Role Analysis

Introduction

This article presents the potential users of assessment techniques by role, their usage, and the impact on performance. The causal analysis uses GRI’s adaptive profiles, especially those of leaders and managers, by comparing their use with that of HR executives, recruiters, and coaches. Other techniques do not allow such comparisons. A distinction is necessary between leaders and managers who are trained in adaptive profiles and those who are not.

Identification of Roles

The table below lists the potential users of assessment techniques identified during phase 1 in the large exploration field, and later in phases 2 and 3 as observations progressed and new usage and users were included. Users 1 to 5 were from phase 1. Users 6 to 16 were added afterward. Users 10 to 16 were not included in the analyses and the general framework. Code 7 identifies users in our large exploration field. The main user characteristics and impact on performance can be summarized in the following role matrix.

#	Users	Highlights	Impact	Code 7
1	Leader, Manager	Executive, director, business owner, entrepreneur, team leader, scrum master, in charge of a team or organization. Being trained, not trained, or half-trained leaders using the assessment technique makes a difference.	Trained: Organization and job expectations refined and determined. Interpersonal relations and employee-position fit adjusted. Consequential decisions, and communication made close to action; positive mindset. Friction is prevented and fixed in advance. Strong long-term impact on the organization. Half-trained: Low and short-term impact on the organization, team, and employees.	LEDR
2	HR Executive	HR Director, HR and OD experts. Provide advice to leaders about people and their organization. Assist with conflicts. Develop more expert skills in using the assessment technique. Use their skills on their HR team, too.	Improved communication and long-term decision-making with trained leaders. Short-term guidance to untrained leaders. Facilitate, assist, and provide support in the deployment, including delivering feedback sessions.	HREX
3	Recruiter	Includes external and internal recruiters and executive search. Source, interview, recruit candidates, support onboarding, provide recommendations, and offer advice.	Increased professionalism in sourcing, interviewing, recruiting, search, and onboarding. Better fit between expected and candidates' characteristics. Better candidate attraction (selling) and onboarding.	RECR
4	Facilitator	Transfers know-how during training and follow-up support.	Solutions are learned through facilitation and implemented within the organization. A long-term intervention, with people and systemic long-term effects.	FACL
5	Consultant	Provides services on an hourly or daily basis, including organizational development, reorganizations, mergers, and acquisitions. It includes career counselling.	Solutions are provided and implemented by the consultant from outside the organization. A one-time intervention with systemic long-term effects.	COLT
6	Career Counselor	Assists in identifying and raising career interests and vocations.	Understanding of the jobs and career paths that typically fit the participant's aspirations and personality.	CARE
7	Coach	Provides individual and team coaching. It includes mentors.	Self-awareness, social awareness, and personal development are raised. When extending the service to the team, team members better understanding each other.	COCH
8	Clinician	Clinical or Industrial-organizational psychologists who use a therapeutic approach to improve employee well-being and psychological safety.	Clinical issues cured. Personal questions answered, and other individual problems fixed.	CLNI
9	Individual Contributor	Employees with no team to manage and use results for their own development.	Increased self- and social awareness, accountability, well-being, career development, efficiency, and effectiveness.	INDC
10	Clinician - Other	Assist individuals, families, and couples to get along, improve relationships, or move their own way apart. Use to understand the relationship, provide insights, and create road maps.	The patients are heard and follow prescribed plans. They are eventually medicated (Psychiatry).	CLOH
11	Researcher	Use for social studies, whether it be in psychology, neurology, social work, sociology, business, or medicine. Apply statistics to people, social groups, and organizations. Typically calculates correlations between traits and other variables.	Advances are made, documented, and communicated in research studies.	RESH
12	Medical Doctor	Use assessment to diagnose and assist patients by better understanding the way they can improve their health; An element that also needs to be understood by the patient and their close environment.	Medical care is tailored to patients, with both short- and long-term impacts.	MEDD
13	Matchmaker	Assist individuals in finding their life partners. Various criteria are used, including personality.	People are introduced to one another and build relationships.	MAMK
14	Marketer	Analyze markets and buyer trends.	Get insights about purchase potential.	MARK
15	Parent, Educator	Use to understand and raise kids and young adults.	Regular use to raise the child, then provide better-tuned support, and later, when becoming a teen, young adult, and adult.	PRTE
16	Economist	Analyze individual agents and economies.	Understanding of individual behaviors and their implications for forecasting economic trends and for swift adaptation.	EIST

Causal Analysis of Roles

The causal analysis of roles is conducted below with the adaptive profile and applies with assessment techniques with a similar factor-based approach to GRI. With other techniques, the same logic applies to analyzing the results (dependent variable), but with different processes and effects due to different quality measures and publisher deployment strategies.

Additionally, the causal role analysis will vary depending on the company’s size, industry, and other factors related to the company and its environment. Here, the analysis applies to large organizations where users’ roles are clearly set apart.

The following diagram is obtained by retrospection, i.e., starting from the effects of using the adaptive profiles. Different effects related to the adaptive profiles stand out as quantifiable indicators of effectiveness and efficacy. The retrospective analysis of these indicators leads to the following causal diagrams, with Leaders and HR executives being contrasted on the first one and recruiters and coaches on the second :

Causal Analysis – Leaders and HR Executive

Causal Analysis – Recruiters and Coaches

The connections between the six above uses (process) and their measures (effect) illustrate the actions that users take and their impact. The performance outcomes (on the right, in green) follow the use of the assessment technique to set and adjust expectations, recruit, lead, manage, and coach people in their jobs. Other uses in clinical settings and some medium effects may also be evidenced.

The links with use in Organization (O) and Leadership (L) are stronger with leaders and managers than with HR executives, recruiters, and coaches. Leaders and managers are in direct contact with the operations, leading and managing people with the responsibility and authority that come with their role. They specify and adjust job expectations (O). They personally act on the relationship and decision-making (L) with their direct reports. Although other actors or their AI agents with other roles may help through advice, mentoring, coaching, or taking part in the job, they don’t physically do the leader's or manager's job.

The link between the use in Recruitment (S) and HR executives and recruiters is strong. HR executives and recruiters are often positioned upstream of the recruitment process and may provide support and expertise, even if some aspects are delegated to a third party or an AI agent. However, the link between organizational development (O) and leadership (L), and between HR executives and the recruiter, is weak, as they have no operational responsibility or authority to define or adjust job expectations.

Regarding clinical use (N), users, including leaders, managers, HR executives, recruiters, and coaches, may all, at some point, encounter individuals with anxiety, depression, emotional exhaustion, burnout, or other issues classified as clinical. They may even have personally experienced these issues. Although adaptive profiles help prevent disengagement and address strong disconnect with a position’s demands, it is not within the expertise, responsibilities, or role of these users to handle such clinical situations; therefore, the weak or very weak links are indicated in the diagrams with a clinical use.

The links with medium effect (D) are all the weaker when they are applied to contexts that are distant from organizational development and closer to individual, one-on-one applications. The use of aspects related to the organization and its positions is separate from those concerning people and the potential impact the assessment may have on them.

Use by HR Executives and Recruiters

The use by HR executives and recruiters has only a significant effect on the Natural and Effective profiles at the time of recruitment. By being more frequently exposed to adaptive profiles after their training, HR executives and recruiters naturally develop strong skills for analyzing profiles and delivering feedback sessions.

Beyond the services provided by HR Executives and their teams within the organization, one of their first uses is leadership and organizational development of their own team, during and after the training. Their uses then cover all types of applications for that team.

When leaders and managers in operations are not trained, the HR team provides services across all applications, but cannot deliver those that only leaders and managers can carry out. Untrained leaders and managers do not speak the adaptive profile’s language, nor can they use its symbols to anticipate, set expectations, and implement new strategies that align with the organization’s and person’s needs.

This doesn’t happen when leaders and managers in operations are trained to understand and use the symbols and language of the technique across various applications, including leadership, setting job expectations, and organizational development. As a result, executives and teams in HR and operations share a common language, which enhances the mutual efficiency of their decision-making and communication.

Use by Leaders and Managers

The use by trained leaders and managers influences the behaviors they expect in their team or company’s positions, as well as the Natural and Effective profile they expect from candidates and employees. This is not different from characteristics commonly used, such as skills, diplomas, or certificates. But the focus is on the behaviors that speak about how people are expected to perform and will shape their development once in the job.

Unlike other users, as it is illustrated above, by their attitudes, communication, methods, and adjusting positions’ expectations for their candidates and employees, leaders and managers can affect their engagement levels, how the Natural and Role profile may be in phase, and how the Effective may fit the expectations of their position. In summary, they can:

• Adjust the characteristics, including the social behavior, expected for the position.
• Act on the other person’s Role through their communication, attitude, and decisions, to ensure the Effective profile aligns with the social behavior expected in the position.
• Recruit candidates whose characteristics, including their Natural social behavior, are aligned with the job expectations.
• Ensure appropriate diversity within the team and redistribute roles accordingly.

Training in adaptive profiles strongly influences how leaders and managers use them, rather than just superficially, especially at the organizational level. Trained leaders and managers use the adaptive profiles on their own, much as they do with other characteristics and social behaviors, but with more nuance and in consensus with other users who speak the profiles too. From a semiotic standpoint, the adaptive profiles become part of their thinking about people and their organization only after they trust their positive effects and understand the new insights they provide. Unlike untrained leaders and managers, they fully use the measures at the organizational and strategic levels, not just at the individual level.

Facilitators versus Coaches/Consultants

The distinction between facilitator and consultant/coach underscores how assessment techniques are deployed, how they can be used in organizations, and the different benefits they provide to people and their organizations.

As illustrated above, actions by the coach using a typology or trait approach only impact the Effective profile. By using the adaptive profile, coaches and consultants may suggest adjustments at the position level (O), but rarely happen to do so without leaders and managers understanding the implications.

With consultants/coaches, knowledge remains in their hands and minds. They intervene in organizations on an ad hoc basis, using the assessment technique to provide services, and are compensated for their consulting time. As the process relies on techniques whose language is common sense, it works differently when the language needs to be learned, as with the adaptive profiles and facilitation. With facilitators, users are trained in the adaptive profiles and receive support from them afterward. As with learning a language, once it is acquired, the user eventually reaches out to the facilitator for advice. Facilitators are compensated for facilitating the training, assisting with the deployment, and providing ongoing support.

Trained versus Untrained Leaders

The distinction between trained and untrained leaders and managers is important for the same reason mentioned above between consultants and facilitators: the ability to think and communicate in plain language that’s common sense, even though it has different connotations for everyone, versus communicating in a language that needs to be learned, which removes important ambiguities and offers new insights.

Training is minimal or nonexistent when the technique uses lay language and concepts. It takes more time, similar to learning a new language, when the assessment technique—such as with adaptive profiles—provides new insights and introduces new concepts with their associated terminology that challenge preconceived ideas and people's experiences.

Leaders and managers who lack proper training do not have a sufficient understanding of the symbols to use them effectively in one-on-one and strategic settings. The assessment technique is then used only to reinforce the guiding principles they have already established, along with other characteristics and techniques we refer to as private techniques, rather than to challenge or improve them. Untrained leaders and managers cannot acknowledge all the possible profiles that could benefit their company. Their understanding and use are limited, often overlooking the dynamic, adaptive aspect of people’s behavior and failing to be realistic about their job fit.

Thanks to their training in the adaptive profiles, leaders and experts can use their symbols and associated language to analyze their challenges, share information, refine their analyses and decisions, in their recruitments, as well as in leadership and organizational development applications. They also benefit from the adaptive profiles for coaching and their medium effect. By mastering the language, they can continue to build confidence in the symbols, test them, refine them, and nurture new understanding in on-the-job situations. Not only do they become aware of the new rules associated with the symbols, but they also use them in all situations where they can clearly benefit themselves and their organization.