Executive Assessment
Our basic In-Depth assessment is state of the art, minimal use of executive's time and has three quite different applications: Developmental, Pre-Hire Candidate Fit, and Team Development.
Click on each element to learn more:
Chris has been doing assessments of one kind or another for over 40 years. His initial training as a psychologist gave him a good understanding of the basic ingredients necessary for a reliable and valid assessment of people. He has created several assessment instruments (leadership competency, 360, team and organizational assessment). His Dawson 360 tool is psychometrically valid and reliable, as well as fully automated in the cloud.
Professional assessment should be distinguished from ‘amateur’ assessment (even if well-intended). Everyone has a persona they wish to project; executives tend to be confident, ambitious and in-control. Seeing past the ‘story’ takes considerable training and skill. You don’t need to be a psychologist to do professional assessment, but you do need to have training and supervised experience in doing assessments. There are no ‘naturals’ in this field.
It is imperative to use both quantitative and qualitative tools and methods. As well as to know how best to report findings of the assessment.
- Quantitative Tools we use:
- The Hogan Leadership Suite (HPI, HDI, MVPI) is the universally acclaimed best practice tool for measuring traits which are stable over time.
- The Wonderlic is a powerful measure of cognitive ability that correlates highly with lengthier and tedious several hour traditional IQ testing. It is a 12-minute written test.
- For Developmental Assessments we often include a multi-source 360; our own valid and reliable instrument or the Company’s if done recently.
- Qualitative tools include the Behavioral Competency Interview which seeks concrete behavioral examples from the interviewee’s life experiences.
- A 2-3 hour live interview (Zoom or In-Person) provides more than enough raw data to both clearly native strengths and shortcomings, but also to test for the presence of specific competencies required by the new position, career aspirations, and other more specific competencies related to organizational culture.
- Brief 30’ interviews with peers, subordinates and superior in the case of developmental assessments.
We typically produce a written report that outlines key strengths, development areas and depending on application a discussion of fit/risk areas or practical recommendations for the interviewee and their manager about how to action the recommendations. For developmental assessments, it is common to have both an individual feedback session for interviewee and manager, in addition to a 3-way discussion of findings facilitated by Chris. Sometimes the summary data is not what the interviewee was expecting or wanting to hear. Managing this challenge requires courage, skill and sensitivity. The goal is always to be constructive and helpful – irrespective of whether the interviewee sees it in the same way. Some need to be approached explicitly and directly; others need softening so as not to be demotivating, and everywhere in between. How this is done both in writing and verbally in live feedback is an art that Chris has 35 years experience with.
Our basic professional assessment process has three distinctly different applications: Developmental, Pre-Hire Candidate Fit and Team Development
