Economic Business Weeks

geplaatst op 21/04/2010 om 19:57 door Flores van Emmerik

Vorige week vond de Economic Business Week in Tilburg plaats. Een door studenten georganiseerd evenement ter voorbereiding op het werkende leven. Men kan business cases doen bij grote ondernemingen. En er is een dag gewijd aan Assessment Centers omdat dit veel studenten hier in de nabije toekomst mee geconfronteerd zullen worden. Verschillende gerenommeerde bureaus zijn gevraagd om hier een onderdeel voor te verzorgen. Bedrijven als GITP, Leeuwendaal, Meurs en wij verzorgden workshops over de verschillende onderdelen van een Assessment. Zo’n dag hoort van start te gaan met een plenaire sessie waarin een breed overzicht wordt gegeven over het thema. Die sessie heb ik verzorgd. In het Engels, zodat ook de internationale studenten konden genieten. Ik heb lang nagedacht over wat ik zou vertellen, hier op LinkedIn, op het forum van NIP psychologen zelfs een vraag over gesteld, en hier volgt het resultaat.  Er zat een powerpoint bij die hier is te zien.

Lezing:
An Assesment Center is a method (read aloud a rather boring definition)
Hearing a definition like this you wouldn’t say that in reality an assessment is a vivid and very engaging instrument. For almost every contestant it’s an intense experience that will make you mentally sweat. It’s a fascinating experience, and not unimportant for an assessment psychologist as myself, a fun thing to do. There’s a good chance that in the coming year you will take part in an assessment at least once or twice. In the next 25 minutes I would like to tell you about how an assessment works so you can prepare yourself the best you can. Before I get to concrete tips, I think it’s important to tell you something about the background and history of assessments. It helps to know the answer to the question why?
An assessment is one of more selection instruments. Selection has always been there. Darwin wrote a fascinating book about it and based the theory of evolution on it. Before a collaboration relationship is made, a selection takes place which decides why these particular persons should work together. When it comes to cooperation there are many ways to select. Napoleon used to ask to generals if they were lucky. If they said no it lead to rejection: ‘people with no luck cannot help me’ the emperor judged. The selection methods in Sparta were… the Spartan way. Young recruits got difficult assignments and had to suffer a lot before they become a soldier. Machiavelli described how in his time in Italy the rank of commander was more a political game- according to him reason to the pitiful achievements of the Italian army that time.
 

If you have been paying attention you’ve noticed that I use examples of the army. That has a reason. The role of psychologists in selection procedures started around World War I. The terror of the trenches, where hours of waiting were varied by useless attacks that cost lives, poison gas, bombings that went on for days, lead to new reactions by soldiers and officers. Words like ‘shell-shocked’ were launched and there was an increasing need to know in advance who would be able to handle it and who wouldn’t. Therefore people started using psychological selection methods in England, United States and Germany, in the first case to select officers. After the war people didn’t stop this but psychologists continued to play a part in selection practices, from now on also in factories, offices and departments.
 

Like in so many studies there are several directions in psychology. There are practical people who mostly thought in terms like: what should one be able to do in the job? What ability has the most in common? Let’s have a look at that; it brings us to tests like the ‘sticks test’ or this one, for eye-hand coordination.
 

There are also psychologists who would rather look inside- the leading thought here is that you should unravel the personality of a candidate because from that personality you can predict how well a person will do it. If you know the personality you can tell what a person is able to. An introvert and precise person is good at book-keeping, a loud, untidy person is perfect for sales. However, how do you know someone’s personality? Well, there are comprehensive question lists to find out.
 

A third type of psychologist works with intelligence. From the 90’s (1890s) people have been researching in this field. Piaget made research into children, his own first, and developed tests to examine what they did and what they didn’t understand. Through a selection process a complete test industry arose of which measuring the abstract ability to think is leading.
 

Although there are resemblances, today’s work is totally different than that in the period before the industrial revolution or in the time of trenches. But we still love to predict who will do a certain job well. An assessment center is still one of the best methods to predict with. In an assessment the three directions I talked about come together. In any case, we want to see something that looks like the behavior at work. A stick test doesn’t satisfy, but with a role play we are very well capable of seeing something of a person’s behavior. How does it work? A role play has to be based on critical situations at work. The kind of situation that draws a line between the boys and the men. Often that are situations in which the candidate has to point out someone’s mistakes. It’s hard to do that clearly, definite and yet in a constructive way. That is what we want from a leader. With a role play it is decided beforehand what kind of behavior is desirable. And the role play makes it possible to show that. When it goes wrong, you can make a thousand excuses but they won’t get you any further.
 

What kind of role plays are there? Of course many, just as much as there are critical situations at work. As a fresh ex-student you will probably be tested on conceptual skills, consulting skills, communication skills, entrepreneurship, cooperation skills, let’s call them: the soft skills that can tell what’s inside. Can you handle pressure? Can you stand up in a crisis and pull up the team?  What kind of situation do you need to get this kind of behavior to the surface? Well, we choose situations that will show us in a few hours. In order to do that we think about what the desired competency looks like in concrete behavior. What does: ‘save a company in a crisis situation’ mean? Suggestions? Don’t look at the Dutch politics, or to the banks. You can think about things like: to spread a vision, to set goals, to give perspective in meetings. We are now talking about European companies. In the US people would say: work harder, get up earlier, do more…. A role play at an assessment contains the opportunity to show the desired behavior.
 

Other parts of the assessment I already talked about earlier. You will always be tested to intelligence. Therefore we have this kind of tests.
And then personality and motives. There are many many tests for that. It’s important to not only observe a candidate’s behavior, but also to understand his temper and motives. Dear listeners, do you believe in tests? I can tell you that within the profession of psychologists there are a lot of people who put question marks at the use of tests to predict future accomplishments. This is partly with reason: there are simply better methods to predict future behavior. But on the other hand, knowledge about the personality of a candidate contributes to a total judgment. Like these slide shows…
But what can we measure from personality and is it easy to fake? As you can see, it’s hard to fake. Apart from that, it can also work against you for another reason. If the test points you out as mentally stable, extrovert and punctual, but in your role play you shake like a straw, you’re shy and hardly have enough time, it makes a strange impression.
 

So, if you fake a test, beware of the fact that during the assessment there will be many other moments that you will be observed and it will raise question marks if it leads to opposite pictures. An example: in my former office I worked at the first floor and I could see through a one-way-mirror, very nice for a psychologist. I couldn’t help myself watching arriving candidates. One day I saw a candidate arriving early. She stayed in her car and quickly smoked two cigarettes. During the assessment I asked her if she needed a smoking break. I don’t smoke, she said surprisingly. Of course, observating a candidate while she’s waiting in her car is not part of ‘systematically collecting data’, but such opposite signals, gave me food for thought.
Back to the personality question lists… there are many, but that doesn’t mean they are just as good. There are just a few different aspects of personality that are well measurable: nervousness, extraversion, openness, unselfishness, conscientious.
 

I hope to have made clear of which parts an assessment exists. Apart from these three main parts, there are different varieties. The most known is the business case, which is extremely often used and is even discussed this week.  That is a reason to tell only this about it: a business case lies in the extension of the goals of a company. Imagine D&VE would offer a business case and that case would be: start a franchise in a nearby region, how do you do this? Unless pointed out otherwise in the assignment, the approach that would appeal lies in the extension of what we are. Imagine our proposition for our customers is ‘service’, then the franchiser should not be a prize fighter. It matters here too: a good achievement begins with a good preparation and knowing the company and yourself.
My tips for how to deal with and how to prepare an assessment:
1: Prepare: know yourself and the organization. Know what they want to know and succeed in putting into words why you can meet with the desired picture.
2: Look at it as a working day, dress yourself as on a working day and take account of it the day before too.
3: practice the tests
Specific tips for the role plays: It’s obvious, but keep in mind that you are being observed and that it’s important that your considerations are clear and transparent. If you say ‘well.. well’ and ‘well’ again, it’s harder to score than when you ask ‘what do you mean?’

Nou ja…het geeft een idee. In werkelijkheid was ik niet helemaal tekstvast en was er nog een lichte mate van interactiviteit. Ook de tips waren nog iets uitgewerkter.

Bericht geplaatst onder: Psychologie