Diversity and Cultural Fit

All too often, we hear about leaders of companies who avoid the use of assessment tools because they believe that these tools could screen out diverse candidates and could expose their organizations to lawsuits.  Is this true or false?

The quick answer to that one is, well, it depends...  If you utilize a tool that is not well-constructed and tends to score populations or groups differently, then the answer is probably true.  This is why it is important to carefully plan and research before instituting the use of any tools within your talent management systems.  You should avoid the use of tools that must be hand-scored or interpreted by an individual, as these tend to generate rater bias.  Styles inventories are fine for development and team building, but should not be used for selection purposes.  Tests that are easy to fake, such as word inventories (which statement/term is most or least like you) should also be avoided, unless the test documentation can provide high reliability and validity.

Throughout the research process, be sure to ask the test provider for the technical report or validation study before introducing any new tool within your company and have that report reviewed by someone familiar with testing to ensure that the findings are sufficient to demonstrate reliability and validity.  Also, ask about disparate impact on protected classes to see what studies have been done and what proof the test provider can offer you that the tool does not discriminate.

The research around the importance of cultural fit could cause companies to put diversity aside in favor of only hiring people who match a particular success model, since these people should have a better chance of success.  When this occurs, it is generally a result of some key factors.

• The test being used in fact causes disparate impact as it scores.  If it didn't, then all people, regardless of gender, race, age, or ethnicity, who demonstrate particular preferences or tendencies will match the core factors for success.
• Too much emphasis is being placed upon the results of the test.  This is frequently a problem where training is not consistently offered in how to use test results and how not to use test results.
• Avoid the use of a test that produces a Recommendation - Good Match to Position, Poor Match to Position - Recommended or Not Recommended, then you increase the chances that your managers will look at this bottom line first and put aside the information they gathered in interviews or in the work experiences.
• Hiring managers don't really know what factors lead to success in a particular role or position.  They tend to look for and hire people who are more like them, rather than people who demonstrate the core factors for success for a particular role.

Note that we're talking about core factors for success.  If you want to encourage diversity, stick to the core factors for success and hire people who are motivated by the work and the general milieu of your culture, rather than whether or not they possess one or two key traits that you know are common to people in your company.  We once had a client who refused to look at any candidate who didn't have a score of 50% or higher on Pace/Urgency.  We had to spend a great deal of time educating the client as to why Pace/Urgency wasn't the only core factor for success.

Unless you are driving a very specific change within your company’s culture, put less emphasis on secondary style factors.  If you need people with more initiative, then look for individuals who possess independence, high energy, a bit more of a propensity to take risks, and who are quite flexible.  These tendencies are all readily measurable in a good personality assessment.  Once your new hires are on the job, however, make sure to manage them as they need to be managed, or they will soon move elsewhere!

If you follow these basic and simple principles, then you will be able to hire a diverse population which also complements the cultural fit within your organization.  Using assessment tools effectively isn't something you need to be afraid of.  In fact, if you’re still unsure as to how your organization can use assessment tools to better understand your talent, visit us online at www.talentfirst.com or call our office at (908) 725-2500 to speak to one of our consultants directly.

Exactly What Is Emotional Intelligence Anyway?

In today’s business arena, it has become increasingly conceivable for one to get caught up in the hype of catch phrases that travel around the conference room.  As business professionals, we tend to want to use a flashy term that is fresh to gain attention and perhaps put a novel spin on an old idea.  Sometimes, we simply want to use a term that we have continuously heard used in corporate settings.  In particular, one phrase I hear too often misused is Emotional Intelligence (EI).  It is one of the most frequent inadequately defined terms I hear, especially when used to describe either sales or management techniques.  More commonly I hear people using and defining EI as nothing more than simple self-awareness.  The term Emotional Intelligence, sometimes called EQ or Emotional Quotient, has been in use for well over 20 years now.  However, it continues to gain in popularity in corporate settings.  The time seems ripe to provide a bit of a background and overview.

The truth is that it is not necessarily the fault of the masses when they incorrectly define and apply EI.  Authorities in the peer-reviewed literature actually fail to agree on one standard definition of EI.  Divergent viewpoints are quite common in the literature and unfortunately there is currently no measurement of EI that passes the rigorous psychometric standards of many personality assessments, or that is acceptable for use in employee selection.  Many measures should probably not be applied in developmental efforts either.  However, there are two approaches that serve as the basis for the most widely studied measures currently in use that will help to elucidate what EI is beyond simple self-awareness.

The most popular and widely-applied approach in organizational settings is what is known as the "mixed-model" approach, so called because it is a mixture of some classic personality traits and Emotional Intelligence abilities.  Many of these approaches break down EI into four main components, as follows:

1. Self-Awareness - this is ability to read one's own emotions and to recognize their impact while using those "gut" feelings to guide decisions
2. Self-Management - which involves controlling one's own emotions and impulses and adapting them to changing circumstances
3. Social Awareness - which is the ability to sense, understand, and react to others' emotions while also maintaining an understanding of social networks
4. Relationship Management - this is the ability to inspire, influence, and develop others while managing conflict

The other is the Ability-Based Model, which is much more academic in practice and of a more theoretical basis.  Noteably, measurement of Ability-Based EI tends to be more difficult and does not lend itself to self-report type instruments which are of course, the easiest to administer.  The distinguishing factor for pure Ability-Based EI is that EI is defined as a type of intelligence and is innate.  In short, it can not be developed.  There is a much more cut-and-dry background to this theoretical basis which also tends to limit its utility and application in a business setting.  The Ability-Based definition is as follows:

“The capacity to reason about emotions, and of emotions to enhance thinking.  It includes the abilities to accurately perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions, so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge, and to effectively regulate emotions so as to promote emotional and intellectual growth."  (Mayer & Salovey, 1997)

As you can see, although the approaches to measurement of EI may be very different academically, the two approaches describe a similar entity.  Further, this entity is considerably more than simply being “self-aware.”  Rather, it is about managing one's own emotions and effectively managing relationships.  The draw of being able to measure an individual's capacity for such a thing is certainly understandable.  However, it is a "buyer beware" marketplace for certain when it comes to choosing an instrument to measure EI.  Some of the best selling and most popular EI instruments have been excessively disparaged in the literature.  If you are in the market for an EI measure, you would be wise to consult an expert such as someone with a background in psychometrics.  Good test makers will always provide a technical manual of how their instrument was validated.  Having an expert review these manuals will help to lessen the chance of improperly measuring the EI of individuals in your organization.  EI tends to be a construct that carries much more emotional repercussions than personality, therefore, it is all the more important to do your diligent research when selecting a tool.

If you are interested in learning more about how TalentFirst can help you to understand Emotional Intelligence and how it can help your organization, give us a call at (908) 725-2500 or visit our website at www.talentfirst.com.  We will be more than happy to assist you.

Do Competency Systems Produce Real Results?

We recently did a study to see if a Competency System we built for a client produced any measurable results, or if it was just a "nice to have" system that management preferred to use.  Our client is within a large pharmaceutical company and leads a sales force which sells to institutions and hospital physicians.  The primary difficulty you have in assessing the real impact of a pharmaceutical rep's efforts is that, outside the vaccine and medical device arena where sales can be tracked by order, it is very difficult to measure exactly what impact the rep has on prescription writing of any given physician.  There are so many factors that impact the sale that the direct linkage between rep activity and actual sales is a dotted line at best, particularly in the institutional or hospital setting.

The first issue we faced was how to design a survey process to gather sufficient valid data to determine whether consistent application of the competency factors actually resulted in higher sales, performance ratings, or customer satisfaction rates.  We deployed a survey process first to representatives, asking them to rate their own abilities in consistently demonstrating various behaviors within the competency model.  Next, we ask the reps' managers to rate the reps' performance in consistently demonstrating the competency behaviors.  After we had all this data, we compared the responses to actual sales results to see if in fact there were significant correlations between consistent demonstration of competency behaviors and higher sales results.

Those reps who rated themselves, and whose managers rated them, higher were significantly producing increased sales.  The conclusion then, is that if you create a competency system that is relevant to the factors that lead to success, and the factors/behaviors are consistently demonstrated in daily activity, you will get better sales results.  Here we were able to produce actual numerical correlations of the relationship between consistent demonstration of competency behaviors and higher sales results.

Everyone has felt that there was some sort of relationship between competency and results, but to actually measure this using individual ratings and statistical correlation in a very straightforward way has rarely produced significant results.  In our study, we have shown that it is the consistency with which the individual demonstrates the described behaviors which results in higher productivity and better performance ratings, as assessed by managers and by individuals.

We are just entering the last phase of our survey process, which is determining whether customers note the consistent demonstration of competency factors during their activities with reps.  We'll let you know if we find a correlation between the customers' perceptions of competency and actual sales results, once our survey results are in.

If you are interested in learning more about how TalentFirst can help you to measure the relationship between your performance management system and actual productivity of your people, give us a call at (908) 725-2500.  We'll be happy to speak with you further about the process.

 

Prudent Risk Taking and Other Such Terms

Consultants usually have their own jargon that they consistently use to describe various behaviors their clients demonstrate.  Over the years, TalentFirst has devised or adopted several of these terms.  The interesting thing to me is that as we work with clients for the long term, many of them begin to speak in the same terminology.

Here are some of the terms that we have used and that clients have adopted for their internal use.

• Prudent risk taking - this means that people are able to make decisions on the basis of limited information and that they will rely on their intuition or their gut reaction to choose a course of action.
• Act with urgency - this means that when opportunities arise, individuals with rise quickly to take advantage of the situation, particularly when their is an obvious gain at stake.
• Strong resiliency - this means that people are able to bounce back quickly when things go wrong.  They are able to move forward in the face of setbacks or challenges.
• High energy - this means people have the gas in their personal tanks to drive action consistently throughout the day.
• Low urgency - this means that people have less drive than may be needed to achieve success in an organization.

So where did these terms come from?  Most are adaptations from the scales within our assessment tool, the Behavioral Insight®.  Interestingly enough, as clients begin to utilize metrics, they begin to think in those terms.  Such tools provide an objective benchmark system against which to compare various individuals or groups of individuals within an organization. They become descriptors of the culture and enable team members to understand what good behavior looks like.

In a way, I suppose, this is a compliment to us and our work.  To me, it is also a way to know that we have made a positive impact on an organization and perhaps helped people to understand what the cultural expectations are.