Reflect™ by GMAC, Powered by Hogan, a self-assessment and development tool that evaluates personal and professional soft skills imperative in today’s workplace, was named a Top HR Product of 2013 by Human Resource Executive® magazine. GMAC and Hogan were honored with this distinction on Monday, October 7, 2013, at the 16th Annual HR Technology Conference & Expo’s Top HR Products of 2013 Awards Luncheon at the Mandalay Bay Resort in Las Vegas.

“This is a terrific honor and wonderful acknowledgement from such a leading authority as Human Resource Executive,” said Andrew Martelli, GMAC vice president, new product development. “In developing Reflect, GMAC and Hogan set out to create something not only grounded in science but also accessible with or without a facilitator, clearly presented in the language of business and directed at professionals or students looking to strengthen their soft skills to further their educational or professional aspirations.”

The Top HR Products of 2013 contest aims to acknowledge the best and most innovative human resources products of the year. The editors of Human Resource Executive reviewed and assessed all submissions and product demonstrations to identify the HR industry’s most groundbreaking solutions, evaluating products based on their ease of use, innovation and value added to the HR profession. Previous winners include The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Interactive Edition and Power Resume Search by Monster Worldwide.

Today’s young professionals must be prepared with not only the technical knowledge, but also the soft skills and self-awareness that are often indicative of success in management roles. To meet this demand, GMAC and Hogan developed Reflect, the only product of its kind that combines world-class Hogan personality assessments with reporting and self-development advice tailored to the user.

“Reflect by GMAC is unique to the market,” said Ryan Ross, vice president of Global Alliances at Hogan. “This solution gives today’s entry-level professionals the ability to understand their strengths, identify areas for improvement and work to develop their skills proactively to perform better and start on the right path for success. We are honored to receive such recognition for the innovation it brings to the HR industry.”

Reflect is an interactive, customizable competency solution available online. Reflect provides a personalized action plan, career development resources and a benchmarking section so participants can compare their scores against high-performing professionals across 14 different career paths.

“Human Resource Executive has been evaluating HR products and conducting this competition for 25 years,” explained David Shadovitz, editor of Human Resource Executive. “Our goal has always been to identify products and services that clearly offer value to the HR community while demonstrating innovation. With Reflect, Hogan and GMAC have shown how assessments can help even the most recent entrants to the workforce gain the strategic insight to guide their own careers and reach their professional goals.”

At Hogan we often speak of how leaders use their personalities to “get ahead” and “get along” at work. Both functions are equally important – effective leaders must be able to achieve goals, but must also be able to work with and through others to do so. It simply isn’t enough to be a hard-charging idealist, you must also be willing and able to compromise with, negotiate with, and influence others to be successful. Unfortunately, with the current state of the U.S. government, it feels as though the entire “get along” side of the equation has been lost.  

I believe that the balance between getting ahead and getting along is especially important, and particularly challenging, in government leadership, which is designed to include (at least) two opposing forces that possess virtually equal power at any given time. I would argue that the success of our political system depends in large part on our leaders’ ability to:

• Engage in healthy, productive conflict while avoiding dysfunctional disagreements
• Promote their values and objectives while also collaborating and compromising with those who are actively promoting very different ideals
• Adhere to a platform and plan while also being able to recognize unproductive approaches and change course when needed
• Pursue the goals of their specific constituencies while also working for the good of the nation as a whole
• Work in a passionate and devoted manner while remaining objective and not letting decisions be clouded by bruised feelings or interpersonal vendettas

My call to the U.S. Congress – whether Democrat, Republican, Tea Party, or Independent: stop trying to get ahead and start trying to get along! Leaders who do not possess the complementary capabilities of being able to advocate and achieve their goals while also bringing others into the fold and assuring mutual success not only fail as individuals, but more importantly fail their followers. 

Please comment on this blog and share your thoughts on the topic. For instance:

• What unique challenges might government leaders face compared to private sector leaders?
• What techniques could government leaders use to balance the “get ahead” and “get along” components of the leadership equation?
• Are there lessons learned in the corporate world that may apply to government leadership and mitigate the dysfunction we are seeing now?
• Does the academic literature – regarding team functioning, conflict management, leadership practices or personality in general – offer specific insight that might be beneficial to our current government leaders? 

At Hogan we often speak of how leaders use their personalities to “get ahead” and “get along” at work. Both functions are equally important – effective leaders must be able to achieve goals, but must also be able to work with and through others to do so. It simply isn’t enough to be a hard-charging idealist, you must also be willing and able to compromise with, negotiate with, and influence others to be successful. Unfortunately, with the current state of the U.S. government, it feels as though the entire “get along” side of the equation has been lost.  

I believe that the balance between getting ahead and getting along is especially important, and particularly challenging, in government leadership, which is designed to include (at least) two opposing forces that possess virtually equal power at any given time. I would argue that the success of our political system depends in large part on our leaders’ ability to:

• Engage in healthy, productive conflict while avoiding dysfunctional disagreements
• Promote their values and objectives while also collaborating and compromising with those who are actively promoting very different ideals
• Adhere to a platform and plan while also being able to recognize unproductive approaches and change course when needed
• Pursue the goals of their specific constituencies while also working for the good of the nation as a whole
• Work in a passionate and devoted manner while remaining objective and not letting decisions be clouded by bruised feelings or interpersonal vendettas

My call to the U.S. Congress – whether Democrat, Republican, Tea Party, or Independent: stop trying to get ahead and start trying to get along! Leaders who do not possess the complementary capabilities of being able to advocate and achieve their goals while also bringing others into the fold and assuring mutual success not only fail as individuals, but more importantly fail their followers. 

Please comment on this blog and share your thoughts on the topic. For instance:

• What unique challenges might government leaders face compared to private sector leaders?
• What techniques could government leaders use to balance the “get ahead” and “get along” components of the leadership equation?
• Are there lessons learned in the corporate world that may apply to government leadership and mitigate the dysfunction we are seeing now?
• Does the academic literature – regarding team functioning, conflict management, leadership practices or personality in general – offer specific insight that might be beneficial to our current government leaders? 

I watch too much TV.  From my morning dose of sports and news to my evening schedule of news and comedy, the part of my day not spent at work is often spent in a familiar bluish glow. My wife has her dramas, I have my comedies, and with three kids we also have to endure our fair share of animation. So you probably think this blog is about my moment of clarity and a thoughtful effort to break this addiction to TV. Nope. Not a chance. BACK OFF.

At a recent dinner with friends, we saw a commercial advertising the premier of one of the fall’s new shows. Each fall TV schedule brings a few original ideas and a lot of garbage, and unfortunately the show we saw advertised fell into the latter group. So we started talking about how a few bona fide gems make it to air amidst a tidal wave of the mediocre and downright awful, and I considered what role personality and leadership play in this puzzle.

As with any industry, some television execs see their purpose as advancing their own agenda.  When this self-centered view is combined with a lack of self-awareness about one’s personality, what ultimately appears on millions of televisions is often uninteresting, dated, and quickly cancelled. However, when executives focus on creating and sustaining high performing teams and on proactively managing their own personalities, the products they create can be truly creative, thought-provoking, and starkly original.

Few of us work in jobs where our products are viewed and judged by millions of people, but each of us is responsible for producing something. Once we prove that we are able to meet the technical demands of our jobs, what determines our success or failure is our personalities and how we lead others. If we are actively involved in managing our personalities at work, we are better prepared to produce the next big hit in our own jobs. If not, we may create the next big miss.

I watch too much TV.  From my morning dose of sports and news to my evening schedule of news and comedy, the part of my day not spent at work is often spent in a familiar bluish glow. My wife has her dramas, I have my comedies, and with three kids we also have to endure our fair share of animation. So you probably think this blog is about my moment of clarity and a thoughtful effort to break this addiction to TV. Nope. Not a chance. BACK OFF.

At a recent dinner with friends, we saw a commercial advertising the premier of one of the fall’s new shows. Each fall TV schedule brings a few original ideas and a lot of garbage, and unfortunately the show we saw advertised fell into the latter group. So we started talking about how a few bona fide gems make it to air amidst a tidal wave of the mediocre and downright awful, and I considered what role personality and leadership play in this puzzle.

As with any industry, some television execs see their purpose as advancing their own agenda.  When this self-centered view is combined with a lack of self-awareness about one’s personality, what ultimately appears on millions of televisions is often uninteresting, dated, and quickly cancelled. However, when executives focus on creating and sustaining high performing teams and on proactively managing their own personalities, the products they create can be truly creative, thought-provoking, and starkly original.

Few of us work in jobs where our products are viewed and judged by millions of people, but each of us is responsible for producing something. Once we prove that we are able to meet the technical demands of our jobs, what determines our success or failure is our personalities and how we lead others. If we are actively involved in managing our personalities at work, we are better prepared to produce the next big hit in our own jobs. If not, we may create the next big miss.

Through natural selection, psychological mechanisms have evolved to solve adaptive problems. In other words, the brain is not a general purpose apparatus, every animals’ brain is the result of its evolutionary history—and even though we’d like to think otherwise, humans are no different. Buss (1995) elucidated this point by noting, “all humans have a nature—a human nature that differs from cat nature, rat nature, and bat nature. That nature requires particular forms of environmental input for its development”. For this reason, animals with genetic similarities and environmental pressures have similar natures.

Human nature shares commonalities with many other social primates. Take chimpanzees for example. In the context of violent warfare (the wild), chimpanzees live in groups, have status hierarchies, and display cultural differences between groups (just like our organizations do). Given this, what factors are most important to the survival of a chimp in the wild? Quite simply, survival depends on being in or choosing a strong group, getting along within the group, and being at the top of the group’s hierarchy. So, if you see two ingratiating chimps grooming each other, they’re trying to get along. And, if you see chimps displaying aggressive behaviors (within or between groups), it’s likely they’re fighting for dominance, resources, and ultimately survival.

Humans have similar evolutionary consistent underlying motivations, and they’re posited by the three components of socioanalytic theory: (1) getting along with others, (2) getting ahead within the hierarchy, and (3) finding meaning and purpose. Similar to chimps, we want to get along with others and fear rejection. We want to obtain status and fear losing power and control of resources. And third, we want to find meaning in life and fear unpredictability and losing control. These motivations drive human behavior, and social interaction (in humans and chimps) involves negotiating for these things—and it’s our personalities that determine if we get them.

Personality, though, is about individual differences. There are two components of personality—the view you have of you (identity) and the view others have of you (reputation). Identity, or what you think about you, is formed through feedback from others, and it determines your values and the roles you’ll play. Human behavior is a function of identity, and identity varies between people. Some people have a stronger need than others to get along, get ahead, and find meaning.

Reputation, or what others think about you, concerns how we present our identities to the world. Since the people around you give you your underlying needs (status and acceptance), your reputation is vastly consequential. For instance, if a group converges in perceiving you as untrustworthy, you will likely be removed from the group (regardless of your identity), resulting in various negative outcomes such as loneliness (loss of acceptance), depression (loss of status and control), and diminution of resources. Due to the objectivity (lack of psychological biases) of reputation, it is easier to study than identity, and a better predictor of job performance and life outcomes (salary, popularity in school, etc…).

Aristotle once said, “knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”  Humans are largely unconscious of their underlying motivations, identity, and reputation—but we can become conscious through strategic self-awareness. Strategic self-awareness has three components: knowing your identity (this is what Aristotle was after), knowing how your identity transfers to reputation, and knowing your reputation. This knowledge is achieved through assessment, feedback, and coaching. Here at Hogan, we want you to know how we see you, because that is what determines your success or failure in work and life.

In the end, from generation to generation, and from social primate to social primate, we’re all just in the game of life searching for love, glory, and meaning. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, “And so it goes…”

Through natural selection, psychological mechanisms have evolved to solve adaptive problems. In other words, the brain is not a general purpose apparatus, every animals’ brain is the result of its evolutionary history—and even though we’d like to think otherwise, humans are no different. Buss (1995) elucidated this point by noting, “all humans have a nature—a human nature that differs from cat nature, rat nature, and bat nature. That nature requires particular forms of environmental input for its development”. For this reason, animals with genetic similarities and environmental pressures have similar natures.

Human nature shares commonalities with many other social primates. Take chimpanzees for example. In the context of violent warfare (the wild), chimpanzees live in groups, have status hierarchies, and display cultural differences between groups (just like our organizations do). Given this, what factors are most important to the survival of a chimp in the wild? Quite simply, survival depends on being in or choosing a strong group, getting along within the group, and being at the top of the group’s hierarchy. So, if you see two ingratiating chimps grooming each other, they’re trying to get along. And, if you see chimps displaying aggressive behaviors (within or between groups), it’s likely they’re fighting for dominance, resources, and ultimately survival.

Humans have similar evolutionary consistent underlying motivations, and they’re posited by the three components of socioanalytic theory: (1) getting along with others, (2) getting ahead within the hierarchy, and (3) finding meaning and purpose. Similar to chimps, we want to get along with others and fear rejection. We want to obtain status and fear losing power and control of resources. And third, we want to find meaning in life and fear unpredictability and losing control. These motivations drive human behavior, and social interaction (in humans and chimps) involves negotiating for these things—and it’s our personalities that determine if we get them.

Personality, though, is about individual differences. There are two components of personality—the view you have of you (identity) and the view others have of you (reputation). Identity, or what you think about you, is formed through feedback from others, and it determines your values and the roles you’ll play. Human behavior is a function of identity, and identity varies between people. Some people have a stronger need than others to get along, get ahead, and find meaning.

Reputation, or what others think about you, concerns how we present our identities to the world. Since the people around you give you your underlying needs (status and acceptance), your reputation is vastly consequential. For instance, if a group converges in perceiving you as untrustworthy, you will likely be removed from the group (regardless of your identity), resulting in various negative outcomes such as loneliness (loss of acceptance), depression (loss of status and control), and diminution of resources. Due to the objectivity (lack of psychological biases) of reputation, it is easier to study than identity, and a better predictor of job performance and life outcomes (salary, popularity in school, etc…).

Aristotle once said, “knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.”  Humans are largely unconscious of their underlying motivations, identity, and reputation—but we can become conscious through strategic self-awareness. Strategic self-awareness has three components: knowing your identity (this is what Aristotle was after), knowing how your identity transfers to reputation, and knowing your reputation. This knowledge is achieved through assessment, feedback, and coaching. Here at Hogan, we want you to know how we see you, because that is what determines your success or failure in work and life.

In the end, from generation to generation, and from social primate to social primate, we’re all just in the game of life searching for love, glory, and meaning. In the words of Kurt Vonnegut, “And so it goes…”

Strategic self-awareness starts with a clear understanding of your assessment results. In this short video, Hogan’s consultants give viewers a basic understanding of personality and what to expect during their Hogan feedback.

Strategic self-awareness starts with a clear understanding of your assessment results. In this short video, Hogan’s consultants give viewers a basic understanding of personality and what to expect during their Hogan feedback.

I was browsing the internet one night a few weeks ago, and I came across a story that caught my attention. The story is one of a Los Angeles County traffic cop that, through 20 years on the job and 25,000 traffic stops, has never received a single complaint. Zip. Zero. Zilch. Nada. This is an amazing statistic, especially when you consider that most interactions with traffic police will leave you with a citation and a bad mood. However, this officer has a flawless record and it is all due to one factor – personality. Instead of chastising and embarrassing commuters for speeding, failure to wear a safety belt, and the like, he puts his interpersonal skills to good use and leaves commuters with a ticket and a smile. It’s the perfect combination of charm without being too charming, being personable without being walked-on.

Organizations and individuals looking to hire or promote the right person for a job need to consider factors like an individual’s personality or values. In fact, these factors are the difference between having a good set of employees and a great set of employees. Someone can have all the intelligence, experience, and educational degrees needed to do the job, but if they don’t have the right blend of personality and values needed for the job or the organization, they will likely end up underperforming and may even leave or be fired. What I would rather have is someone with the right personality and values at day one, because skills are trainable and experience will come with time. Personality on the other hand is difficult to train.

You may be saying to yourself right now, “None of this is news to me. That’s exactly why I rely on interviews when hiring people.” Interviews are great for several reasons. They allow you the opportunity to ask follow-up questions and to dig further into interesting items on a résumé. However, there are several drawbacks associated with interviews. First, asking follow-up questions reduces the structure of an interview, which is a bad thing. Second, people are able to fake during interviews, making it difficult to know what the person will look like 6 months on the job. Third, interviews are expensive. Interviewers need to be trained on the concepts they are assessing, as well as how to rate the interviewee on those concepts. Then, there are the costs associated with paying someone to conduct the interview. Not to mention, the costs associated with bringing a candidate in to interview (Sure, there are ways of conducting virtual interviews, but if successful, most are followed up with in-person meetings).

Interviews are an inevitable and expensive part of the hiring process, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t do things beforehand to make interviews more cost effective and efficient. This is where personality assessment comes in. First, personality assessments provide a standard set of items that each candidate responds to, therefore adding structure to the hiring process. Second, well-constructed personality assessments cannot be faked. Third, personality assessments are a cost effective way of gathering standardized information on a batch of candidates to trim down the amount of interviews.

To find the right employee to fit your organization (like the zero-complaint traffic cop), assess your candidates then interview. You'll have success every time.