The role of assessment in building a winning team.

 

 There are a number of factors that contribute to building a winning team. A winning team is one which is able to create a motivational environment in which each member of the team is free to utilize all their skills and experience to contribute to the goals and objectives of the team. For those of us lucky enough to have been members of a winning team at some time in our careers, you can feel it when it happens.

All winning teams have a coach that provides the overall strategy and selects from the team members those specific skills and behavior traits that are needed at each point through the project to meet the goals of the team.

To take the sports example one more step, a wining team also has team members that have been recruited and selected to be part of the team that have the skills and behavioral traits that can be combined to meet the needs of a winning team.  The success of any team in the long run is due in great part to the success of their recruiting program.

So what role does assessment play in building a winning team? Very simply, the role of assessment is to assist the team leader to identify the right player for each functional position on the team. Having spent the time up front to build a functional position description by identifying and listing all the skills and behavioral traits that would contribute to the success of whatever individual fills that position, the rest is easy. The team leader just needs to assess each applicant for their fit to the FPD. One of the reasons that Stewart and Associates has been successful helping our clients to obtain, develop and retain employees is because we take that extra step of evaluating and assessing each candidate we submit using this model.

We utilize a model based on the DiSC system called the PPS which is available through our website.

Working with our partners in operations and human resources at our client companies, we help make the fit as snug as possible. We have all seen the cost for trying to build a position around a person. We wind up with a  dysfunctional company that does not maximize profitability. A recent study states that the average cost to a company to replace a salaried worker is $7,000 exclusive of recruiting costs.

One of the steps on the path to building a functional organization is to identify the skills and behavioral traits that an individual given ownership of a function in a company should have to maximize their results in that function. Selecting that individual on that basis and plugging them in to the team is what recruiting is all about.

Assessment can also be used for ongoing team building, communication and employee development.

Dave Quick, the Director of Business Development for the “Who We Are Counts”TM  Institute in Kingsport, TN uses just such behavioral based training to help companies maximize their ability to work together as teams.

 

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