APS Blog

Faking and Authenticity in the Workplace

Wed, 05 Apr 2023 12:00:00 Z

Although the UK and Ireland are seen as relatively mature populations when it comes to using psychometrics, and similar assessments to support selection and development, from time to time, we still get asked about whether people try to fake their profiles and the knock-on implications.

From a development perspective, we aim to help individuals create more strategic self-awareness, and the range of Hogan Assessments and 360s we supply are designed to provide individuals with indicators of how their natural tendencies and behaviours show up as strengths or detract from their performance and reputation. In these circumstances, there is little real benefit of trying to play the system, but people still appear to try.

It is particularly apparent when we review how 360 participants rate themselves, compared to how their manager, peers, and direct reports score them. Sometimes we will see an individual rate themselves consistently higher against a range of skills than their colleagues do. However, is this someone trying to make themselves look good or is it simply someone whose self-perception is out of kilter with the reality of how others experience them?

In these cases, what some might see as hubris, or trying to make themselves look good in the questionnaire, is often a blind spot that a qualified practitioner will be able to bring alive in the feedback for the individual. Equally, these insights can also apply to someone who seems overly self-critical or modest and consistently rates themselves lower than colleagues. Both situations offer powerful opportunities to create meaningful learning for individuals.

What about the implications for selection though – what if someone purposefully goes out of their way to try to make themselves look good in psychometric assessments they complete? I suspect if someone really wants a job, they will also go out of their way to present themselves in the most favourable way in an interview too? Fortunately, using Hogan Assessments, we are able to predict if someone is trying to create an overly positive perspective of themselves – impression management. This can then be explored in the interview process and used to validate the individual’s relative potential strengths and risks for a role.

Professor Adrian Furnham wrote a very insightful article recently for The European Business Review on the wider topic of being authentic in the workplace. Adrian highlights the benefits and pitfalls of both being authentic or being a high self-monitor, where we adapt to the social cues around us.

Advanced People Strategies Appointed Hogan Distributor for Ireland

Fri, 09 Dec 2022 12:00:00 Z

Advanced People Strategies are proud to announce they have been appointed as an authorised Hogan distributor for Ireland, having successfully represented Hogan for 18 years in the UK.

APS have experienced significant growth in recent years, providing supporting tools and services to maximise practical people development opportunities, including custom 360 solutions, individual coaching, team development, and their innovative SkillsPilot platform focused on quick and effective skills assessment and feedback.

“Our friends at APS have been a tremendous member of our international distributors network for nearly two decades, providing first-class services to clients across a wide range of industries,” said Hogan CEO Scott Gregory, PhD. “With so much potential in the Irish market, we anticipate further growth and success for them moving forward.”

Despite the impact of the global pandemic and recent economic uncertainties, APS has trained and certified more than 1,000 practitioners in the last three years.

“The APS team has years of experience helping organisations implement successful people development strategies,” said APS CEO Chris Humphreys. “We are looking forward to supporting our expanding network of clients in Ireland with access and experience to make the most of the added value Hogan can bring for business leaders and HR practitioners.”

APS will celebrate the appointment with an in-person event, “Make or Break Your Organisation's Future? Talented Leaders, Teams, and an Enabling Culture,” featuring Robert Hogan as keynote speaker. The event will be held at the Teeling Whiskey Distillery, Dublin 8, Ireland on Thursday, 2^nd March 2023. The conference will focus on critical people insights for business leaders, HR directors, and talent specialists in Ireland. Register today!

Advanced People Strategies (APS)

APS are leadership & talent development specialists, and Authorised Hogan Assessments Distributors for the UK & Ireland, providing Certification, Coaching, Masterclasses, & Team/Leadership Development programmes, supporting HR, L&D, talent specialists, and coaches looking for validated, data-driven people development tools.

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Who wants to be a game changer and what might get in the way?

Wed, 16 Nov 2022 12:00:00 Z

It was encouraging to hear from so many attendees about their existing experience of using Hogan Assessments to support executive recruitment, at the AESC 'Sustaining Growth' Global Conference, London 2022, reflecting the growing awareness of Hogan to support talent identification and placement.

The themes of the conference provided an ideal platform to discuss the impact of personality, values and ‘dark-side’ risk behaviours on the approach to sustainable growth at board level as well as other strategic applications using Hogan Assessments.

Dr Annalisa Jenkins, when addressing key questions around equality, diversity and inclusion, spoke about the importance of culture and leadership as well as highlighting the key question – ‘how do you ensure a high-performing, effective team’.

In his keynote speech, futurist, Gerd Leonhard, highlighted some of the elements of what he called a Key Human Index for future success including such elements as flexibility, empathy, resilience, intuition and imagination as well as values.

Reflecting on some of these critical behaviours, which experts expect to see in the leaders of the future, and their boardrooms, Hogan Assessments can provide key insights into all of them. Providing clear perspectives as to how natural tendencies, behaviours and values are likely to show up or get in the way, is a key element not only to help support those who want to be the game changer leaders, but also those whose mission is to identify and place them in the right roles.

Practise Makes Perfect?

Fri, 12 Aug 2022 12:00:00 Z

Watching the Lionesses and England Ladies Hockey Teams win their respective trophies and gold medals has been a great addition to the summer sunshine this year.

Seeing successful sports teams in action always prompts me to think about what takeaways we can learn from when applied to business teams.

Of course, there are some similarities between successful sports teams and business teams – drive, the right expertise and skills, an effective plan, hard work, effort and leadership, to name but a few, are all key to team achievement in any environment.

Elite athletes, similar to business people, are also often members of multiple teams and might play slightly different roles in each one.

What about the differences?

Although the recent wins on sports pitches have been great to keep the diversity and equality debates alive, it strikes me that there is often less diversity in a national sports team than in business teams.

Why do I say that? National teams usually are made up of individuals from a single gender and culture and, while there is still a lot of work to do, most leadership and business teams I engage with are made up of people from different backgrounds and genders.

However, there are two critical differences that always stand out for me:

Sports teams spend significantly more time practising together, as well as individual training, compared to business teams. I do not know any business team that spends even 10% of their working time practising and training together – they are rarely not in action, save for strategic planning meetings or team workshops.

Elite sports teams engage specialist coaches, measure multiple performance data points and receive constant feedback on their performance both in training and in competition. Most business teams have important KPI information but how much of this is focused on their ability to work effectively as a unit? In some circles, support from a coach is seen as remedial training rather than elite performance training.

While it is not realistic for business teams to spend as much time practising together as elite sports teams, and the good news is that neither can the competition, it is possible to bridge the gap on point 2.

Making the best use of the limited time teams have together to reflect on and practise skills to be more effective is possible. Using quality metrics such as SkillsPilot Exercises, Hogan Team Analysis, High Performing Team Assessment and, as a team, practising skills application with an accredited coach can all help to make a difference – and who does not want their team to be high performing in any setting?

Revisiting Hogan Results

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 00:00:00 Z

Many of our clients use Hogan Assessments to support selection programmes and development activity, both individual and collective.

In the current environment, understandably, selection has been dramatically cut back and HR teams are having to focus their attention on more difficult people issues while, perhaps, learning and development programmes are pushed back.

However, we still speak to HR professionals and coaches on a daily basis about support for different types of people initiatives. As one might expect, at a time when leaders of organisations are having to make decisions in extremely pressured circumstances, with budgets tighter than ever, our clients are forced to limit their choices in a number of areas, so we are keen to encourage the use of valuable resources they may already have available at their disposal.

To some, the following might seem obvious, but we know from our conversations that many have not thought about using existing resources to support pressing interventions which, although most of us may prefer to avoid, are often unavoidable in the present environment. Here are three of the most common examples where we have been able to recommend organisations take another look at the Hogan Assessment data they already hold.

Leaders under pressure: There is no doubt that the last three months have been unprecedented in terms of additional stress for those in senior positions, balancing the future survival of their organisation with the welfare and motivation of their workforce. Many will be showing signs of derailing risks which are starting to impede their effectiveness or creating problems with relationships. We also see many cases of leaders who appear to thrive despite what is happening – seeing present problems as a new and interesting challenge. Revisiting Hogan HDS scores can provide real insight for leaders about how their natural coping mechanisms may be showing up as well as helping to identify strategies to manage them.

Virtual Teams: While there was already a push to more remote working and less travel, there has been an exponential rise in teams meeting virtually with little or no face to face contact. Some will enjoy independence while others miss the close collaboration. Some teams must completely adapt the way they work to stand still let alone become a high performing team. Collective Hogan data can help understand the strengths and skills gaps across the team, how they are likely to communicate, innovate and adapt, and how the culture and values of the team may influence their approach.

Organisational Restructure: Inevitably we are hearing more cases where downsizing or mergers of departments and functions mean people are displaced and roles disappear. Existing Hogan results provide information to help identify candidates who will be best placed to succeed in new roles with changed responsibilities and requirements – additional objective data at a time of difficult decisions. For those who find themselves in the really unfortunate position of losing their jobs, Hogan profiles are being used to support outplacement – helping to identify how people work through the emotional rollercoaster, highlighting roles and environments that are likely to play to their strengths and values in future.

While the dynamics and focus may have changed, HR professionals and coaches are still supporting people on a daily basis. The Hogan Suite of tools identifies how people are likely to show up at their best and, in times of pressure, at their worst - providing insights during difficult, ambiguous and potentially emotive times. Maybe it is worth taking another look at those existing Hogan reports!

Unconscious Bias, Real-world impact

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 00:00:00 Z

I was recently asked to support a successful senior leader – Chris - with some personal development insights from a recent 360 and set of Hogan Assessment results. Chris works in a fast-paced retail environment and has very high expectations for business success.

Having quickly achieved senior roles, at a younger age than most colleagues, Chris finds it hard to understand why the broader management team and staff do not seem to respond to stretching targets. Very concerned about the potential negative impact on results, Chris recently ruled out an idea that emerged from a staff survey suggesting people who achieve their targets should be able to take time off as an incentive, rather than take a bonus.

Chris’s 360 feedback indicates an autocratic and inflexible style of leadership; demanding and somewhat intimidating. Chris’s thoughts on the 360 feedback…

“I’d prefer it if they started to take responsibility and challenge me back if they think I am wrong”.

It may seem obvious to an outside observer that Chris is motivated by personal and material success. While no one wants to fail, a lack of a challenge is more demotivating to Chris than a target that others might see as unrealistic or unachievable.

What Chris does not grasp, or prefers not to acknowledge, is that some of the most talented managers and salespeople in the organisation do not wake up in the morning wanting to be the next CEO like Chris does. Unfortunately, Chris’s behaviours reflect this bias and, rather than inspire others to perform better, the relentless focus on pushing aggressively for results is having a negative impact on performance.

The Hogan Assessments have been helpful to raise Chris’s awareness about why others might react differently to what Chris believes is ‘normal behaviour’. It has also provided some key insights for Chris about how to motivate others as their leader.

However, what made me smile the most is when someone, hearing about Chris’s bias in this instance, said “typical alpha male”. Interestingly Chris, in this case, is a woman. As professionals supporting the development of others, how many of us really understand and acknowledge our own biases - how easily they show up and how they impact on our behaviour?

Talent: Desire, Ability or Both!

Fri, 30 Mar 2018 00:00:00 Z

It is no surprise to see hard-working, collaborative individuals with great social skills emerging as potential leaders and being nominated for talent development programmes.

In fact, it makes a welcome change to some of the overly ambitious, pushy individuals who feel they deserve space at the top table but do not always demonstrate the capabilities to be effective. So why is it that many of these apparently talented individuals subsequently have problems, or even fail, when they take on more responsibility or lead a team?

Perhaps we should start by considering why they are nominated in the first place. Their willingness to take on work and commitment to delivering high-quality output for their boss often means they are some of the highest performers in the team. They tend to be valued by their colleagues and their manager as they are typically modest about their own achievements and avoid playing politics – they tend to be someone everyone enjoys working with. When times are tough, their manager knows that, if asked, they will be willing to put in even more hours and go the extra mile to keep stakeholders and clients, or customers, happy.

What’s not to like?

It seems natural then for an ambitious manager, who themselves may be keen to progress, to assume others are like them and push forward this talented team member to take on more responsibility, stretch themselves, and be rewarded with a place in the talent programme. However, imagine the talented team member does not like being in charge or having lots of responsibility and that their passion at work comes from a desire to simply help and support others. Perhaps they have no interest in status for its own sake and when the boss says it is time to attend a talent programme, being co-operative, they may find it hard to say ‘no’. Subsequently, when pushed to make independent decisions, take initiative or stretch people, our talented individual may find it hard to make the tough call, or prefer not to be the one who is responsible for challenging others.

Under the pressure of a more senior role, the day to day strengths may suddenly become barriers to being effective.

As leaders, other than helping talented individuals to learn strategies to adapt their behaviour as they climb the ladder, do we always spend enough time considering what motivates their behaviour and what they really want from their career – or do we assume they all want to be the CEO just like us?

Hogan Team Report

The Hogan Team Report is designed to assess a team's effectiveness based on the collective personality. Organisations often use this report to support new teams at “kick-off” and existing teams looking to leverage their people ability.

Key Features and Benefits

Identifies the mix of individual psychological roles within each team
Helps leaders understand their teams’ mix of strengths & weaknesses
Looks at culture and how the team fits
Scale-able from individual team to organisation application
Quick to implement and complete and provides results for discussion
Additional Team Workshop available to build on results