The purpose of the Team Assessment is to provide executive clients with a highly detailed and specific profile of how well their management team is functioning. The team is measured on 15 to 17 dimensions, including

• Clarity of mission and vision
• Support for objectives
• Agreement on roles, authority and responsibility,
• Morale
• Optimism about the future
• Degree of openness and trust in communication
• Degree to which members skills and knowledge are utilized.

Both a quantitative and a qualitative report are provided. By far, the qualitative part of the report produces the most impact, as it contains detailed comments from team members, explaining their quantitative ratings of the team. These comments are obtained in private interviews, and all interviewees are promised anonymity. Editing is done to protect identities, but otherwise comments are provided with faithfulness to original detail that may go to 20 pages or more.

The final section of the report is a detailed set of recommendations, based upon analysis of the feedback from the team and other observations by the consultant. Both sections are provided in a private meeting with the CEO, with ample time allowed to process the feedback and weigh the recommendations for action.

Many other assessment tool reports on the market often result in little or no action or concrete results, after the initial curiosity is satisfied. This is due in part to the lack of specificity that so often characterizes such reports and the “boiler plate” nature of recommendations.

By contrast, our Team Assessment clients find it nearly impossible to avoid taking significant action for improvement upon reading the report. The richness of insight, from employees' own voices, tied to our specific and positive recommendations for organizational improvement cannot be ignored.

WHY IS IT NEEDED?

Many successful CEO/entrepreneurs rightfully pride themselves on the close knit teams that they have created. It would seem only reasonable to assume that the members of such teams would openly share whatever was on their minds, without the protection of anonymity being necessary.

The reality is that the more that is at stake in terms of job security, income, and position, the greater the felt risk of speaking one’s mind. This is especially true if in the press of long hours and business pressure there is little encouragement to do so. In fact, in every case in which a client has retained us to apply the Team Assessment tool, the CEO has received genuinely new information regarding what other team members are thinking and feeling and how they are experiencing the company and the team. In every case, the CEO has seen the gathering and presentation of this information as critical in leading his or her company forward to growth and continued success. In no case, have the recommendations in the Team Assessment been received without significant changes being implemented.