Book review: Chandra Sekharan,Assessment Centres for Talent Management: A Handbook for Identifying and Assessing Competencies and Developing Potential

The concept of assessment centre (AC) has been gaining increasing importance in the recent past in the quest for talent management in organizations. From what was merely a tool for selection of personnel, it has come to be used for a variety of purposes such as performance management, succession planning and identification of high fliers. It is now a major resource for identifying and developing talent within the organization.

The book revolves around AC and its components—what the centre is; how to design it; how to study jobs, collect and analyse data; how to develop a competency model; design and develop simulation exercises; how to assess the participants; give feedback and counselling and so on. The book provides a lot of insight into the concept and practice of AC. Compressed into 10 chapters and 1 appendix, it seeks to cater to the needs of different categories of target groups—starting from the uninitiated through trainers to the practicing managers and consultants.

Chapters 1 and 2 are intended to give conceptual clarity of what ACs are and the processes involved. They give insights into the special features of an AC, how it is designed, how does it function, how it has evolved and what is its contribution.

Chapter 3 is devoted to guide the reader step by step as to how to carry out a job analysis (it discusses different methods such as the traditional job analysis, behavioural event interviewing and expert group) and identify a set of competencies for the jobs under study.

Chapter 4 gives a wide canvas of how to apply different criteria and develop a competency framework. This chapter is crucial. We are told how a competency is defined, what the different kinds of definitions are and what conditions a definition should fulfil. This may sound basic but soon it assumes criticality as it progresses towards different levels with concomitant behavioural indicators and appropriate examples culled from live situations. It is interesting to see how competency framework with core competencies evolves into a model. This chapter is rich in highlighting different criteria and relevant literature. Also, the latest research findings on six of the most important and popular competencies, namely communication, consideration/awareness of others, drive, influencing others, organizing and planning and problem-solving are dealt with in this chapter. This is followed by a review of three international surveys of ACs to compare the ground realities of the above findings. These survey findings also reveal that the above six competencies are being used on a global basis to a substantial extent. To quote the relevant portion from the book, ‘the competencies listed as the top six in one survey were repeated in the other surveys with minor changes in the respective rank order. That means the most popular competencies used by people all over the world for assessment are the same irrespective of time intervals or locations. Second, the competencies considered to be having greater predictive validity, namely problem-solving, influencing others, planning and organizing, and communication are found among the top six of the listed competencies in the three surveys. That means these competencies are not only most popular but are also having the most predictive validity (pp. 118–119).

In this context, we may also note another interesting observation. In a large study by Dilchert and Ones (2009), the authors have found that two of the above competencies, namely problem-solving and influencing others, are very important. They observed ‘practitioners looking to design and implement slimmed-down ACs concentrating on only a few dimensions should concentrate on problem-solving and influencing others’. These dimensions offer the largest incremental value when added to tests of cognitive ability, personality or both. Problem-solving in ACs is assumed to display one’s analytical skills, ability to gather and analyse information and also to generate ideas, alternatives and solutions. Influencing others shows an individual’s persuasive ability and is indicative of leadership skills (p. 117).

Chapter 5 explains different tools to be used for ACs. These include exercises and tests such as individual and group exercises, namely in-basket exercise, role-play, group discussion, business games, and so on and psychometric tests such as personality test, ability/aptitude test and emotional intelligence test.

One of the cardinal principles in AC is that the exercises used at the centre should be simulations of the real life situations. Chapter 6 exhaustively deals with how to write a simulation exercise which should be challenging, relevant and realistic. The chapter also gives step-by-step approach to prepare a simulation exercise such as matching of competency dimensions to the exercise, developing content, rating scales and evaluation sheets, writing exercises, trial run and finally evaluation. Each of these items has been dealt with in a comprehensive manner. Concepts such as ‘fidelity’ and ‘fairness’ in the context of the simulations have been discussed with examples.

Another, very interesting aspect of developing content relates to the introduction of Trait Activation Theory (TAT) to help elicit certain hidden traits related to behaviour by providing appropriate cues to the participant. Apart from trait-relevant situations, TAT also projects two aspects of a situation ‘weak’ and ‘strong’. If we give a weak situation, the candidate can use more discretion to tackle the given problem. On the contrary, if the situation is strong, he has to abide by the laid down procedures to fulfil the demand, which reduces individual discretion. We are looking for variance of behaviour in an individual and that is possible in a weak situation only. For example, in a role-play, the reader is transported to a scene and made to feel a tense moment that stands still: a female employee sobbing, tears rolling down her cheeks, an upset manager looking baffled. He does not know what to do! A hyper histrionics and its outcome in a role play. The lesson: Do not make the situation strong (TAT) (pp. 188–189).

Chapter 7 deals with the role and functions of different players in an AC such as the assessors, participants, centre administrator, role players and support staff. It also discusses training of assessors and role players starting with the basic process of assessment such as observe, record, classify and evaluate (ORCE), frame of reference training, training in relevant psychometric tests, feedback and counselling, behavioural event interviewing and rating scales

Chapter 8 explains how to carry out the whole process of assessment starting with observation of candidate’s behaviour through evaluation and rating. Moving progressively from one step to the other with examples and guidelines on how to do them, the chapter highlights certain criteria for rating purposes. This is followed by a section on how to write observations, where a number of examples have been given to support each element discussed. Another section on data integration shows how to pool the data collected from different assessors and arrive at an overall rating. How assessors meetings are conducted and whether any such meetings are needed or not and how reports on individual candidates are written.

Chapter 9 extensively deals with how to give feedback and counselling. Giving feedback can be difficult when you have to give negative feedback. No doubt, the success of any feedback session depends on the personality and the ability of the assessor to articulate the facts. The purpose of feedback is to enable the employee to learn from his performance in the exercises and utilize the occasion to proceed to further improvement. An important feature of feedback and counselling is to help the employee develop a personal development plan (PDP) to execute within a specified timeframe, so that the deficiencies observed in the competencies could be overcome. PDP is a time-tested and powerful mechanism to develop competencies. The chapter also devotes a great deal to explain how to develop and execute a PDP.

Chapter 10, the last chapter, discusses a talent management process which offers different strategies for talent management especially for nurturing and developing in-house talent aligned with the existing AC practices in the organization. It also provides certain innovations in AC practices like senior executives coming forward to serve as assessors in addition to their own work as a means of self-development and the management encouraging them to do so. Four case examples of innovations in AC practices have been included in the chapter under the sub-heading ‘New Trends in Talent Management’. They have been drawn from Credit Suisse (the giant Swiss international banking institution); Singapore civil service; experiments from Japanese organizations and an Indian experience of using ACs for certifying competencies of HR managers. There is extensive discussion on succession planning along with Ram Charan’s model to that effect. The chapter also discusses some of the problems faced by ACs such as quality, cost and use of technology.

A special feature of the book is that it provides information on latest developments in the field, including findings of international surveys on AC practices. Especially, it gives the latest International Guidelines on Assessment Centre Operations, as an appendix, which every manager and practitioner will find handy to use.

The book gives a lot of valuable information which a practitioner ought to know; it paves the way for skill development in every crucial area of assessment—which an assessor is supposed to equip himself with. Chapters 4, 6, 8 and 10 are the soul of the book which should be read and re-read.

All in all, this present work of Dr C. Chandra Sekharan, a management consultant in competency mapping and assessment and performance management, stands head and shoulders above many books on the subject of assessment centres and talent management. The book is highly recommended to every manager, especially HR managers, trainers, consultants and management students.