We’re excited to announce that our very own Dr. Robert Hogan was given the 2020 RHR International Award for Excellence in Consulting Psychology at the Society of Consulting Psychology (SCP) annual conference on February 8 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The award is granted to individuals who epitomize the standards of excellence that RHR and the SCP seek to perpetuate. Dr. Hogan received the award in recognition of his distinguished career and his significant contributions to the practice of consulting psychology.

“Bob Hogan has made an extraordinary contribution to the understanding of how leaders can leverage strengths and avoid derailing behaviors as they lead organizations,” said Dr. Paul Winum, senior partner and co-head of Board & CEO Services for RHR International. “He is a well-deserving recipient of the RHR Award for Excellence in Consultation and embodies the professionalism and impact our firm seeks to deliver and recognize through this award.”

Deemed by his peers as one of the world’s greatest living psychologists, Hogan is known for his ground-breaking research on personality and how it translates to organizational and leadership effectiveness. The same study also ranked Hogan among the top five greatest personality psychologists of all time. In addition to Hogan, the group consisted of famous psychologists, such as Sigmund Freud, Hans Eysenck, Gordon Allport, and Raymond Cattell.

“I can’t think of a person more deserving of this award than our founder and friend, Dr. Robert Hogan,” said Hogan Assessments now-former CEO Scott Gregory, PhD. “His work disrupted and advanced the use of personality assessment to improve workplace performance and organizational success, and his work continues to drive valid and fair employment decisions for millions of people around the globe each year. He’s a legend in personality psychology, and he continues to be a tireless advocate for the science of personality.”

One of the primary tasks of leadership is to effectively and efficiently allocate an organization’s resources. In business, this requires leaders to make critical decisions that ultimately determine the success or failure of the organization. However, making good business decisions alone is not enough to guarantee success. Effective leaders must also have the interpersonal skills to get along with others and build high-performing teams. Both critical reasoning skills and interpersonal skills are effective predictors of performance. Logically then, employers who care about job performance should want to know two things: do my employees make good decisions and do they have the interpersonal skills to effectively function? The best way to answer these questions is by using assessments.

Cognitive assessments, such as the Hogan Business Reasoning Inventory (HBRI), are some of the most robust predictors of job performance. Any job that requires solving problems, evaluating the consequences of various solutions, or weighing solutions against each other can benefit from cognitive assessments that accurately measure one’s critical reasoning skills. Effective critical reasoning requires three things:

1. A clear-minded view of the problem – Too often leaders spend time solving the wrong problem or problems that aren’t actually problems at all.
2. A rational analysis of possible solutions to the problem – Some solutions are bound to be more effective than others, so being able to analyze those solutions rationally and objectively is important.
3. An accurate forecast of each solution’s consequences – Some solutions may cause future problems, so the cost and impact of the various solutions must be considered.

Using cognitive assessments to measure job candidates across these three core areas tells us how a person will go about making decisions and whether they will be effective in doing so. However, cognitive assessments don’t give us a full picture of how someone is going to work in a modern collaborative workplace. That’s where personality assessments come into play.

Personality assessments give us valuable insights into an individual’s day-to-day behavior. Using scientific assessments like the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI), the Hogan Development Survey (HDS), and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI), employers get answers to three key questions about the individual:

1. How will they perform when they are at their best?
2. What behaviors will derail their chances of success?
3. What motivates and drives them?

The answers to these questions are critical when determining if someone is a good fit for a particular job. A job candidate can possess the desired interpersonal skills to perform the job, but they won’t be happy if their core values don’t match the values of the organization. On the other hand, someone can be a perfect match for an organization from a values standpoint but lack the interpersonal skills that lead to success in that role.

Cognitive assessments and personality assessments measure two different things, and that’s good news for employers. This means that both cognitive and personality assessments add useful information about potential job candidates with little redundancy. By assessing job candidates in terms of both their decision-making and interpersonal skill, hiring managers give themselves the best chance at hiring high-performers.

A narcissist is defined as “a person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves.” Given their self-obsession, it seems obvious that narcissists would be more likely to overuse first-person pronouns like “I,” “me,” “my,” and “mine.” We might especially think this is true on social media, where everyone has a platform to reach society. After all, what could be a better way to express your narcissism than talking about yourself to the entirety of the internet? But, according to a new study published in the Journal of Language and Social Psychology, our intuitions are wrong.

This new study, authored by several personality psychologists including Hogan’s own Ryne Sherman, analyzed data on narcissism and word use from 15 samples in multiple languages. Both written and spoken words were analyzed using the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC), which categorizes words into 72 distinct linguistic categories, including first-person pronouns. Among those categories analyzed, 17 were statistically significantly related to scores on narcissism.

A narcissist may be more inclined to use:

• Sports-Related Words – Narcissism was most positively correlated with using sports-related words (r = .042). So, if you’re sitting around the water cooler at work and you hear co-workers throwing out phrases like “that presentation was a home run” or “we really knocked that one out of the park” or “that meeting was a slam dunk,” you might be dealing with a narcissist.
• Swear Words – The study found that narcissists tend to use more swear words (r = .032). One linguistic marker of disagreeableness is the use of swear words, and narcissists tend to be disagreeable. Narcissists also like to do whatever it takes to be talked about, and swear words generally get peoples’ attention. So, when you hear those four-letter words trickling down the hallway at work, you might be listening to a narcissist.
• Sexual Words – Consistent with other empirical research and theory, narcissists tend to use more sexual words (r = .031). “The idea is that narcissistic people will use sexual language to create a sexualized environment, perhaps as a means to signaling their own sexual availability or to prime sexual concepts in the minds of sexually available others.” So, when your coworker insists on sprinkling in sexual innuendo throughout the course of conversation, you might have a narcissist on your hands.

On the other hand, narcissists tend to avoid:

• Tentative Words – The study concluded that narcissists use fewer tentative words (r = -.045), such as “maybe,” “perhaps,” and “guess.” Because grandiose narcissists are self-assured and confident, it shouldn’t be surprising that they avoid using tentative words. So, when your work colleague says, “I guess we should have tried a different approach” or “perhaps there was a better way to handle this,” you’re probably NOT dealing with a narcissist.
• Fear/Anxiety Words – It should come as no surprise that narcissists use fewer words associated with fear and anxiety (r = -.065), but the potential reasons why are interesting nonetheless. One explanation is that narcissistic people actually experience little fear or anxiety. Another explanation is that narcissistic people may have some anxiety and fear, but they don’t register consciously and, therefore, aren’t expressed in language. So, if you’re in a meeting and a person says, “I’m afraid we don’t have a solution at this time,” you most likely are NOT in the presence of a narcissist.

Perhaps (see what I did there?) the most surprising result is that the study did not see a high correlation between first-person pronouns and narcissism. So, just because someone says “I” and “me” a lot doesn’t mean they’re a narcissist. Of course, they still could be, but it’s less likely than those who constantly use sports analogies, swear words, or sexual language.

Although the study did not reveal pronounced linguistic patterns, it did show that narcissism can be associated the words we use to communicate with others. This study should serve as a strong foundation for future research on narcissists as new text analytics emerge. Until then, you can use this study to sniff out the narcissists among the masses.

In January of 2017, Les Snead, the general manager of the Los Angeles Rams, had a tough choice to make. Hired in 2013, his team had not had a winning record since 2003 and had moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles just a year earlier. Expectations in LA were high, and it was time for Snead to find a new head coach. The safe and easy choice would be a seasoned, veteran head coach who was no stranger to the biggest stage in American sports. Jon Gruden, who won a Super Bowl in 2003 (2002 season), seemed to be an obvious candidate. Or, you take a look at successful college coaches, such as Nick Saban, who has won six NCAA championships as head coach at the University of Alabama and Louisiana State University. Both of these coaches had proven records as head coaches and were realistic candidates to fill the Rams’ coaching vacancy.

Instead, Snead hired Washington Redskins Offensive Coordinator Sean McVay, who also was a former assistant wide receivers coach under Gruden in 2008. At 30 years old, McVay was the youngest coach in NFL history. The results have been tremendous. In two seasons McVay has lead the Rams to a 26-9 record (including playoff games). On February 3, just nine days after his 33^rd birthday, McVay will coach his team against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII.

As the spread offense, which is popular in college football, began to slowly infiltrate the NFL, disruption was imminent. All of a sudden, offensive innovation became a priority, but not all teams saw it coming. The Rams, preferring to disrupt rather than be disrupted, took a chance and hired McVay. They hired him because he knew how to get the ball into the hands of those who could score touchdowns, which he did for three seasons as offensive coordinator of the Washington Redskins. It was obvious he had the necessary competencies to orchestrate a successful offense, and that was the top priority.

We don’t know if the Rams used personality assessments to hire McVay, but we do know that you can learn a lot about McVay’s personality by what he does (i.e., his behavior) and what others say about him (i.e., his reputation). Following a game in 2017 when he was criticized for how the Rams poorly managed their timeouts, McVay said the following:

“With some of the previous ones (timeouts) it might have been a miscommunication – guys were confused or things like that – but all things being equal, it starts with me. I’ve got to do a better job with that.”

When talking to media in 2018 just a few days before playing the New Orleans Saints, McVay was asked about what he’s learned from Wade Phillips, his 71-year-old defensive coordinator and former NFL head coach. Here’s his response:

“A guy like him, I feel great to work and learn from him every day.”

Both of these quotes tell us a lot about McVay’s humble character, and his willingness to both admit mistakes and put good people around him, even if one of them (Phillips) was defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles the year he was born.

Following their 26-23 win over the New Orleans Saints in the NFC Championship to reach Super Bowl LIII, Rams left tackle, Andrew Whitworth, said this about his coach:

“He’s a coach that knows his team. He knew we needed to do something to get things going our way, and he believed his team could get it done. That sounds simple, but it’s actually huge.”

And, perhaps the most important quote following the NFC Championship came from Snead:

“The idea was for him to come in and help us create a winning environment.”

At Hogan, we believe effective leaders are those who can develop and maintain high-performing teams. This involves possessing the required competencies for the job, being humble, getting the most out of the individuals on your team, and creating an environment where they can succeed. Gruden might have been a safe choice back in 2017, but he went 4-12 as head coach of the Oakland Raiders this year. On February 3, he won’t be coaching his team in the Super Bowl. He will be watching his former assistant wide receivers coach lead the Rams in the Super Bowl instead.

Hogan will expand its Global Learning offerings in 2019 with the new Hogan Advanced Interpretation Workshop.

The one-day workshop will focus on how to analyze themes and connect personality scales across Hogan’s core assessments, allowing attendees to gain a deeper understanding of how to extract maximum interpretive value from Hogan scales and subscales. Jackie VanBroekhoven Sahm, Hogan’s Director of Global Learning, said the new program was developed based on two years of participant feedback.

“In early 2017 we launched the Hogan Level 2 Certification Workshop, which focused more on advanced feedback delivery of Hogan profiles,” said Sahm. “What we discovered in post-workshop surveys was there was also a popular demand to take a deeper dive into Hogan scale interpretation. So, we decided to expand our program offerings accordingly as part of our commitment to create the best user experience possible.”

Beginning in January 2019, Hogan will offer the following workshops in the United States:

Hogan Assessment Certification Workshop – This two-day program, previously known as Hogan Level 1 Certification, qualifies professionals to administer and interpret Hogan’s three core assessments, the Hogan Personality Inventory, the Hogan Development Survey and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory.

Hogan Advanced Feedback Workshop – This program, previously known as Hogan Level 2 Certification, is a one-day add-on workshop designed for practitioners who want to get certified and also receive more extensive instruction and opportunities to practice delivering effective Hogan feedback.

Hogan Advanced Interpretation Workshop – This newly-developed program is a one-day add-on workshop designed for practitioners who want to get Hogan certified and also gain more advanced instruction and practice on how to interpret Hogan assessment profiles.

The workshops will be offered in multiple cities across the United States throughout 2019, with the advanced workshops occurring on the third day. Participants can complete the Hogan Assessment Certification Workshop during the first two days with the option to attend either the Hogan Advanced Feedback Workshop or the Hogan Advanced Interpretation Workshop on the third day. Each of the two, one-day advanced workshops are also available upon request for those who have previously completed the Hogan Assessment Certification Workshop. Hogan Certified users can email training@hoganassessments.com to register for an advanced workshop separately.

“We put a major emphasis on ensuring our learners have the tools they need to be successful, and that begins with listening and responding to customer feedback,” said Sahm. “What we learned is that people find tremendous value in our workshops and leave wanting even more. That’s why we developed the new advanced interpretation workshop, and we will continue to explore new additions to Hogan Global Learning curriculum in the future.”

Click here to learn more about Hogan’s three certification programs.

THUOPER, Hogan’s Colombian distributor, embodies one of Hogan’s core values: developing future leaders. Ineffective leadership has plagued the global workforce for centuries, mostly because the characteristics that help people emerge as leaders are quite different from those that make an effective leader.

Of course, when leadership potential has been measured incorrectly for so long, there is no simple solution to fix the issue overnight. That’s why it has never been more important to look to the future and start exposing younger generations to the most accurate and effective tools for identifying effective leaders. 

In this edition of the Distributor Spotlight series, our friends at THUOPER provide us with an overview of an incredible program in which they are utilizing Hogan’s assessments for students who are selected to serve as CEO for a day.

One of the most common complaints against the education system of different countries is their apparent disconnection with the needs of companies. Generally, educational programs do not respond to organizational reality, and recent graduates find many difficulties when facing their first job.

The situation in Colombia is no different. Moreover, the lack of coordination and coherence between the academic world and the organizational world is worsening. Responding to this situation, THUOPER decided to take action on the matter. Since 2016 we have teamed up with CESA (College of Advanced Studies in Administration), a private university located in Bogotá that specializes in Business Administration, to create the CEOPPORTUNITY program.

As the name implies, CEOPPORTUNITY seeks to give students in their last few semesters of CESA the opportunity to live a day as a CEO. Each semester we match 10 of CESA’s best business students with 10 CEOs from some of the top companies in Colombia. Throughout this process students learn real business knowledge and are able to better understand the expectations of CEOs.

The program is highly selective, and students must endure an extensive application process due to there only being 10 placements per semester. The student must meet a semester grade requirement. Once this filter is done, THUOPER performs an assessment and interviews the students, where the aim is to show the alignment of their expectations with the objectives of the program and provide them with a first experience of an assessment center as well as a real-world interview.

The group of selected students is evaluated with a Hogan Flash Report and a Hogan Career Report. With this, we seek to equip them with perspective.  How they are perceived in the business world and, with that frame of reference, compare their profile to that of the leader with whom they will spend the day. They are given an opportunity to ask themselves: how do I see this leader? What do I see from their positive characteristics? What characteristics would I not want others to perceive in me? How could I have been perceived if I had gone through a similar situation?

At the end of the semester we hold a closing dinner attended by the 10 participating students with their CEO’s to discuss the benefits of the program, the power of the Hogan tests, and what both parties learned throughout the process.

There have been three CEOPPORTUNITY series, through which 30 students have had the opportunity to live out a day as a CEO. THUOPER and CESA will continue executing this program in future semesters, since the impact has been very beneficial. The three main achievements of this program include: giving local students knowledge of real-world work experience, educating this younger generation on an evaluation tool of global significance such as Hogan’s, and enriching the position of the Hogan brand in leading Colombian companies.

*This press release originally appeared on Business Wire on May 8, 2018.

A&D Resources, an international consultancy company, operating with 15 years’ experience with assessment and development of individuals, teams and organisations, and an authorized Hogan Assessments distributor, will host an event featuring Dr. Robert Hogan, well known authority on personality and business psychology, at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, May 30 at Hotel Sofitel Legend the Grand in Amsterdam.

The event is about “Dealing with Poor Leadership,” and Dr. Hogan will address “Absentee Leadership,” a current topic of concern in the HR and talent management circles, even though, it has plagued organisations for centuries.

“Absentee leadership is a real factor that slowly unhinges otherwise well-run companies,” says Hogan. “Absentee leaders are everywhere, they destroy employee engagement, and they are very hard to identify because they are invisible.”

Trish Kellett, Director of the Hogan Coaching Network, will present “Coaching the Dark Side of Personality,” and Tom Cook, Principal Consultant at A&D Resources, will talk about “Dancing in the Dark.”

“Dealing with poor leadership is a challenge all organisations face in some capacity,” says Adam Gade, A&D Resources Chief Commercial Officer. “Our goal with this event is to share knowledge about important indicators of poor leadership and related research & Hogan products.” For more information regarding this event, please email info@adresources.com.

About A&D Resources

A&D Resources specialises in assessment and development of individuals, teams and organisations, as a supplier of personality tests and consulting services. A&D is the official Hogan Assessments Distributor in Denmark and the Benelux countries. As an official distributor, A&D has access to the Hogan Distributor Global Network and the ability to serve global organisations. For more information, visit www.adresources.com.

The phrase “Fortune favors the bold” is appealing on the surface, especially to those who watch others take extraordinary risks without anything to lose themselves. And, in reality, often times fortune does NOT favor the bold, particularly when starting a new business.

However, that did not deter our friends at IAssessment from launching their business under extreme conditions of risk and uncertainty. And, even in the direst of circumstances, the company has thrived and grown Hogan’s presence exponentially in the Spanish market. 

In the latest edition of the Distributor Spotlight Series, IAssessment’s Managing Partner, Juan Antonio Calles, tells the story of how the company started and the work they’ve done to improve the Spanish workforce.

When we signed our collaboration agreement with Hogan, we were at the dawn of the worst economic crisis in decades in Spain. Our friends and colleagues showed concern and surprise for the launching of a new venture in such uncertain and turbulent times. Now? Why not wait? Are you crazy? These were the words we most commonly heard in those days.

And our answer was the always the same: “Now is when decisions about people in organizations need to be based, more than ever, on scientific, objective, and professional criteria. We can´t wait, because we have spent years looking for a partner to open business opportunities for us and strengthen our consulting proposal to the Spanish market. And yes…we are a little crazy…”.

Eight years later we have among our clients some of the biggest and well-known consulting businesses and organizations in the country, while developing an important international practice. Being a Hogan distributor has allowed us to consolidate our consulting services by offering a mix based on knowledge, proximity to real business issues and professional excellence that only a few can offer. And we have done this through our non-negotiable values: collaboration, transparency, respect, fair-play…and lots of hedonism.

And we have never stopped being a little crazy, imagining a better future…that is almost here, and for which we are already working.

Digital experts agree that hyperconnectivity, netarchy and network-based organizations are key factors in the digital era. We are permanently connected with an average of 150 people, each of whom is connected with another 150, so we can impact 3M people. Threat or Opportunity?

Globalization allows 1,3M professionals in Spain to work virtually today, and we expect 52% of European professionals to work in project mode by 2020. Are professionals ready to work in liquid organizations, to specialize in value-adding knowledge, and to grow a personal brand that brings them business?

Automation is an important issue. It will affect 30% of current jobs and professions in 2025, according to Oxford University, and it will bring coexistence with robots on the job.

This paradigm change has a big and deep impact on how professionals face this new era, as many of them work in non-digital organizations that will need to change their business model or value proposition, thus changing the personal competences and skills needed to perform in the digital era.

Right now, Hogan Assessments can help identify a new career goal to many professionals, leveraging their bright side and values, not forgetting their dark side, to achieve enough digital employability to fit into liquid organizations in which to develop a new successful career.

IAssessment´s main strategic goal is to support professional refocusing to adapt to the new paradigm, by offering digital employability support programs. Based on Hogan methodology, our programs allow professionals to gain awareness on their reputational strengths and improvements, and start developing digital competencies that are aligned with their talent, capitalizing their long previous non-digital experience…in other words, to keep on being a successful professional.

When Bob and Joyce Hogan set out to develop better solutions to improve the global workforce, they knew they would need people and organizations from all over the world to help them sell these solutions. This resulted in the formation of a robust international distributor network spanning 56 countries. However, there was one key value each Hogan distributor was required to uphold: A commitment to excellence.

Excellence is defined as “the quality of being outstanding or extremely good”. For Career Connections, a Hogan distributor located in Nairobi, Kenya, excellence isn’t just found in the quality of the organization’s work, but also in the organization’s longevity.

Celebrating 20 years in business, Career Connections has evolved into one of Africa’s most prominent talent consulting firms. Under the leadership of Founding Director and Managing Director, Madeleine Dunford, the company continues to thrive in an area that is overflowing with potential. In our latest Distributor Spotlight, Madeleine gives us an overview how they increase ROI for their clients using the Hogan Assessment Suite.

Career Connections  is the largest specialized talent consulting firm in East Africa and recently celebrated its 20^th Anniversary in 2017. Although the firm is headquartered in Nairobi, we service clients across Africa, excluding South Africa, in 3 broad areas: Executive Search; Executive Coaching and Accredited Coach training (in partnership with the Academy of Executive Coaching); and Assessments for selection or development. We have been a Hogan distributor for 12 years and in 2017 generated over 7,000 Hogan reports.

We often get asked to demonstrate ROI by our clients. One example was for East Africa Breweries (EABL), which has majority shareholding from Diageo. Africa is an important market for Diageo and in 2014 they were concerned that survey feedback showed that annual scores on the line manager’s ability to give feedback, inspire, and work on their team’s personal development were falling substantially. Leadership engagement scores demonstrated a culture of being directive, whereas employees desired more participative leadership.

This sentiment was confirmed during a ‘test trial’ of a small group of 15 managers who completed the Hogan LEAD and the Leadership Versatility Index 360 tool (LVI) which showed that leaders were not empowering. We designed a programme called the ‘Amazing Line Manager Programme’ for EABL which was rolled out to 440 leaders across the wider East African region in 2015-2016. The programme premise was simple: firstly, raise the leader’s self- awareness of the impact they were having, through feedback on their Hogan LEAD and LVI reports. Secondly, supporting that feedback with the use of accredited coaches to challenge the line managers to take responsibility for change.

One of the ways we tracked the impact of the programme was through the annual Diageo Net Promoter Score (NPS) that simply asks team members to rate their line manager. Within Diageo the NPS is considered before promoting a leader. In 2014 the EABL overall score was 2%. After the programme, the score rose to 40% in 2015 and 44% in 2016- the highest increase globally within Diageo. Uganda’s score moved from 9% in 2014 to 71% in 2015- the highest rated country worldwide. East Africa was placed into the ‘green spot’ on employee engagement and performance enablement as a region for the first time.

When correlating the individual’s assessment data to degree of change, it was evident that leaders who were rated as enabling, with low need for public recognition and moderate amounts of ambition were most likely to show the highest shift in NPS. They tended to also be moderately cautious and bold; extreme Hogan or LVI scores were unlikely to drive positive NPS change.

Key learning from the programme was to start with the end in mind – what did we aim to change? Executive buy-in and participation made a big difference, as did briefings and programme launch events. We maintained momentum through video testimonials, and branding the programme. The programme showed you can deliver tremendous change with no classroom learning. The ALM format was adopted globally within Diageo, using their in-house tools.

Hogan Assessments announced Monday that Dr. Ryne Sherman will join the company as Chief Science Officer.

In this role, Sherman will be responsible for managing the primary functions within Hogan’s industry-leading research department, including client research, product development and maintenance, and Hogan’s research archive and infrastructure.

“We’re thrilled to have Ryne join the Hogan team,” says former Hogan CEO Scott Gregory. “He’s been an incredible asset to our organization in recent years through the work he’s done with our research team, and he has positioned himself as one of the premier thought leaders in the world of personality psychology.”

Sherman is currently an associate professor at Texas Tech University, and prior to that he taught at Florida Atlantic University where he was recognized as the FAU College of Science Distinguished Teacher of the Year in 2013. In addition, his research on the psychological properties of situations and their interaction with personality has been awarded federal support from the National Science Foundation, and in 2016 he was named a “Rising Star” by the Association for Psychological Science.

“It truly is an honor to join the world’s leading provider of personality assessments and leadership solutions,” says Sherman. “I’ve been a huge advocate for Hogan over the years, and this is a tremendous opportunity for me to apply my background in personality psychology to improve the global workforce.”

Sherman received his B.A. in Psychology and History from Monmouth College, and completed his Ph.D. in Personality/Social Psychology from the University of California, Riverside. He will officially assume the role of Chief Science Officer in June upon completion of his teaching commitments at Texas Tech.