Executive Assessments

Eight Most Frequently Requested Executive Assessments

Since the firm’s founding, Synergy has grown organically in direct response to client partners’ requests. A wide array of evidence-based executive assessments, listed below, have been developed to address client partners’ leadership needs across different applications. These Assessment Services help ensure that healthcare leadership performs with unparalleled efficiency and results.

The services in the Evidence-Based Executive Assessments suite include:

• Evidence-Based Selection Assessments
• Evidence-Based Developmental Assessments
• Evidence-Based Team Synergy Assessments
• Evidence-Based Rerailment Assessments
• Evidence-Based Organizational Redesign Assessments
• Evidence-Based Job Analysis
• Evidence-Based Pre-Employment Assessments
• Evidence-Based Succession Planning

3. Evidence-Based Team Synergy Assessments
   Increase Team Cooperation, Interdependence, Productivity And Efficiency

Team Synergy Assessments evaluate an organization’s leadership team to increase individual and team productivity, and communication.  These Assessments help the members of the team to identify and learn how to leverage their individual and collective talents and interests most practically. In addition, these Assessments identify how best to remove specific barriers to optimum performance. In these ways, Synergy helps each person involved to play to their strengths.

4. Evidence-Based Rerailment Assessments
   Plans to Help Struggling Leaders Get Back on Track

Organizations reach out to Synergy to conduct Rerailment Assessments when their leaders need help getting “back on track” and maximizing productivity. These Assessments improve performance by providing individualized strategies and specific resources after evaluating struggling leaders within the context of their positions.

5. Evidence-Based Organizational Redesign Assessments
   Assessment of Current Leaders For Placement In A Restructured Organization

Synergy can help to identify which of the current or potential leaders in an organization are most likely to thrive within a restructured or merged enterprise.

Unfortunately, experience and industry research show that the vast majority of restructured organizations typically fail to achieve their intended cost-efficiencies. Often, insufficient consideration is given to deciding which current leaders are most likely to be effective when challenged with increased responsibilities. All too often, leaders are moved around like interchangeable parts. This revolving door creates inconsistencies and even chaos within organizations.  Given these challenges, these Organizational Redesign Assessments help organizations leverage their current leaders’ proven experiences, strengths and career interests to their mutual advantage.  In short, clients are given customized strategies to help them accomplish more with fewer resources.

6. Evidence-Based Pre-Employment Assessments
   The Right Hiring Decision…Made Most Easily, Effectively, and Cost Efficiently

Most progressive employers recognize that traditional interviews are ineffective as the sole means of selecting the most appropriate candidates and that their selection practices have a tremendous impact on both their operations and their bottom lines. Synergy’s Pre-Employment Testing includes validated assessment tools to ensure that the selection processes include the latest and most objective means of making the right hiring decisions, the first time.

7. Evidence-Based Job Analysis
   Stop the Revolving Door

Scientific Evidence to Clearly Define and Cross-validate Expectations Before Hiring.

In the creation of a new position or the re-engineering of an existing one, organizations need to clearly define their expectations before hiring someone for that job.  As the old saying goes, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there.”

When you consider that the direct and indirect costs of hiring the wrong leader can cost an organization an amount in excess of six to ten times that person’s annual salary, it’s easy to see why organizations can’t afford to be vague or “wrong” in their expectations.

Unfortunately, hiring managers usually have only a general idea of what the position should entail and struggle to accurately define the real and most critical prerequisites for success in the position.  Synergy has found that much of this confusion results from undefined discrepancies between what clients believe they want and what they really need.

Also, complex organizations often fail to consider the multiple constituencies whose initial input and “buy-in” are absolutely vital. Synergy knows that these organizations must secure this input and “buy-in” throughout the development of these positions and during the recruitment and selection processes as well. Otherwise, they frequently set themselves up for the “Monday morning quarterback” or “sniper” syndrome in which those individuals excluded from the process challenge and second-guess the organization’s decisions and create what could have been avoidable problems for everyone involved.

8. Evidence-Based Succession Planning
   Putting a Plan into Place that Avoids Breaks in Leadership Continuity.

Many respected experts on effective leadership have reported that the hallmark of every successful organization is not only the caliber of its leadership, but also the continuity among those who lead their organizations toward higher levels of performance. Yet, within our American workforce, there is a declining attachment to employers.  Across all levels of organizations, a less loyal and less knowledgeable labor force has a profoundly negative effect on these organizations’ productivity and profitability.

Unfortunately, the absence of established and effective succession planning exposes organizations to needless and avoidable breaks in continuity.  It also predisposes them to lose business opportunities and revenue, experience unnecessary turnover, and deal with the consequences of decreased productivity.

Such breaks often result in an experienced leader being replaced by another individual requiring an extended “learning curve.” The new leader is unfamiliar with the culture, internal politics, unique product or service offerings, and the history of how things are accomplished in that organization. Also, without formalized continuity planning programs, leaders tend to choose successors whose backgrounds and leadership styles are similar to their own and who are not likely to meet their organizations’ longer term needs.

In contrast, effective succession planning offers many benefits. Research has found that those organizations providing clear opportunities for professional growth and promotion from within are significantly more profitable and successful. Giving employees these opportunities for career growth and development often leads to increased patient and employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

At Synergy, we have developed the following guidelines for effective succession planning:

• Obtain buy-in from key stakeholders because an organization’s program will be limited by the extent to which it has earned their support.
• Assess current progress and identify the organization’s future talent requirements.
• Give particular attention to the disparity between organizational strategy and the competency of the leaders who will be required to implement it; programs must be designed to address these gaps and reinforce the organization’s core values and philosophy.
• Determine which organizational levels need to be included, establish program priorities, and develop a roll out strategy with timelines.
• Refine the process through a systematic review of the program’s effectiveness against predetermined benchmarks.

Another key to effective succession planning is an organization’s ability to differentiate those employees who are most likely to develop and meet its needs from those who will not produce the desired return on investment. This is especially critical with leaders. In fact, Synergy’s national research study found that the cost of promoting the wrong person can easily cost an organization six to ten times that individual’s annual salary.

Synergy has found that one way to encourage those charged with ensuring the continued, long-term success of organizations is to ask them: “What would your organization do if it suddenly lost one or more executive team members?”