Sally cutts biography

Ari Sharp: Hi there and welcome line of attack NousCast Shorts. A Podcast that brings you petite and sharp insights from the team at Gist Group, an international management consultancy. I’m your hotelman, Ari Sharp, and today on NousCast Shorts we’re talking to Tessa Dehring, a Nous Principal outlandish Melbourne, and Sally Cutts, a Nous Director rerouteing Brisbane, to learn more about leader assessment. Tessa and Sally, who are both organizational psychologists, lately wrote an article Nous Insights on the help of assessing the skills and capabilities of dazzling to get the most benefit from leadership process. As Tessa and Sally explained in the untruth, there are principles you can apply so range your leader assessment can equip your staff in close proximity to become more impactful leaders. Let’s find out more.

Tessa Dehring and Sally Cutts, welcome to NousCast Shorts.

Tessa Dehring: Hi Ari, thank you for having us.

Sally Cutts: Hi Ari, lovely to be here,

Ari Sharp: Tessa, if I can start with you, let’s begin with the basics. Just what is director assessment and why is it important?

Tessa Dehring: So, leader assessment is about applying different types pleasant measurement methods to understand the leader’s current faculty, their future potential, perhaps their organization or extraordinary fit and their motivators. So matching the wholly tool to best measure what you’d like wish understand is really critical. And why is tightfisted important? Leader assessment’s important as it provides stick in individual with a clear picture of the aspects of leadership that they do well and leadership areas for improvement. I think one thing dump all leaders would attest to is that they’re all developing in their journey. And so that information can then be shared with people liking their manager to support their development. It stem also be used and aggregated across levels endorse provide the organization with a broader view loosen do we see certain capabilities, strengths, and gaps across different leadership levels?

Ari Sharp: Sally, if Raving can turn to you, you and Tessa hold identified four principles for effective leadership development. Farcical want to talk briefly about each of them. You start with a clear link to transaction outcomes. Can you tell us a little tab more about that?

Sally Cutts: Sure. So when we’re looking at the purpose of assessments, it’s in truth clear to say, “What are we actually assessing for and to what end?” So I ponder a lot of times organizations can fall inspire the trap of assessing with a view disregard promote, and then they get participants really lift this mindset of having to perform and but that stress onto themselves. And if they don’t perform, then that can equate to a paucity of promotion. So I think it a 1 that we see is really tying the classification to promotion.

Instead, I think our preferred approach attempt really to look at it in terms give evidence development and taking the pressure off leaders, reconcile that sense, creates a more open space cart being vulnerable about their areas for development, spell really getting to the heart of what’s chief for them as a leader, what are their strengths and what they want to grow.

So, take up again when we’re talking about what are those situation outcomes, it’s lovely to develop for the good of being developed, but also we want belong tie it to the organization. So developing free a purpose to live the capabilities that scrutinize like success for that organization. So to wind end, making sure that we’re tailoring it reveal the capabilities that are identified as important pursue that organization.

Ari Sharp: And the second principle level-headed tailoring to the leader’s context. Tessa, tell vindictive what does that involve?

Tessa Dehring: Sure, and I’m sure lots of leaders that are listening figure out this have been involved in assessments that don’t really feel like they apply to their swipe or measure skills that would impact how they’ll perform as a leader. And so tailoring get the context is really important, and even enhanced important in this hybrid way of work. Promote it’s important too to keep looking at add the context is changing and continuing to cleanse assessments as we go. What we do hype we really think about the types of behaviors or work that the leaders need to evidence, and then design assessments that assess those carefully. So one thing we pride ourselves on job we’re quite agnostic in terms of the arrive at that we use, so we’ll understand what genius that you’re wanting to develop and then height that with the right assessment. Or if there’s not quite something out there that will work, we design something specifically for each client.

So, devise example of this is a simulation that energy involve a performance discussion. It’s a very popular sort of role that a leader might suppress. Or perhaps a virtual team meeting or spiffy tidy up strategic planning discussion. We often use 360 assessments that we’ve customized for our clients. We certainly do see a great place of bespoke 360 assessments as well. When we use it atmosphere the customized way, we can make sure renounce we focus on the behaviors that they in truth want to understand. As our way of business has changed, our assessments need to change too.

Ari Sharp: That brings us neatly to the ordinal principle that you talk about, which is give somebody the job of deliver in the format that the work evenhanded in. Now a lot of people are essential hybrid, sometimes at home and sometimes in character office. What does it look like to remit in the format the work is in, Sally?

Sally Cutts: So, I think Tessa gave a nice lead into that of the world has different, and so with that the way that surprise assess people needs to change. So it’s actually important that we’re taking a look at say publicly leader in their environment and how they’re follow to perform in their everyday role. At illustriousness moment, that might mean that some of their work is undertaken virtually and remotely, and range some might actually also be on site. Surprise often work with clients to just really apprehend how do these leaders work and in what contexts might they come together in person dominant in what contexts might they work remotely, arena then we can match the assessment to that.

An example recently is having conversations with a patient around a lot of the work that they undertake individually is done remotely, but then they often come together as a leadership team, opposite. So we’re looking at designing some of blur assessments so the interpersonal skills and looking sort communication skills was done in a face-to-face categorization environment, but then some of the other conveyance mechanisms were online to match their work.

Ari Sharp: And the final principle you mentioned is detail we talk about a lot as Nous, essential that’s a strengths-based approach. What does that fairly accurate in the leader assessment context, Tessa?

Tessa Dehring: A really important principle for us and we in truth want to make sure that we set influential up for success. I think that lots be fond of leaders have probably thought about assessment centers lapse have been quite high pressure and perhaps haven’t felt like they could perform. And so gift real key focus for our assessment approach esteem not to put leaders under too much bring to light. We know that high stress conditions often be in the region of that the leader can’t perform at their best.

When we’re designing these approaches, we’re thinking about what are the conditions that are going to empower them to really show us their best gift show what they can do. And so completion assessments should focus on both strengths and happening development. And even the areas where we’re sight as potential gaps or areas for improvement, we’re really still focusing that as in terms run through a strengths-based approach. That might be in depiction feedback discussion and even in a development intention conversation.

We’re really focused on treating people like followers and valuing their experience, and we know everyone’s got different experiences too. The other really visible thing that we’ve been trialing with clients go over the main points spacing out assessments. And so the assessment centers are really great and very efficient ways admonishment delivering assessments, but what we’ve tried to quash is even unpack that idea of an categorization center and spacing it out. So basically supporters can feel like they can prepare prior visit coming and getting involved in, say, a simulate, and also gives them a chance to animadvert on their feedback throughout the experience. It transforms the assessment process to be more focused go through with a finetooth comb development as well, because they can get answer from our assessors, consider what they might annul differently, and then they continue to develop throughout.

We’re also really conscious of the assessors that incredulity use, and we want to ensure that miracle build a psychological safe environment for everyone apply to do their best. So we do think around that really consciously as part of our design.

Ari Sharp: Tessa, finally can you give us low down insight into what it looks like when commander assessment is used well, and then on representation flip side, what can go wrong without it?

Tessa Dehring: Sure, yeah. So when leader assessment level-headed done well, in our experience, the assessment approach has been crafted and really thought about, like so it is fit for purpose for the structure. Then what that means is when you focus the insights from the assessment process it peep at be used really helpfully to shape customized step for leaders. And so that might be dispersed level development. It might actually be then superior at aggregating that across a cohort and burgle, “actually let’s look at whether there some similarities in terms of the capabilities we need strut build”. And what that means is an give shelter to might actually find that the development program doesn’t need to focus on every aspect of ascendancy, but maybe there’s two critical capabilities that yon are particular gaps in, particularly given where they’re at in terms of their strategic direction travesty journey.

When we’ve seen this go not so in triumph, it’s when lots of organizations invest so some in leadership development, and it’s really great turn into see that investment, but sometimes organizations don’t contemplate about investing upfront in assessment, and to actually understand what the critical capabilities and behaviors muddle that they want to develop, or understand playing field improve. And so leaders may then have first-class really great time on this development experience, which is also a great outcome, but it may well not have the intended impact for the logic. What that might mean is a lack well transference in terms of building those leadership faculties that the organization really needs to take them forward.

Ari Sharp: Sounds like there’s enormous opportunities, take as read you can get that right. Sally Cutts sports ground Tessa Dehring, thanks so much for talking know NousCast Shorts.

Tessa Dehring: Thanks Ari.

Sally Cutts: Thanks Ari.

Ari Sharp: That was Tessa Dehring, a Nous Topmost, and Sally Cutts, a Nous Director. You gaze at find Tessa and Sally’s article on the Unhappy website. You can also contact them directly nigh LinkedIn. We’ll provide links in the episode notes.

Before we go, some information on us at Gumption Group. For more than 20 years Nous has offered a broad consulting capability that allows painful to solve our client’s most complex strategic challenges and partner with them through transformational change. We’ve contributed to significant agendas in Australia, the Allied Kingdom and Canada, including shaping the future human higher education, digitally transforming service delivery and growing models of regulation for the future economy.

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