Transcript Slide 1

The Bright Side and Dark Side
of Personality:
How does this affect job performance
and how can we manage this?
Richard Brady, C Psychol
Chief Executive Officer
Mentis, UK & Middle East
www.mentis-consulting.com
What’s Life About?

Freud:
Overcoming your neurosis.

Jung:
Overcoming your neurosis.

Maslow: Overcoming your neurosis.

Hogan's: Getting along and getting ahead.
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Socioanalytic Theory
Group Living Animals
Needs
Get Along
Get Ahead
Find Meaning
Hogan & Hogan, 2001; Hogan, 2007
3
Socioanalytic Theory
 These needs are met through interactions at work
 Social contact (get along)
 Status and power (get ahead)
 Gain purpose for their lives (find meaning)
4
What is Personality? Two Perspectives
Perspective 1: From the Inside
Personality from the inside, or actor’s view, is defined in
terms of a person’s identity.

How a person sees him/herself

Defined by hope, dreams and aspirations

Difficult to measure

Difficult to study

Not always reflected in behaviors
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What is Personality? Two Perspectives
Perspective 2: From the Outside
Personality from the outside, or observer’s view, is a person’s
reputation.
 Defined in terms of traits (e.g., calm, ambitious, careful, etc.)
 Reflects how a person’s behavior has been evaluated after
repeated interactions with others
 Used to predict a person’s performance
 Easy to study -- most of what we know about personality
and job performance is based on observer’s perspectives
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Why Personality Matters
World-wide research of employment issues
General Reasons People Fail
 Poor fit with job
 Poor fit with organisation
General Reasons Managers Fail
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
Inability to build and motivate a team
Inability to develop or adapt
Poor working relations
Lack of vision or “big picture”
No strategic execution
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HPI
HBRI
HDS
MVPI
Hogan inventories concern dimensions that are crucial
for getting along and getting ahead:
 Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI)
 concerns strengths that enhance an individual’s career
 characterises the person at his/her best
 Hogan Development Survey (HDS)
 concerns dysfunctional dispositions that can derail a
person’s career
 these tendencies appear when people let down their
guard—fatigue, illness, frustration
 Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory (MVPI)
 concerns personal drivers and fit with organisational culture
Cost of a New Hire

Year 1 Costs of a $50,000 Employee
 Salary

Bonus at 30%

Benefits at 40%

Recruitment / Placement at 25%

Selection Process at 10%
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Relocation at 15%

Development / Training at 50%
Total Cost of New Hire
$
$
$
$
$
$
$
50,000
15,000
20,000
12,500
5,000
7,500
25,000
$ 135,000

Year 1 Costs run between 1.8 and 2.5 Times Base Salary

It is expensive to make a mistake
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Personality & leadership
Two Views of Leadership

Leadership is either a function of circumstances (Enron)
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Or leadership is a function of personality (GE)
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We believe leadership is related to personality
How to Define and Evaluate Leadership
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Leadership should be defined in terms of the ability to build and
maintain a high performing team

Leadership should be evaluated in terms of the performance of
the team relative to the other teams with which it competes

This is rarely done
Implicit Leadership Themes
People want to see four things in their leaders:
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Integrity: keep their word, don’t play favorites
Decisiveness: make good decisions quickly
Competence: be good at the business
Vision: explain why it matters
Good to Great Themes
Characteristics of CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies with 15 years
sustained superior performance:
– Amazingly persistent
– Humble
Competency Models: I
Every well-run organization has a competency model.
Every competency model contains the same four themes:
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Intrapersonal skills:
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Interpersonal skills:
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Able to build and maintain relationships, compassion, empathy, humility
Business skills:
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Integrity, emotional stability, self-control
Analyzing data, allocating resources, forecasting budgets
Leadership skills:
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Vision, empowering staff, being a good role model
Competency Models: II
Any competency model can be translated into an assessment model:
Competency Theme
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Intrapersonal skills
Interpersonal skills
Business skills
Leadership skills
Assessment Dimension
Adjustment, Prudence
Interpersonal sensitivity
Cognitive ability
Ambition, Inquisitive
Personality and Leadership
Research shows overwhelmingly that personality (reputation) can be
defined in terms of five broad dimensions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Adjustment – core self-esteem
Ambition – social potency
Interpersonal Sensitivity – social charm
Prudence – conscientiousness and rule-following
Inquisitive – curiosity and vision
Dimensions of Managerial Incompetence
(HDS)
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MOVE AWAY FROM
 Excitable: Erratic emotional outbursts
 Cautious: Risk averse, won’t make decisions
 Skeptical: Mistrustful and vindictive
 Reserved: Poor communicator, insensitive to morale issues
 Leisurely: Passive-Aggressive meanness
MOVE AGAINST
 Arrogant: Narcissistic feelings of entitlement
 Mischievous: Careless about commitments
 Colorful: Manages by crisis to be center of attention
 Imaginative: Bad ideas and decisions
MOVE TOWARDS
 Diligent: Over-controlling micro-manager
 Dutiful: Too concerned about pleasing superiors
Leadership and Business Unit Performance
A recent and definitive meta-analysis (Harter, Schmidt, & Hayes,
2002) shows five important things:
1. The personalities of managers directly influence employee
satisfaction.
2. When employee satisfaction is high, positive business outcomes
result.
3. When employee satisfaction is low, negative business outcomes
result.
4. The link between leadership and unit performance is mediated by
staff morale.
5. People don’t quit organizations, they quit their boss.
Executive profiling & job performance
Correlations
Mentis recommendation rating & Expert panel rating
n
50
r
0.46
† Mentis competency rating and Expert panel rating
Customer Focus
Delivering Results
Change & Innovation
Self Management & Personal Development
Planning & Organising
Problem Solving & Decision Making
Business Awareness
Working with Others
Communicating & Influencing
Leadership, Mgt & Coaching
Composite competency rating
20
41
33
13
24
24
14
17
46
46
48
NA
-0.28
-0.31
NA
NA
NA
NA
NA
-0.14
-0.16
-0.33
† scales are in opposite direction, hence negative correlation
** Significant at 1% level of confidence
* Significant at 5% level of confidence
NA Cases are too small to warrant analysis
Note - correlations not corrected for restriction of range
sig
**
*
*
NS
NS
**
Personality & individual contributors
 HIRE BETTER
EMPLOYEES
Fortune 25 Telecommunications Company
 8 weeks: Attrition rate decreased from
25.7% to 5.9%
 Stable or increased performance trends
 14 weeks: Attrition rate decreased from
27% to 14% (nearly 50% lower), with
savings over $750,000
 Employees selected with assessment
earned company $50,000 more per pay period than
those 30not selected by assessments
% Turnover Rate
Results - 1
25
20
Hired without
Assessments
15
Hired with
Assessments
10
5
0
8 we e k s
14 we e k s
Results - 2
 HIRE BETTER
EMPLOYEES
Study Design

18,000 new hires
Bottom-line Problems

1,012 new hires terminated
(Voluntary and Involuntary)
Excessive Absences
40%
Job Abandonment
7%

506 assessed with the Hogan
Personality Inventory
Misconduct
46%

506 (matched sample) were not
assessed
Training Performance
12%
Job Performance
71%

Participants were tracked for 1 year
Failure to Return from Leave
77%

Termination data was collected
Job Dissatisfaction
35%

Those assessed demonstrated
significant reductions in incidents
across all bottom-line indicators
Better Opportunity
29%
Incident Reduction
Results - 3
 SAFETY
CONCERNS
Bottom-line Problems

4,388 participants

2,194 assessed with the Hogan
Personality Inventory
Incident Reduction
Preventable Accidents
67%
Unreported Accidents
50%
Dishonesty / Theft
24%
2,194 (matched sample) were not
assessed
Fighting
100%
Improper Conduct
58%

Participants were tracked for 2 years
Insubordination
80%
Bottom-line problem data collected
Excessive Absences
22%

Frequent Tardiness
29%

Those assessed demonstrated
significant reductions in incidents
across all bottom-line indicators
Inefficiency
40%
Refused Drug / Alcohol Test
83%
Failed Drug Test
57%

 PIPELINE
DEVELOPMENT
Job-Level
Candidate
Entry-Level
Lead
Supervisor
Manager
Director
Person A
Ready with
Difficulty
Ready with
Development
Poor Fit
Poor Fit
Poor Fit
Person B
Ready with
Difficulty
Ready Now
Poor Fit
Poor Fit
Ready with
Difficulty
Personality & Teams
Thank you
Questions please?