“By and large, executives make poor promotion and staffing decisions. By all accounts their batting average is no better than .333. At most, one-third of such decisions turn out right, one-third are minimally effective, and one-third are outright failures. In no other area would we put up with such miserable performance, indeed, we need not and should not. Managers making people decisions will never be perfect, of course, but they should come pretty close to batting 1.000.”

 (Peter Drucker)

Did you know that research shows that more than a third of executive hires leave the new organization in 6 months? The cost of such lost investments can be high, both in the short run in terms of search, assessment, and replacement training costs, but also in the long run in terms of the strategic operational losses that can accrue when organizations are missing key leadership personnel.

Taking the uncertainty out of executive selection decisions
Jackson Leadership’s selection assessment process is a powerful tool that is proven to pay for itself repeatedly. We have helped organizations internationally to ensure that their selection process identifies candidates who have the skills and abilities to be successful leaders in their firms. We use a variety of technologies to gain a complete understanding of the challenges faced in specific positions. This permits us to make clear “hire” or “no hire” recommendations and produce developmental plans that will allow the selected individual to perform at a high level on day one.

As accredited Organizational Psychologists and Behaviorists with leading-edge knowledge, we are trained to assess leadership potential for executive-level jobs.

Our three-stage Executive Selection model consists of the following components:

Stage 1: Success Profiling:

For more than half a century, research has shown that there are two major components that affect the ability of a leader to be successful: task ability, and interpersonal/motivational capacity. Without the one, the other is simply not sufficient to produce a successful leader. Interestingly, research has shown that task skills help the new leader most when he/she first takes over the position. After a year, the interpersonal and motivational capacity of the leader becomes more important in predicting success. Too many times leaders are chosen on the basis of their accomplishments and abilities only to have them leave a company for lack of fit and desire to learn.

In order to build a proper Success Profile, we form a blueprint of the factors that will predict success by engaging key stakeholders and top performers in the client organization to:

  • Balance an understanding of current job requirements with future strategic challenges based on conversations with key stakeholders
  • Weight the importance of selected interpersonal/motivational and task-related aspects of performance with easy-to-use web-assisted technologies
  • Assess the key cultural factors and value fit of the candidates with the organization which is a key factor in retention past the 1-year mark

Stage 2: Screening of Candidates:

Based on the relative weightings provided by experts in the client organization, we have candidates fill out a customized leadership skills profile to chart all potential candidates on a matrix that describes each candidates combined probability of success in the job. In addition, using industry-leading Behavior-Based Interview techniques, we require all candidates to complete a short, but highly targeted past-behaviour interview designed to target integrity and value fit. Using this short and cost-efficient process, we are able to winnow the list of potential candidates down to 2 or 3 in a very brief period.

Stage 3: Assessment of Final Candidates & “Hire/No Hire” Recommendations:

Given the details of the Success Profile results, we design an in-depth assessment procedure using our proprietary Assessment Center technology. This procedure involves testing, interviews, role-plays, and simulations and is designed to give a wide and deep perspective on each candidate’s skills and overall strategic fit. We provide definitive “Hire/No Hire” recommendations and provide a concrete Developmental Plan for the person you choose to ensure the leader you select gets support tailored to his/her needs in that is so critical in the first 100 days on the job.

Benefits and Outcomes:

  • Compare internal and external candidates’ suitability for specific positions
  • Prevent business failures attributable to inadequate leadership
  • Avoid the financial expense of poor hiring decisions
  • Gain an advanced understanding of how candidates perform in leadership roles and under pressure
  • Acquire clear knowledge of a candidate’s leadership strengths and weaknesses
  • Determine whether a candidate’s personality is a good fit for your team and your organizational culture
Speed up the learning curve of external executive hires
 

top
 
   
 
© 2001-2006 Jackson Leadership Systems. All rights reserved.