Going Deep With The People Analyzer™

There is probably no bigger problem a business faces than hiring the wrong person.

The amount of time, money, and emotional energy wasted is immense!

In EOS^®, one of the foundational tools we use to solve this issue is the People Analyzer^®. It helps ensure that you have the Right People in the Right Seats^®. It works at the leadership team level all the way down to entry-level positions.

EOS founder and creator of the People Analyzer, Gino Wickman, discusses the tool in depth in his book, Traction.

Let me share how a client of mine implemented the People Analyzer to create some amazing results.

Solving for the Bottleneck

They were just starting their EOS journey, and at their Vision Building^™ Day 2, it was obvious they needed another person on their leadership team to fill the operations team leader seat.

The Integrator was also serving as the operations team leader and was the bottleneck when it came to fulfilling the company’s service commitments to its clients. They had not hired another person for their leadership team in over five years, so this was a huge hire that they needed to get right the first time.

They wanted to use the People Analyzer to make sure the new hire fit the company’s Core Values and could GWC^™ the seat: get it, want it, and have the capacity to do the job.

Bring on the Core Values

The company had five Core Values but didn’t want to ask loaded questions of potential hires that would make the answers they were looking for seem obvious.

For example, one of the company’s Core Values was “Committed to Growth.” If they asked a candidate, “Are you committed to growth?” the person would more than likely say something like, “Oh yes, I am totally committed to growth every day!”

To make sure they weren’t tipping off the candidate with these questions, they decided to take the People Analyzer one step deeper.

They created a set of three questions that defined each Core Value, for a total of 15 questions. They asked the prospect the three questions for each Core Value and then ranked each answer as follows:

1. “+” = Exhibited the Core Value most of the time
2. “+/-” = Sometimes exhibited the Core Value and sometimes didn’t
3. “-” = Didn’t exhibit the Core Value most of the time

They then put the average of the answers into the appropriate box in the People Analyzer and were able to determine whether the candidate really met each of the five Core Values.

As an example, here are the three questions the leadership team created for its Core Value “Committed to Growth,” along with the answers given by the potential hire:

1. What are your career aspirations? The answer was rated “+.”
2. What do you hope to get out of a job with our company? The answer was rated “+.”
3. What motivates you? The answer was rated “+/-.”

The average was “+,” so they put a “+” in the People Analyzer box for that Core Value. After tallying and averaging the responses for all five Core Values, they determined that the candidate had met the bar.

Making the Match With GWC

Next, they came up with three questions to determine whether the candidate could GWC the seat. These questions were designed to produce either a “YES” or a “NO” response:

1. Does the candidate get it? YES or NO
2. Does the candidate want it? YES or NO
3. Does the candidate have the capacity to do it? YES or NO

The candidate who met the bar for Core Values also received three “YES” answers for GWC. Because the company did this extra work, they were able to find a great match for the seat.

Six months later, the new leadership team member was doing a great job and taking the pressure off the Integrator. The bottleneck had been solved, and the company was once again able to fulfill all its orders.