The Managers’ Corner:

In the first two blogs on the use of the assessment centre we highlighted its form and heralded its objectivity.  We also pointed out that it could be used for both the selection of managers as well as for the training of managers.  Bendel recommends its use for the latter in particular.

In support of this, the assessment centre data can yield on the knowledge, values and skill sets of an individual.  The combined data can also be used to inform a data-based leadership program that addresses any generic deficiencies for the cohort of individuals who took part in the assessment centre.  This is directed leadership development at its best.  But there are also other advantages for members of the assessment team.  Regardless of the content, each assessor through the training to become an assessor (which can be done in-house) and through the participation as an assessor in a centre, develops the following skills:

1. Observing: the capacity to gather information by watching other perform and their body language and facial expressions
2. Recording: the ability to script (not just record) what others are saying and doing in attacking problems on paper, as a member of a group or as an individual
3. Analyzing: the skill to review data of all sorts and to develop logical conclusions on the basis of data that are triangulated in the form of the three preliminary reports
4. Reporting: the ability to take the data and their conclusion and fashion them into some kind    of fact-based report on performance at the centre
5. Working as a member of a team and/or as a facilitator for the consensus session: experience working as a member of a team in a highly regulated and time-sensitive activity under the tutelage of a skilled team leader who has the capacity to bring debate to a conclusion in a timely fashion.

These “ancillary advantages” only came to the attention of this writer as he began to implement centres as part of a selection process for middle managers in a large organization.  It was evident that the trained assessors felt they had learned a great deal through the process that they could apply to their own positions and the word went through the organization about that very realization.  The result was an unending request from other managers to be assessors even though they still had to fulfill their regular responsibilities.  There was no difficulty, then, to enlist the help needed to run the centre – and the benefits were obvious to the organization and its management cohort.

Dr. Dan

Check out our Management Group Webinars for a variety of selection and appraisal methods.