Choose Effective People
Stop guessing. Start understanding.
TBM from Elaura
People - they're complicated.
But using TBM (The Birkman Method) for selection makes the decision process both rational and objective. The missing element in both external recruitment, and selection for internal promotion or project teams, is an objective framework that makes real sense of who this person is. Interviews are inescapably subjective; tests of hard skills are… just that: a test of the presence or absence of particular skills; they fail to tell you how those skills will be applied and deployed in an organisational / social setting. Success in selecting the right people for the organisational mission, as well as for the immediate role, requires a deep and integrative understanding of the person, their motivations and perceptions. This approach allows you to ask and answer the questions that matter: 
 ・how will this person engage with this role; ・how will they relate to managers peers, customers and other stakeholders; ・where is their sweet spot; ・what could throw them off course; ・what would get them back on track. Elaura has been using Birkman data to assist clients to make superior people selection choices for the past 20 years. Most of our clients have operations which span markets, cultures and languages: using The Birkman Method creates a truly level playing field, regardless of where an applicant comes from. Selection is never a search for perfection: successful selection is about finding someone who is a great fit for the role and the mission, and whose weaknesses are known and can be both managed by them, and covered by the shared strengths of the team.
Internal / external selection for leadership, managerial and high-impact roles
Birkman Signature combines hard-edged data on job fit, executive presence and capacity with a map of social interaction and development potential; you can use ‘straight out of the box’ or get us to tailor to your specific requirements
In roles at scale with comparatively high growth or churn rates, you need a cost effective yet objective, accurate and above all highly predictive assessment which delivers the right people, able to hit the ground running. And if churn is an issue, this may well fix at least part of the issue (but see “Growing Self-Aware Leaders” to deal with the number one reason people leave jobs).
Project team selection
Selecting a team of senior leaders and assistants to explore entry into a new market, and selecting a team of call-centre and inbound sales experts to work on a set of new customer scripts, happen at vastly different levels (and daily costs) - but there are commonalities. Whatever team you are putting together, you can answer the key questions to an appropriate level of granularity using your choice of TBM Report or Elaura TBM-powered Product
Who does this support?
Securing, managing and promoting the talent the organisation needs in order to keep pursuing its mission into the future is core to the CEO’s stewardship of the organisation’s long term health. Flexible and scaleable TBM data gives the CEO a reliable picture of exactly how the organisation is positioned.
Helping their business and function leaders solve operational challenges by proactively assembling solutions gets much simpler for HRBPs when they can instantly access an objective reading of the whole business or function, and saves budget wasted on chasing down the wrong issues. TBM enables HRBPs to see the issues before they even present at the coalface.
Presenting the CEO and Senior Leadership of the organisation with a fit-for-purpose and healthy organisation, peopled with talent who fit their current roles but also have the capacity to grow with the business is central to executing the CPO role. Consistent deployment and application of TBM data gathering and reporting gives the CPO an operating system to manage talent.
Understanding how personality, motivation and behavioural factors will impact future performance allows Talent Acquisition and Management specialists to go to market (internally or externally), knowing exactly what they are looking for. TBM data takes the guess work out of predicting performance in role and in context.
Case Studies
Be Prepared
A client approached us because their fast-growing consultancy was running out of its preferred recruits (people with a specific armed services background). As an alternative, they had started hiring experienced Big Four Consultants - with disastrous results, at least in terms of client reaction. The reason was simple once we looked at the data: this firm’s ‘secret sauce’ was very different from the standard consulting success profile, and the ex-Big Four consultants were communicating the wrong message.
By analysing the difference between ‘star players' and the rest, we were able to identify one absolutely vital score, and a handful of “getting to the ballpark” ones; hiring against that profile transformed their recruitment success overnight, and got them back to being able to delight their very hard nosed customers, all of the time. And the one vital score? 10/10 on a score about preparedness. 8/10 and 9/10 just didn’t cut the mustard.
No Surprises
A client had been using another well-known assessment when hiring, and told us they really liked the reports they were getting. The problem was, the people they were getting; too often they were turning out a little - or a lot - different to what was in the report.
They were already using Birkman after the hire was done, as a way of on-boarding new employees. When we convinced them to start using Birkman before they made their hiring decisions, the reaction was immediate. “We know what we are getting now - we are able to make a balanced judgement on how a person will fit and best of all: no surprises.
