Managers intuitively understand that achieving the right mix of skills, experience, and personality is key to ensuring a productive team and content workforce. Get that mix wrong – even by just one individual – and the result can be ruinous. Ryan Ross, Hogan vice president of Global Alliances, discusses personality and teams.

Q. How does personality affect team performance?
A. A team is made up of individuals, and personality can be the mortar that holds the team together or the chisel that tears it apart. The makeup of the team, the demands, and what is needed to be successful is dependent on the individuals. They have to be able to work together, and they have to be engaged with each other.

Q. What characteristics do high-performing teams share?
A. First, high-performing teams are self-aware of their collective strengths and their development needs as a team. They know where their blind spots are, and they’re willing to seek outside influence to help compensate. Second, they are focused on a mission. Individually, they have clear objectives to contribute to the team, and there’s also a desire to keep score. They want to know, “Are we winning as a team? If not, what are we going to do to fix that?” It creates a sense of accountability.

Q. What are the functional and psychological team roles?
A. Functional roles in a team are simply based on title, level in an organization, or past experience. It’s the old military example of just because they have stripes on their arms or stars on their lapel you have to call them a leader. Psychological roles are who we become in the team. Are we an antagonist or a creator? Are we focused on details and implementation or are we dedicated to team collaboration? Are we focused on results, relationships, pragmatics, process, or innovation?

Q. In terms of composition, what do teams need?
A. Teams need someone paying attention to the vision and goals, and they need someone paying attention – strategically – to how they’re going to get there. Teams need individuals who are driving the work and actually getting work done versus just talking about it. They also need someone who is paying attention to details, as well as someone to keep harmony and collaboration going in the team. If you think about societal roles, it’s basically the same thing. You need a mayor, you need a city council, and you need employees.

Q. Can too much dissimilarity in a team be problematic?
A. You bet it can. Too many dissimilar values can be problematic. You’re going to find that people gravitate towards each other in a team. Teams need to identify and understand their collective strengths and shortcomings. If you have a team that is on both ends of the spectrum when it comes to Adjustment (the HPI scale related to confidence and self-esteem) – meaning that half the team is rock-solid and nothing bothers them, and the other half of the team freaks out when the room is too warm – then those two groups are always going to be at odds. They have to recognize that shortcoming and meet somewhere in the middle. Values are a key challenge when you have dissimilarity in a team. We find that there are two or three common core values in a team and that the rest are free to vary, which is what gives you the uniqueness of individuals.

Q. How do shared group values impact team performance?
A. They help build cohesion. People who value the same things tend to be interested in performing work in similar ways. They focus on certain goals and share a common language, even though they may be new acquaintances. If I know you value winning, competing, and the way things look and feel, we could already have a relationship even if we just met. Shared values are especially important today because organizations are doing so much more virtual teamwork. Oftentimes, we don’t have an opportunity to sit down and have conversations anymore, but because we talk the same way or have the same values, those relationships are easier to make.

Q. What can shared derailers mean to a team?
A. Blind spots. Shared derailers create a culture of derailment where a certain derailer is seen as just the way we are. For example, say a retailer has a management team with very high scores on Bold (the HDS scale related to self-confidence and arrogance) and Mischievous (the HDS scale related to risk-taking and limit-testing); that would breed a culture where if you couldn’t stand up, take punches and push the envelope, then you wouldn’t fit in. It leads to the acceptance of things that cause the every day employee to suffer.

Q. How do we keep team members engaged?
A. Getting and keeping team members engaged starts with leadership. The definition of leadership is being able to build and sustain high-performing teams. The only way to do that is with individuals that are engaged. How do you get engagement? Through good leadership. How do you identify good leaders? By looking at their personality. It’s a building block – teams that are engaged will take action more quickly, and they’re more defensive when it comes to outside challenges because they want to protect each other. The functional head of the team must drive the engagement, or things get out of sync. It’s helping the leader understand how to drive and motivate a team by knowing who the players are, what they value, and how that fits with the mission they’re being asked to accomplish.

Follow Ryan Ross on Twitter @RRossHogan

Leadership is the most important single factor in determining success in business.

Hogan has been studying emotional intelligence and its impact on organizational effectiveness for decades. In this short video, Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, vice president of research and innovation, explains the concept of emotional intelligence, why it’s important, how we measure it, and what it means for you.

For more information, check out our ebook, Want a Better Job? Learn to Control Your Emotions.

When it comes to understanding your employees, there are three things that matter.

1. What do they want?
2. How will they get what they want?
3. What will get in their way?

Our assessments provide insight you can leverage to get the most out of your people and help them get the most from their careers.

“Control, control, you must learn control,” Yoda said to Luke Skywalker during Jedi training. Just like Luke, employees must be aware of and learn to control their emotions if they want to be successful at their job (whether their job involves fighting intergalactic forces or receiving critical feedback on a presentation). Fortunately for Luke, he had a great coach and eventually became self-aware enough to conquer his volatile tendencies and channel his emotional energy into the task at hand.

When hiring, it is common to assess not only a candidate’s hard skills, educational background and resume points, but also to take into consideration his or her workplace demeanor. Unfortunately, brief interview sessions provide little opportunity to examine a person’s emotional output when faced with certain workplace situations.

Like Luke, many employees have greatness within them, but lack the tools to successfully put their emotions aside. Assessing emotional intelligence (EQ), the ability to identify, process, and manage one’s own and others’ emotions, provides this acumen in the form of self-awareness. The Hogan EQ assessment measures along six essential workplace emotional competencies:

Emotional Perception

• Self-awareness – the ability understand the emotions that are causing their current mood
• Detection – the ability to interpret others’ intentions, actions, and motivations

Emotional Control

• Regulation – the ability to seem calm under pressure and resilient in the face of failure
• Influence – the ability to empower and instill confidence in others.

Emotional Sharing

• Expressivity – the ability to effectively communicate a desired emotional state to others
• Empathy – the ability to more deeply engage in social interactions and collaborative experiences

By providing a measurement of emotional intelligence, Hogan’s EQ report gives employees insight into the roles their emotions play in their worklife as well as how they are perceived by others. By understanding their natural strengths and weaknesses, employees can learn to compensate for those behaviors. Interested in learning more about how we assess EQ? Download our complimentary eBook, Want a Better Job? Learn to Control Your Emotions.

Although much of the panic surrounding their generation has subsided, the fact that many Millennials struggle to find and maintain employment has not. According to recent numbers from the U.S. Department of Labor, unemployment among Millennials (ages 18-29) was nearly double the national unemployment rate in January 2013, having risen faster than any other demographic.

Some of this can be blamed on a still-recovering job market, but the persistent nature of under- and unemployment among millennials suggests that this demographic lacks some skill necessary to obtain employment.

In the 1990s, the U.S. department of labor conducted a survey examining what companies want from their employees. The report identified five critical workplace competencies:

1)     Locating and allocating resources

2)     Acquiring and interpret­ing information

3)     Understanding complex systems

4)     Technological literacy

5)     Interpersonal skills

When it comes to the first four requirements, today’s young employees are quite advanced relative to their older peers at that age. Millennials came up in the age of the Internet search, social media and crowdsourcing, and are adept at searching for, finding, and synthesizing information. And as far as technological literacy, the Pew Research Center called them digital natives in a landscape of immigrants. However, the fifth competency, interpersonal skills, is where many young employees fall short. And that’s a big problem.

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) – the ability to identify, process, and manage one’s own and others’ emotions – is an essential part of building and maintaining positive, productive relationships, which is an essential skill in most jobs.

Introducing the Hogan EQ Report. EQ, the ability to identify and manage your own and others’ emotions, determines success in nearly every job. Those who lack the ability to build effective relationships are destined to fail – no matter how smart they are. The Hogan EQ Report provides organizations with a scientifically validated tool to measure emotional intelligence.

Want to know more? Check out our ebook, Want a Better Job? Learn to Control Your Emotions.

1. Quality. Hogan’s assessments are based in decades of scientific theory and research. The Hogan Assessment Certification Workshop covers two days of intensive education and training designed to help users understand the science behind our products and how it affects their outcomes.

2. Consistency. Hogan provides assessments in more than 40 countries and languages. But no matter where our users are, our standardized training materials and curriculum guarantee they receive the same quality experience our clients have come to expect.

“We have been conducting Hogan workshops in Australia for the local market and on behalf of our global Hogan Partners for last 10 years,” said Shayne Nealon, managing partner at Australian firm Peter Berry Consultancy. “Our clients appreciate the consistency that applies with Hogan and the ability to offer a consistent global accreditation solution and ongoing support.”

3. Hands-on learning. The best way to learn is by doing. At Hogan’s workshops, participants analyze and interpret assessment results and give comprehensive feedback on our three flagship assessments, the HPI, HDS, and MVPI in both an individual and group setting.

Here’s what participants are saying:

4. Advanced interpretation. Understanding how an individual’s scores impact, buffer, and nuance each other is an essential foundation for development planning, executive coaching, and working with high potential employees.

“One of Hogan’s principal advantages, particularly for development, relies on feedback being administered right,” said Rahul Baswani, managing partner at Sierra Alta Consulting.

5. Validity. We go to extraordinary lengths to ensure our products work. By ensuring Hogan users are qualified and properly trained to use our products, we ensure the best possible outcomes at their respective companies. Proper training is also important to ensure that our assessments are legally defensible. In our 25 years in business, our assessment solutions have never been legally challenged.

6. Support. When Hogan was founded in 1987, it was a four-person test publisher in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We built our reputation based on two things: an outstanding product and an unparalleled level of customer support. Today, our global network of consultants, partners, and distributors carries on this legacy.

Developed in partnership by Denison Consulting and Hogan, the Denison Leadership Potential Report (DLPR) is a new product that provides a statistically valid prediction of leadership potential. This is accomplished by aligning an individual’s inherent leader attributes—as measured by Hogan assessment tools—to the twelve leadership competencies defined by the Denison Leadershhip Development Model.

The DLPR is generated from responses to the Hogan Personality Inventory, the Hogan Development Survey, and the Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory and depicts an individual’s potential to exhibit each of the twelve Denison leadership competencies based on his/her personality and values. Competencies are scored as either excellent, high, moderate or low potential and are grouped into the four traits of the Denison Model.

Read more and view a sample report

If you’re attending the 28th Annual Conference of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology in April, check out some of our esteemed Hogan colleagues as they present our latest research.

THURSDAY, APRIL 11

International Perspectives on Combining Personality and Multirater Feedback Data
Many organizations include personality assessments and multirater feedback instruments in selection batteries or development initiatives, but they rarely combine these sources of information to maximize developmental outcomes that mutually benefit individuals and the organization. Participants will share international perspectives on combining these sources of information and the ROI of doing so.
Blaine Gaddis

Comparability of Scores: Equivalence Issues in Testing Across Countries
This study considers approaches to a range of issues relating to score comparability in multinational testing. These range from use of DIF and generalizability theory through applications of SEM to more general considerations of the impact of cultural differences on attitudes to testing.
Kevin Meyer, Jeff Foster

Job Analytic Comparisons of Competency Requirements in Global Managerial Jobs
Existing research has examined similarities and differences in global leader behavior. However, these initiatives focus on the individual as their unit of analysis. This research uses jobs as the unit of analysis, analyzing archival job data to examine similarities and differences in competencies required for managerial jobs around the world.
Dara Pickering, Blaine Gaddis

Identifying Critical Job Family Competencies: Within and Across Job Families
This study used data-driven best practices to identify the most critical competencies for 4 job families: service and support; professionals, operations, and trades; and technicians and specialists. Although subject matter experts rated 4 competencies as critical across the 3 job families, other competencies were unique to each job family.
Ashley Palmer, Steve Nichols

A Sticky Topic: Using Personality Tests in Selection Settings
Industry remains hesitant to utilize personality tests in applicant screening due to low criterion validity in predicting job performance. An expert panel is consulted on the use of personality tests in selection settings toward improving criterion validity and offers recommendations promoting the use of personality data in selection.
Kevin Meyer

The Role of Theory in Advancing Personality Assessment at Work
Toward making innovations “stick,” 4 leading personality researchers discuss the role of theory in advancing personality test use in work settings. Key issues include why theory is especially important in this area, which theoretical principles are important, hurdles blocking utilization of theory, and the future of personality assessment at work.
Robert Hogan

FRIDAY, APRIL 12

Leadership Assessment: Contemporary Issues and Challenges in Demonstrating Value
Identifying and developing leadership talent continues to be a key concern for organizations. Recent advances in technology and research have spurred the development of automated assessments and models to leverage data, making leadership assessment more accessible and affordable. This session explores opportunities to demonstrate the value of assessment to organizations.
Ryan Ross

Why Is the Leadership Development Industry Failing?
Since 1995, leadership development has grown 30% into a $12B industry in the U.S. In the same time, public confidence in leadership has declined 30%, and most corporations report lacking adequate leadership capacity. This session discusses why the leadership industry seems to be failing and what to do about it.
Robert Hogan

Industry Differences: Mine Is Unique…Right?
Organizations believe important differences between industries exist and request industry-specific comparisons. This symposium will explore the size of differences in personality traits, values, competencies, and attitudes between industries. Job function and managerial level differences are also presented. Implications, including those for selection and development, are discussed.
Steve Nichols, Jeff Foster

Advances in the Use of Personality to Predict Workplace Criteria
Although research relating personality to work outcomes has progressed, more is needed to refine the criteria that are predicted by different traits and relevant boundary conditions involved. This session presents 4 papers that approach the issue of what is understood about using personality tests to predict criteria from different perspectives.
Ashley Palmer

SATURDAY, APRIL 13

Linking Personality and 360 Assessments to Coach and Develop Leaders
This session examines the combination of personality and 360 (multirater) assessment for the development of leaders. Two empirical studies demonstrate how coaching insights are produced by the convergence of the 2 types of assessments. In addition, 2 large-scale organizational case studies demonstrate the application and practical utility of the approach.
Rodney Warrenfeltz

Destructive Leadership: A Holistic View for Minimizing its Toxic Influence
This session focuses on consolidating current research on destructive leadership to support a more comprehensive definition. It emphasizes the importance of considering leaders, followers, and the environment in the destructive leadership process. Moreover, it examines this process in a specific context to gain insight into preventing destructive leadership in organizations.
Robert Hogan