When assessing candidates for promotion, it's often difficult to envision how people will function in a new job, especially one that takes them from the rank and file and thrusts them into a supervisory role for the first time.

Candidates, too, may not know what they're in for when they ask to be considered for a management position after years of success in more tactical positions.

The answer, both for employer and employee, is increasingly being found in assessment centers.

Developed by the federal government during the World War II as a way to identify candidates for undercover assignments, and subsequently adapted for corporate use in the 1950's as a way to select and develop talent within organizations, assessment centers are enjoying a resurgence today as businesses look for new and effective ways to evaluate high- potential candidates.

A Day in the Life

Generally speaking, assessment centers put participants through a series of group and individual exercises, interviews and tests designed to simulate the "day in the life" conditions of a management position, to determine if they have the skills and abilities necessary to perform jobs higher up the corporate ladder.

Assessment centers can vary based upon the specific leadership and management development needs of the company. Typically, about eight to 10 participants will attend at one time, and all receive a thorough introduction at the beginning of the day. The center lasts a full day and often a second day is spent by the assessors to gather, organize and then provide feedback to the participants. Some examples of the simulations include the following:

• An "in basket" exercise that consists of e-mails and voicemail messages that participants must prioritize and answer.
• Written exercises, which evaluate communication skills.
• Role playing, which typically last between 15-20 minutes. During the session, professional assessors carefully track participants' behaviors.
• Analytical exercises that test participants' critical thinking and problem-solving abilities.

Depending on the organization's business needs, other simulations may include a coaching session with an employee, giving a presentation or leading in a team meeting. Increasingly, companies also use assessment centers to evaluate candidates' abilities to function as leaders or members of a global "virtual team," with participants from different countries and time zones.

'Wonderful Tool'

"Assessment centers are a wonderful tool, not only for selection, but also for development," says Valerie White, a member of WJM Associates' executive coaching faculty. "They give both the sponsoring organization and the participants a real taste of what a new job is like. They are incredibly eye-opening experiences."

Participants receive feedback regarding their performance and typically will work with an assessor to create a development plan, once their strengths and areas for development are identified. Participants typically also receive an individual assessment report, which summarizes their feedback, strengths and areas for development. Additional information that may be found in the report includes feedback from an assessment instrument and/or from a 360-degree survey.

Assessment centers are common in industries with large sales forces, including the pharmaceutical industry. Some companies in these sectors conduct their own assessment centers; others work with human resources consulting firms.

Case Study

Recently, WJM Associates helped a large company that provides highly capable, motivated contract sales and management personnel to the pharmaceutical industry. These sales and marketing professionals have extensive experience in various therapeutic categories and successfully market primary care and specialty drugs in all phases of the product life cycle.

To meet its growing demand for more sales managers, the client conducted its own assessment center. Instead of using outside assessors, the company filled those roles from within — and asked WJM Associates to provide four local consultants, experienced in running assessment centers, to coach the in-house assessors.

WJM Associates' consultants provided ongoing support by keeping assessors focused and on track, redirecting role-players, and helping to prepare written reports. As a result, discussions were brought to a potentially new and different level.

In addition, WJM Associates provided the client with a number of suggestions for improving the effectiveness of future assessment centers. These included:

• Encouraging "role players" to stay in character when entering the room to begin the role-play exercise. This eliminates confusion for all involved and also saves time.
• Providing participants with a greater understanding of the company's key leadership competencies, and including specific examples of strengths and developmental opportunities.
• Debriefing with assessors to share challenges and "best practices" after their sessions. One consultant, for example, had three assessors address the same issue differently.

"Our client found these and other suggestions to be very helpful in enhancing its assessment-center process," says Scott Litchfield, WJM Associates account manager. "They liked the experience and professionalism that our faculty members brought to the assignment, and felt that they enriched the process tremendously."

Personality and management style tests have become an increasingly common tool in employee selection and development. Indeed, according to Workforce Management, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator alone is administered over 2.5 million times every year.

Organizations use personality and style tests for executive coaching, career counseling, conflict resolution, team development, organizational development, mergers and acquisitions, negotiation training, sales training, and many other situations. While there are many benefits to using such assessment tools, organizations may inadvertently perpetuate what is known as "the fundamental attribution error" - the tendency to focus on individual dispositions, and to ignore situational factors, in explaining behavior.

HR can help managers carefully consider the potential benefits, risks and limitations of these instruments before deciding if, how and when to use them. Additionally, if organizations do decide to use these tests, they need to balance a consideration of individual dispositions with a consideration of situational variables.

Explaining Behavior

We are all susceptible to "the fundamental attribution error," meaning that we discount situational factors when trying to explain why other people behave as they do. Personality and style tests, therefore, confirm what we have a natural tendency to believe: that individuals create and influence situations — and not the other way around.

These tests are also memorable, simple, intuitive, and often confirm what we already know about ourselves and others, even if that knowledge is to some extent built on simplified, stereotype-like categories of personalities and styles. This type of classification of people is an integral part of American popular culture, marketing and politics. We all use movie and television stars as points of reference when describing others; marketers have well-developed "psychographic" categories that they use to target advertising; and pollsters segment the electorate and tailor candidates' messages accordingly.

No 'Right' Answers

Personality and style tests can be harmful when they are used for purposes for which they are not intended. For example, the Myers-Briggs test is not meant to be an employee screening tool, and its publisher cautions against using it to select employees. Managers should consult with their HR team before deciding which tests are appropriate to use for selection purposes.

In terms of employee and team development, personality and style tests may put a focus on the wrong variables, in isolation. In many cases when organizations use personality and style tests, it might have been worthwhile to first consider whether roles and responsibilities need to be clarified, the quantity and quality of performance feedback needs to increase, and/or whether new strategies and systems for the recruitment, retention and development of employees need to be created and implemented. In other words, successful managers and their teams are able to balance a focus on assessing and developing people with a focus on assessing and improving the context within which they individually and collectively work.

How Should Tests Be Used?

Since behavior is a function of an interaction between individuals and situations, personality and style tests can help provide a useful framework for assessing the ways that different individual personalities and styles contribute to the behaviors that impact performance in the workplace.

Tests can also serve as a starting point for candid and constructive discussions of individual behavior and performance in the workplace and create an environment where candid and constructive feedback can become the rule and not the exception.

However, expectations for tests, like any other kind of organizational intervention, should be realistic. It is not realistic to assume that getting back the results of a personality or managerial style test will lead to sustained personal insight and growth. HR can bring substantial value to managers by helping them to identify the talent and behavioral implications of organizational strategies, and by helping them define and achieve their human capital goals in general, with personality and style tests being only one tool among many that can be used to assess and improve individual, team and organizational performance.

Organizational behavior is very complex and is influenced by many variables at the individual, relational, group, organizational, and environmental levels of analysis. Neither descriptions of organizational phenomena nor prescriptions for change should be based on simple models or categories of individual personality.

If personality and style tests are used in the workplace, they should be used as part of a larger, integrated human capital assessment and development system, and should be a point of departure, rather than a point of arrival. HR professionals can ensure that these tests are put to best use by encouraging managers to take both people factors and situational factors into account when assessing and developing themselves and their teams.

Ben Dattner, Ph.D., is a member of WJM Associates' executive coaching and assessment faculty and is an adjunct professor at New York University.

Dale Klamfoth has joined WJM Associates as senior vice president of sales.

Dale has more than 20 years of experience in the areas of leadership development and career counseling. In his new position, he will oversee business development and sales initiatives for the firm's executive coaching and organizational consulting activities.

Prior to joining WJM Associates, Dale was vice president, North America, for CDI Education, a wholly owned unit of Corinthian Colleges, Inc. He directed business development activities for CDI's Leadership and Professional Development unit in the United States and Canada.

Before that, Dale was a regional vice president with Drake, Beam, Morin. During his 17-year tenure there, he had overall responsibility for customer relationships in the firm's eastern region. He was involved in several product development initiatives, resulting in new offerings for The Center for Executive Options unit, and the Performance Optimization and Executive Coaching Services unit. He also has held human resource consulting positions with PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG.

"We are thrilled to have someone with Dale's depth and breadth of experience joining us," said William Morin, chairman and chief executive officer of WJM Associates. "His proven track record in leadership and professional development makes him an ideal candidate for this position."