The Wisnio playbook for post-deal leadership evaluation

Leadership evaluation has the potential to be one of the most important steps in onboarding a new portfolio company. Start here.

A typical leadership evaluation involves individual team members taking some type of psychological test(s) and, typically, a detailed interview with a leadership assessment professional.

To get any valuable data out of it, the assessment professionals have to process the data manually and rewrite the reports into an actually useful form. At Wisnio, we use a process that achieves the desired result using an interactive platform.

The individual evaluation takes just 25 minutes to complete, which, in our experience, provides a good balance of robustness of the insight and the time it takes for business leaders to complete. That’s a fraction of the time it usually takes to go through a leadership evaluation process.

Step I - Agree on key objectives

Screenshot from Wisnio goal alignment tool

The Wisnio playbook starts by aligning all stakeholders on the three key objectives of the business. All levels of leadership must be aligned with these objectives and have a clear understanding of how their functional area is supporting the broader objectives and strategic goals.

These objectives will form the basis for further team analysis and inform the team of any changes that need to be made.

All teams on the Wisnio platform have access to team development tools. That includes Goal Alignment. Simply invite all team members to the platform and start a new goal alignment session. 

Self-check question

What's the first step of leadership evaluation?

1. A webinar on the important of team work
2. Align all stakeholders on key objectives of the company
3. An hour long interview with each team member to better understand team dynamics

Step II - Review the Team Profile 

At Wisnio, we use a combination of behavioural science and machine learning to bring data to understand team dynamics, the collective strengths of the team, and the unique role and contribution of each team member. 

We use online assessments based on proven academic frameworks, which have demonstrated high accuracy and strong predictive power in various settings and cultures. 

These data are then used to compile Personal and Team Profiles, which give actionable data on a team and personal level and highlight team values, personality, and competencies. The total time commitment per person for the online assessments is 20 - 25 minutes.

Example Wisnio Team Profile

All Wisnio Profiles are interactive and automatically compiled on the platform. There are no lengthy PDF documents that you need to process and/or rewrite manually. It’s all done by the platform.

Self-check question

What are Team Profiles based on?

1. Team member interviews
2. A mystical perfect team composition
3. Behavioural science and machine learning to bring data to understand team dynamics

Step III - Identify key strengths and potential gaps

The next step is understanding the fit between the agreed key objectives and team capabilities based on assessment results.

During this step, a consultant will go through the Team Profile together with the team to understand if the team has the needed competencies and other characteristics needed to achieve the previously set key objectives.

For that, the Wisnio platform has a built-in Insights section and commenting functionality to highlight areas that need attention and could be improved.

Step IV - Agree on action items to leverage strengths and bridge the gaps

Once the areas that need attention are agreed upon, there are two paths forward. You can either try to bridge the gaps via leadership development and make personalised learning and development plans for individual members or create Success Profiles for hiring.

Think of Success Profiles as position-based maps. They include an overview of the needed skills, competencies, and prior experiences to succeed in that exact role in a particular company.

It’s a blueprint and candidate evaluation tool to be used throughout the hiring process, from identifying suitable candidates (internal and external) to interviewing and scoring candidates to ultimately making the hiring decisions. It’s a tool that accelerates hiring and is therefore essential.

Often it’s not a question of choosing one or the other, but rather you bridge gaps with personalised L&D plans whenever possible and hire new people when training isn’t enough.

You can learn more about succession planning and Success Profiles in our Guide to business succession planning.

Self-check question

What are Success Profiles?

1. Profiles of successful leaders on the Wisnio platform
2. Profiles of company leaders on the Wisnio platform
3. A blueprint and candidate evaluation tool to be used throughout the hiring process

Why this matters

In a post-deal environment, time is of the essence. A typical hold period is around five years, and it takes 3-6 months to fill a C-level position. Plus, the new leader takes another 6-12 months to get to peak performance. Therefore, getting an accurate understanding of the team's exact requirements immediately post-investment is essential. 

With Wisnio, the value creation team can get a robust overview of the most important characteristics of the leadership team in less than 30 minutes. This means that business leaders, together with the value creation team, can start the discussion around their talent strategy immediately and do not need to wait for weeks for the traditional leadership evaluation process to finish.

Wisnio Profiles are interactive and actionable, compiled by the platform, with individual and team evaluation results available immediately after taking the tests. This means no extra for leadership consultants. It's a collaborative process involving all stakeholders that remains relevant throughout the hold period.