Assessment and coaching
Finding and growing the right leadership talent in technology organizations is one of the biggest challenges our clients face. We’ve designed an organizational modeling tool specifically for technology groups that assesses the fit of each person in the organization to the role that they perform. This proprietary tool can be used for organizational assessments (to determine whether employees are assigned to the right roles and to determine if the mix of people on the leadership team complement each other), for selection of new employees into the right roles and as the starting point for coaching and development.
- The Problem
People know that what it takes to manage a successful technology organization is different than what it takes to manage a sales force, an HR department or a manufacturing floor. For years, we tried to cobble together insights from those areas to help CIOs and other technology leaders to hire, assess and coach teams, but they always fell short: personality tests that worked great for a sales team didn’t look at the traits necessary to be successful in technology; management assessments that tracked competencies necessary for finance and HR didn’t look at the unique challenges faced by technology managers; and, coaching frameworks built by executive coaching firms or “life” coaches turned out to be too vague to make lasting differences in the careers and performance of technology leaders.
And yet, high performance teams in technology can produce some of the best returns on investment for businesses today. Successful technology groups can not only cut costs significantly across the organization, but they can build new revenue streams, new connections to customers, and entirely new products. Unfortunately, low performing teams can waste company money, create high attrition and listlessly drag down corporate performance.
- The Approach
We believe in the value of smart teams and so we’ve designed an assessment and coaching framework that looks at the entire team in light of the work that needs to be done for the organization. Our selection practice offers a customized solution depending on the job role, the team, and the organization. The solution could include only one or it could include a combination of our offerings such as our proprietary assessment tool, cognitive ability assessments, structured interviews, skills assessments, and more.
Our organizational assessment practice can be a standalone offering, but often goes hand in hand with our coaching practice. Organizational assessment combines individual assessments with team assessments to help leaders take advantage of the talent they have and identify areas where they need to grow or hire new talent. Then, our coaching practice can cost effectively improve the performance of each individual as well as the team.
Our combination Organizational Assessment and Coaching practice generally include the following components:
• Online and in person assessment for each member of the technology leadership team
• Facilitated working sessions to determine key processes and business needs to map to the assessment
• Individual and team coaching sessions based on the assessments and needs
• Recommendations for restructuring and hiring to take advantage of the talent you have
• Ongoing coaching for key members of the leadership team