

Note – a complete guide would have interview guidance for all of the personality elements described in the “Ideal Personality Target.”

Using the Job Matching Scoresheet to identify personality gaps simplifies the process of determining where a candidate might face a particular challenge in a job. Developing the questions in advance allows interviewers to quickly conduct probing evaluations that will determine a candidate’s potential.