Digby Morgan takes a look at just how one can differentiate between the merely mediocre and the truly outstanding.

Whilst competency testing for junior or inexperienced personnel is more often than not a relatively painless and straightforward experience, when it comes to evaluating competency or potential at the more experienced, senior end of the scale, it’s a completely different matter. It’s an issue that has taxed many corporates - and those involved in the search and selection industry - and is complicated still further by the plethora of so-called solutions on offer from the legions of ‘experts’ to be found at the click of a Goggle search button.

At Digby Morgan we are continually striving to assist our clients to define their recruitment needs – specifically in our area of expertise, the HR arena. In recent years this has been most prevalent in the definition of what, for example, makes an HR Business Partner. Ever since David Ulrich (a Professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan and an accepted HR guru in the academic world) used the term back in the 90s in his book Human Resource Champions, Heads of HR have been talking to us about how to identify and recruit the best Business Partners. However, there seems no clear definition of the term and many people admit that they are not sure they would be able to differentiate an ‘excellent’ candidate from merely an ‘OK’ candidate.

In discussions with companies, competency models have clearly helped to define the skills and behaviours expected. But clients still feel that it is difficult to differentiate at the recruitment stage. We wanted to take this search further and believe we may have come across a method that will help recruiters at the most senior levels identify excellence.

We have been working very closely with a consultant by the name of Jan Hills. Jan runs her own business working with companies to transform their HR function and to develop Business Partners. Jan has developed a tool that she calls The Success Profile. Essentially what the tool does is to recognise that in any organisation there are those who consistently perform outstandingly well. The reason is not simply their superior technical skills, but how they apply them day-to-day. This, in turn, is determined by their attitude and approach to their work. If you can identify the beliefs, values and purpose of these people and make them accessible to the organisation, then this can improve the performance and profitability of the entire business – not least when it comes to recruiting additional high achievers.

The Success Profile approach identifies the key differentiators of high performers and with them creates an accessible framework that will help others within the organisation adopt those same exceptional ways of working. The Success Profile works because it collects data on several different levels:

• Context
• Behaviours
• Capabilities
• Beliefs and Values
• Purpose

In fact, it is in modelling these factors separately and as a whole that the ‘differences that make the difference’ are usually found. The Success Profile identifies the four or five elements that make the difference. This approach allows recruiters to focus on a much smaller number of criteria. Because it also identifies the beliefs of the most successful, it enables the identification of shared beliefs that determine successful behaviour irrespective of style or background. For example, in the HR Business Partner Profile, we found that knowing the beliefs held about client relationship building enables recruiters to differentiate candidates who build relationships that are based on exceptional delivery rather than just matching style.

When used across multiple senior roles the overall result of using the Success Profile is an improvement in achievement, effectiveness and financial performance across the business. This is done by focusing on the strengths of the organisation and in working with the company to create strategies to develop and hire those who share these strengths. In carrying out this approach with one company in retail sales, the organisation achieved significant increases in customer satisfaction, retention and revenue per customer.

Derived from NLP modelling strategies that have a proven record of identifying the key aspects of excellence and passing them on to others to boost their performance, the profile is developed through a series of semi-structured interviews and usually includes a questionnaire and an observation period.

Once this data has been gathered, the distinguishing features are identified that mark the difference between the good and the exceptional. As a result, a Success Profile is created and a plan is implemented for hiring or enabling others within the organisation to adopt the same approach as the best performers.

Many companies have found that the approach taken by conventional, competency-based behavioural analysis can be difficult to use and can ignore differences in style and background. Therefore, they may miss opportunities for diversity and lead to the potential for ‘cloning’. Digby Morgan clients have often found that with conventional competency analysis the list of behavioural requirements can be daunting, especially to busy line managers. This tends to deter people from using the data in their day-to-day hiring and development decisions. However, because the Success Profile identifies the ‘differences that make a difference’, typically managers only have to deal with four or five elements making it easier to work with.

In addition, because the Success Profile is identifying beliefs and purpose, rather than just skills and behaviours, there is less chance of being accused of hiring ‘clones’. For example, in using the Profile tool across Europe, the US and China, it was found that the best performers share beliefs about their job but national culture determines the style by which they carried out the role. This resulted in the company being able to hire from a more diverse candidate base and provided them with employees who could fit into national cultures whilst still delivering performance that met their standards.

Another advantage when hiring, especially in new markets such as China where skills and experience are often in short supply, is that the identification of beliefs and purpose enables recruiters to select candidates from different backgrounds and experience. One company in fashion retail was struggling to find senior managers with the right experience. Once they had identified the beliefs and purpose that drove excellence, they were able to expand their candidate search to other industries that shared their beliefs. So, for example, companies looking for HR Business Partners who really will make a difference, find they must focus on those with specific beliefs about the way they build deep client relationships whist remaining independent and challenging the client. In addition the best Business Partners do not just understand the business numbers but the business levers – the clients, products and employees that make the numbers. They will also have a deep understanding of the competition and the market trends and dynamics.

Competency analysis has taken companies a long way in defining what they require in senior roles. However, in adopting a tool such as the Success Profile, that deepens the data whilst simplifying the process of hiring, we think that we have found something that will help our clients meet their future recruitment and development challenges.

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