Selection and Recruitment

Every organisation must have an objective and robust process to select people into vacant roles. Getting the right person appointed to the right role is absolutely crucial. If this is not achieved, the impact can be severe, potentially devastating at the level of an executive leader.

There are two critical elements to manage.

• Firstly, it is essential for an organisation to explicitly define the technical skills, knowledge, experience and behavioural qualities that are required by the jobholder to provide them with any chance of delivering outstanding performance. And, to differentiate positively your organisation from its competitors, average or mediocre performance will not suffice!
• Secondly, the means by which these criteria can be assessed and evaluated needs to be established. Fundamentally, this must entail objective and valid measurement, which takes stock of the potential jobholder’s existing performance credentials and considers their potential to be effective in the longer-term in a more demanding role.

This is a crucial point. Each of the criteria identified in the first bullet point necessitates its own measurement standard. To think otherwise is akin to thinking that distance and capacity can be measured using the same yardstick. That simply is not the case.

For over 25 years, we have assessed senior leaders around the world in the majority of business sectors as well as areas such as education, health, social services and charities. This information pool provides us with a real and genuine understanding of the behaviours that are associated with delivering outstanding performance in highly demanding leadership roles.

Our expertise lies in defining, building and maintaining a truly valid and practical measurement system to assess individuals’ behavioural strengths. Our research clearly demonstrates that it is behaviours, more so than any other of the criteria that merit measurement and evaluation within a selection process, because behaviours have the most significant impact upon performance.

Any recruitment and selection process that takes only a superficial view of behaviours will lead to an ineffectual appointment being made.

Our data, captured over a quarter of a century of global activity, shows that making the wrong appointment into a senior role carries the potential to destroy organisational value, be that economic, reputational or both. We have experience recommending appointments at the most senior roles, e.g. Chairman, Chair of Trustees, Chair of Governors, Chief Executive, Board Director, Non-Executive Director, Vice Chancellor, Head-teacher.