Assessments: Support Your Business Strategy with Data
By Alison Arkin, SVP Leadership Development at Ratliff & Company
Organizations are increasingly leveraging leadership assessments to inform their most critical talent decisions. A thorough assessment strategy helps move leaders from functional to transformational behaviors, elevating the quality of business decisions with a strategic investment in the present and a proactive approach for the future.
Assessments identify strengths and gaps among leaders, candidates, teams, and entire organizations. Assessments measure multiple domains such as personality, workstyle preferences, emotional intelligence, leadership tendencies, and motivations.
For systems and broader organizational knowledge, assessments determine how well teams function and how people see aspects of the entire organization, such as culture, engagement, quality, and psychological
Research* confirms that organizations that leverage assessments:
- Outperform their peers by 126% in decision-making and strategic outcomes. McKinsey & Company
- Are 5 times more likely to make decisions faster than their counterparts to improve operational efficiencies. Harvard Business Review
- Experience a 30% improvement in customer service scores. International Data Corporation
Assessments help organizations diagnose complex issues and measure progress around multiple business focus areas:
- Strategy
- Culture
- Selection
- Onboarding
- Team Dynamics
- Leader Development
- Promotions
- Coaching
As important as the right assessment tool is a qualified coach who analyzes the data and debriefs the results with recommendations. Whether deciding between final candidates for a role, diagnosing a less-than-functional team, or coaching a newly promoted leader, assessments give you quantitative and qualitative insights to amplify the outcomes of those initiatives. The benefit: your decisions and your investments don’t have to rely on a hunch.
Alison Arkin is Senior Vice President of Leadership Development for Ratliff & Company. She can be reached at aarkin@ratliffandcompany.com
