Why New Ventures Fail

• How many fail?* – 20% within one year– 66% within 7 years

• Why? – Exaggerated sense of optimism– Vacillation over funding options

• Who or what is to blame?

* Chiganti and Chiganti, Proceedings of the Small Business Institute, 2008

Why CEOs Fail

“More than any other way, by failure to put the right people in the right jobs – and the related failure to fix people problems in time.”

– Ram Charon & Geoffrey Colvin, Fortune magazine 6/21/99

What about the Team?

• CEO’s bet their vision on the team

• VC’s bet their funding on the team

• What are they really betting on?

What do you really know?

• Personality (how applicable?)• Knowledge/Skill (how well performed?)• Previous experience (how relevant?)• Resume (how accurate?)• Recommendations (how biased?)• Interviews (how objective?)

VCs & entrepreneurs demand a new way to know who will contribute productively, and who won’t

Assessment Origins - Who did what?

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2010

From Intellect, to Personality, to Behavior

Behavior

Woodworth (U.S. Army)

Stanford-Binet IQ

Cattell 16PF

Personality

TGI Role-Based

Assessment

Gerber Mosaic Figures

Personality

Intellect

Performance

Components

Raw Material

Rorschach Lowenfield Mosaic

Gerber-PresserExec. Behavior

Gerber-PresserEnhanced EBA

Caliper

Myers-Briggs

Binet-Simon

IQU.S. Army

Alpha-Beta

Wechsler WAIS

AllportValues

Hartman Axiology/EQ

MMPI Patholog

y

5-FactorTheory

DiSC

Predictive Index

What you measure is what you get.

What you measure is what you get.

What is Role-Based Assessment™?

• Both Theory and Method focus on the way a person will tend to work in a group (their Role), rather than on his/her individual characteristics

• Roles do predict how people will behave: collaboration, motivation and engagement

• Role-Based Assessment is very different from other assessments

RBA Measures Coherence

• A Coherent person has a well-developed sense of self and others; seeks to contribute• A Rigid person is self-involved; is motivated to self-protect by dominating/manipulating others• A Diffuse person is self-involved; is motivated to self-protect by misdirecting attention

Coherent RigidDiffuse

Roles are not Jobs

• Your Role is not your Personality; very different kinds of people may have the same Role

• Roles serve the group’s universal needs:

– Envisioning (or inventing) the future

– Turning ‘the Vision’ into strategies and plans

– Overseeing and guiding the group

– Making detailed schedules and assignments

– Following plans and getting things done quickly

Roles are not Jobs

• Roles serve the group’s universal needs:– Creating and building ‘community’ (team spirit)– Identifying and solving tough problems– Preserving/providing knowledge and group history– Tending to the needs of others– Searching for new possibilities, resources, and

information

Most people have a distinct preference or drive to fulfill one of these needs. That's their Role.

Roles are not Jobs

• Envisioning the future - - - - - - - - - - - -• From Vision to Strategy - - - - - - - - - -• Big-picture Guidance - - - - - - - - - - -• Getting it done! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -• Planning, scheduling, tracking - - - - • Creating ‘community’- - - - - - - - - - - • Solving thorny problems - - - - - - - - - • Preserving knowledge - - - - - - - - - - • Tending to immediate needs - - - - -• Searching for ‘treasure’ - - - - - - - - - -

> Founder> Vision Mover> Vision Former> Action Mover> Action Former> Communicator> Conductor> Curator> Watchdog> Explorer

Some Roles are a natural ‘fit’ to specific kinds of jobs

How Bad Hires Happen

HIRED!

Finalist Candidates

Career Path

References

Knowledge/Skill

Resume

Interviews

Personality

1 2 3

How Bad Hires Happen

Uh-oh!Put first things first: Coherence, Role-fit, Teaming!

Finalist Candidates

Career Path

References

Knowledge/Skill

Resume

Interviews

Personality

Role-Based Assessment

1 2 3Rigid; wrong Role; teaming = poor

Coherent; right Role; teaming = excellent

Coherent; wrong Role; teaming = fair

?

Candidate #1: Operations Manager

• She has little interest in finding or fixing other people's problems or of actually doing things that other people want her to do.

• She has little interest in organizational tasks, which is going to keep her disorganized in both her approach and her work.

• In general, this candidate is so burdened with problems that she is likely to be a high maintenance employee.

From the actual RBA report of Candidate #1.If you had known, would you have hired her?

Select from the Best of the Best

HIRED!RBA screening adds value to other assessment methods!

Finalist Candidates

Career Path

References

Knowledge/Skill

Resume

Interviews

Personality

Role-Based Assessment

4 5 6Coherent; right Role; teaming = excellent

Coherent; right Role; teaming = excellent

Coherent; right Role; teaming = excellent

Candidate #6: Administrative Support

• This candidate is the type of support person who can be found in the front of the group with marker in hand, developing a list of things that need to be done or important points or project benchmarks.

• He is the consummate organizer. The key is that he does not organize for the present but as a way of getting things ready for the future. His style is one of handling many things simultaneously.

Key information in plain English, identifying strong performers and future leaders

The Team Starts with the Founder

First on your timeline Has the Vision and writes the paper - not

a statement – before the business plan Gets people to want to be part of it Keeps one eye inside and the other

outside, connects the organization with the world

Vision balanced by Grounding

Vision Mover Vision Former

Drive balanced by Organization

Action Mover Action Former

Obtain and Provide the Essentials

Explorer Watchdog

Create Community, Culture, and Coordination

Communicator

Fix Problems, Bank the Solutions

Conductor Curator

Finding & Keeping Good People

• Effective people are ‘Coherent’; use Role-Based Assessment to identify and develop them

• Align Roles to job responsibilities to strengthen team performance

• Give people goals that require constructive and challenging interaction, and reward them as a team

People don’t leave companies, they leave managers!

What Diffuse Managers Do…

At Best: Inconsistent, Unpredictable Performance

Plans

Confuse & Frustrate

Rewards

Objectives

Goals

Create Rivalry & Conflict

Achievement

Engagement

Vision

Blame & Victimize

Misdirect & Deprive

Synergy

Schedules

What Rigid Managers Do…

DiscourageDemean

What Rigid Managers Do…

MicromanageManipulate

DiscourageDemean

What Rigid Managers Do…

Micromanage

Inhibit or Compartmentalize Team Synergy

Manipulate

DiscourageDemean

What Rigid Managers Do…

At best: High Performance -- but at High Cost

Micromanage

Inhibit or Compartmentalize Team Synergy

Manipulate

DiscourageDemean

What Coherent Managers Do…EmpowerOrganize

RespectAcknowledge

Lead,

Inspire,

Engage, Integrate,

Motivate

What Coherent Managers Do…

At Best: Build Teams, Resolve Problems, Improve Productivity, Exceed Expectations

EmpowerOrganize

RespectAcknowledge

Lead,

Inspire,

Engage, Integrate,

Motivate

Building a Coherent Human Infrastructure

• The keys to strategic intervention:– Analyzing teams– Role-fit, Coherence, and team

structure – Diagnosis and repair of

organizational performance problems

• CHI Indicators provide global metrics

What makes a great team great?

You Can Do This Now

• Mine your current workforce for ‘hidden treasure’

• Create a Coherent workplace and improve performance across-the-board

• Develop Leaders and Teams• Get a simple, accurate, actionable agenda for

solving organizational problems

DrJ’s Rules of Entrepreneurship

• You can’t do it alone• No one gets it right the first time, so don’t hesitate to re-

evaluate • Cash is king, but the team determines how effectively it will be

utilized• The marketplace rules, but you and your team can create and

control perceived value • What you do + how you do it = who you are

Make your workplace a place that works better!

Dr. Janice Presser, CEO The Gabriel Institute

1515 Market Street, Suite 825Philadelphia, PA 19102

215-825-2500

jpresser@thegabrielinstitute.comAsk Dr. Janice Blog: http://drjanice.wordpress.com/

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