Webinar Recap: How Behavioral Assessments Can Accelerate Leadership Transformation

Modern personality testing and behavioral assessments can streamline interview processes and accelerate the identification and recruiting of high-impact executives. In fact, these techniques can make executive searches proceed faster and produce better results at the same time.

That was a takeaway from the panel discussion in our recent webinar with Hunt Scanlon, featuring Steve Maxwell of Audax Private Equity, Bespoke President Eric Walczykowski, and our Vice President of Bespoke Partners’ Leadership Advisory Practice Megan Hay.

Producing Outsized Returns

Eric described the undeniable impact behavioral assessments have on interview processes and overall business output: “Behavioral assessments for private equity firms are like the tools and methods that Billy Bean used in baseball back in the 90s, which Moneyball was based on.”

Successful candidate searches come down to using unconventional, but highly effective methods and approaches to ascertain superior culture fit, and ensure private equity firms have the right people on board to steer the ship. In many ways, Eric credits the industry-leading success of Bespoke Partners to the asymmetric value that behavioral assessments drive for organizations. These assessments have placed Bespoke Partners in the unique position of successfully conducting over 800 total C-Suite level searches, with less than 86 days to place candidates on average, and a 99% placement success rate over the last 24 months.

Leadership: What vs. How

As Megan and Eric both agree, these assessments are about supplementing the “gut” feeling hiring managers or boards so often make critical hiring decisions based on, and allows them to separate the “what” of a candidate’s leadership, from the “how” of their leadership.

In other words, any recruiter can look up a candidate’s background and résumé to see what they have accomplished and how they have led organizations.

But more importantly, behavioral assessments offer insights about an executive candidate’s style and how they lead, which will ultimately determine their successful assimilation with new executive leadership teams (ELT). Although we shouldn’t necessarily discount the battle-tested “gut feelings” that so many hiring managers have built up over the years of running a business, “a behavioral assessment ultimately helps create a hypothesis about a candidate that the board can focus on to determine organizational fit,” says Megan.

Behavioral Assessments’ Role in Due Diligence

And behavioral assessments of senior leaders have significant value beyond the search for an executive. As Steve describes, “Behavioral assessments play a critical role in both the selection of new executives, as well as part of the due diligence process on new deals.” In Steve’s capacity as a leader at a leading private equity firm, he reports that these behavioral assessments are remarkably insightful for understanding an ELT’s current culture, and avoiding any “derailers” or embedded issues that may prevent his firm from scaling a newly acquired business.

Even though some senior executives may hesitate to undergo the assessment because they are so busy at work to begin with, ultimately behavioral assessments are table-stakes for Steve when he assesses acquisitions.

Readers who are familiar with the ‘derailers’ terminology may recognize that term from the Hogan Assessments, a very effective assessment tool that Megan, Eric, and Steve all rely on after interviewing thousands of candidates over the preceding decades.

Data Points, Not Silver Bullets

Even though the Hogan Assessment is highly effective, the panel all agreed that “there is no silver bullet for hiring the perfect candidate” as Eric describes the role behavioral assessments play in the hiring process. Rather, the assessments create a broad hypothesis about a candidate’s leadership style that leads to targeted questions throughout the hiring and reference check processes.

For example, if a candidate scores high on volatility during the assessment, hiring managers and committees can confirm or deny with past employers whether the candidate demonstrated volatility at work.

These hypotheses about leadership styles are necessary to prevent costly turnover or sub-par placements, especially as companies are facing an impending recession and economic headwinds. As Eric describes successfully navigating these headwinds, “the market pressure really puts pressure on the entire team. Your margin for error is less, especially during turbulent times.”

Building on the need to have stress-tested candidates, Steve agrees that behavioral assessments can allow you to select leaders that are especially resilient, and may even thrive in down economies when competitors are on the defensive. In his view, “You’re always looking for executives that can manage stress well and perform. But if you know you’re facing a likely recession, these behavioral assessments allow you to target battle-ready executives and ask them for specific examples about how they have operated during down economies.”

Have You Assessed Your Team?

All too often ELTs are geared towards high performance and don’t take the time to evaluate their own culture to deliberately hire new candidates to compensate for where the existing team may be weak. On working with these high-performance executive teams Megan says, “The Hogan creates a heat map to evaluate personality traits for the ELT as a whole. When the data shows us where leadership already has plenty of strength, we can have candid conversations about the type of candidate we should target to intentionally complement an already capable and dynamic team.”

Leverage Data And Lead Your Market

In closing, the webinar was a masterclass on behavioral assessments and how they play a valuable and increasingly important role in determining culture fit for new executives, as well as confirming viability of new business acquisitions. Even though a behavioral assessment does not offer a definitive yes or no answer 100 percent of the time, it allows hiring teams to create a leadership hypothesis about a candidate that can be candidly discussed with references during the hiring process. By addressing this leadership hypothesis about a candidate, private equity firms can remain laser-focused on achieving their investment thesis and pinpoint the type of executives needed to round out the team.

In your next search for a senior executive, don’t depend only on “gut” decisions. Bring data regarding the candidate’s style gathered from a well-conducted behavioral assessment, and then work to test the data through your research and interview process.

Ready to apply behavioral assessments in your next search?

Get in touch to see how Bespoke Partners can help. www.bespokepartners.com/contact/