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M4.→ Three main features of the S•T-method

1900 words, reading time 6 minutes

■.1/ Audit ■.2/ Practice time ■x3/ Routine

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■ Focus by Skill Audit

In all programmes you start with developmental focus by a Skill Audit

The Skill Audit has been there since 1996. We now call it the "Roleplayer Skill Audit", because we developped a "Video Skill Audit" afterwards.

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  • The roleplayer skill audit has been the subject of PhD research, a thesis, and several publications, please refer ►here.

  • In the TechSpecs section, under ►menu tab T13, you will find an even more detailled description of the skill audits, than in the columns below. 

    • Do note: the tech specs section is at this stage only available in Dutch. Ask us for more background, if you are e.g. a professional buyer, like a psychologist or training expert.

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For the video skill audit, we have a reintroduction under consideration, please read below.

█  .The Video Skill Audit.
██(actually under redesign)

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■ Its purpose:

you refine you social perception. The video skill audit offers extra practice besides the roleplayer training you will follow.

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█  .The Roleplayer Skill Audit.

██Since 1996

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​​■ its purpose:

You demonstrate to three roleplayers, and to three pairs of appraisers, in three simulations, what your performance is in terms of social talent.

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  • After the roleplayer skill audit you can identify which ►chain of influence (red-cla-rem-deal, see above) shows the highest urgency for development.

  • Your training will yield the greatest effect in practice, if you strengthen the most urgent developmental needs first. The roleplayer skill audit identifies the latter.

  • Furthermore, the role player skill audit gives qualitative insight in why development chains were realised with success and the contrary. ​​​​

  • Finally, for each chain of influence a consistency score is calculated. We discuss it ►below under 3/.

■ We are currently redesigning the video skill audit, in order to administer it again, as an instrument that helps refocus self directed attention.

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We learnt in recent years, that insufficent social competence, is often receptive, and not productive in nature.

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Often the reason for this finding is, that the people in question miss signals, and even spoken words of their conversation partners. One can easily say in these cases: " they should listen more carefully ", but that is of course commonplace.

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We review the video skill audit in such a way, that people that need it, learn to refocus their self directed attention. We expect that the participants that followed this special needs training will miss less signals and even spoken word in future.

■ What does it look like?

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  • ​The roleplayer skill audit is a series of three  simulations with a trained roleplayer. Each simulation is a conversation, that takes place within the fictive Virtuhbank. Virtuh is a modern fin tech bank that is acting big. Too big. And it gets into trouble. 

  • Of course, you don't need banking knowledge. Virtuh is only a context full of all to human problems, that shapes your simulations.

  • The roleplayer elicits in a structured way the profiency level of your social talent.

    • The three simulations take two hours​.

    • Immediately afterwards, one of the appraisers, that is your trainer, will have a two hour feedback discussion with you. You' ll make a trainplan. In order to guarantee continuity, the same trainer will conduct the training for you.

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■ This Skill Audit's origins: lay off selection​

  • The roleplayer skill audit was originally deployed for selection-in-restructuration. It selected incumbents for new jobs, governed by the strict Dutch dismissal law.​

  • The solid proof that was needed for a rejection for a new job (which meant dismissal), made that lots of efforts had to be put in the skill audit. 

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  • More in detail: under dutch labor- and dismissal low, one can't reject an incumbant​ for a new job, if he or she would have been apt after six months or so.

  • Of course this is difficult to ascertain, but to make this issue more concrete, we tried to come to a "developmental charge for social competence". Meaning: how much development has to be done te become apt?

  • In order to come to such an assessment, one has to make sure that all appraised dimensions, or traits, are not interdependent (technichally: they should no intercorrelate with each other).

  • After all, if everything is related to everything (which is often the case in selection, where this is not so big a problem cause it does not affect the quality of hiring decisions), you can't say which domains need develoment, and which not.

  • The good distinction of what are now called "the chains of influence" took ten years of research and adjustment, and made that the skill audit is now also very suitable for developmental diagnostics.

  • Diagnostics for developmental needs are much harder than diagnostics for aptitude, which goes against quite some intuitions, initially against ours as well.​​​​

■ After the role player skill audit you start the training with superfocus

 

■ The skill audit is psychometrically validated: you can benefit from that in training! 

  • So far, around 15.000 simulations have been conducted.​

  • We followed around 300 former participants untill 10 years in their careers. We asked permission, that their bosses share their performance appraisals and other performance data with us, in order to relate them to the skill audit scores that were attributed.

  • We now know, which lower bounderies in performance you should reach with training, on each of the four chains.

  • You'll observe quick efficiency gains in practice, if you first remediate the most urgent development needs, as identified by the skill audit.​

  • Finally, by not focussing on what is already on a good profiency level, you win time, speed, and motivation.

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■ Possible and impossible compensation

  • From our longitudinal research we furthermore know, that one or more chains of influence that are mastered below the minimum level lead to performance problems in practice.​

  • Against our former expectation, chains do not compensate for each other. So, each chain has to be mastered on or above the minimum level that came out of our longitudinal research.​ 

  • If you indeed improve your performance in the chains that indicated an urgent development need, you will be more effective in your work.​

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  • More in detail: We express our appraisals on an asymmetrical scale from -/-2 to +4, with the semantical turning point ('good versus bad') on scale point +1. See image below this alinea.

  • Upfront we expected scores of 0 also to be acceptable in practice, but they lead to performance problems as well.​

  • Even more technical details: this asymmetrical scale looks peculiar to most people, but it has a basis in personality research. Most people score on the positive side of the scale, and narrowing the negative side indeed sucessfully prevented unnecessary stringency among raters (a very underestimated problem), and incited them to be more nuanced on the positive side.​ See the rating scale below.

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■ Incremental adjustment between the training dayparts

  • At the current stage of research, it is not possible to predict how much time is needed for a certain identified developmental need. Sometimes it goes faster as expected, sometimes it is more laborious.

  • For that reason, there is a video call between all training dayparts (= one morning, or one afternoon, or one early evening), to adjust the course of the training.

  • We do this, to save valuable training time.

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■ More details from the longitudinal validation research

  • ​The main contribution is: we are able to establish a hierarchy of developmental needs, in terms of urgency. What should you train, and what not, and what first?

  • More than 5.000 participants have done the role player skill audit so far, with a total of some 15.000 simulations.

  • We took a sample of 800 from them, and analysed their data for internal structure.

  • We discovered their social style had the four chains of influence in common, meaning: across the participants in our research, we could observe the four identical clusters of behaviours. 

  • Although the chains do not compensate for each other (we discussed that above), within a chain there is temperamental compensation for skills and the other way around. For example: extraverts are better in removing objections, friendly people are better at reducing resistance. When training hits limits, you can always see where temperament can save you! We discuss this compensation more amply ►here.

  • The most important finding however, is consistency.

  • We also call it routine. We discuss it ►below, under 3/.

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■ Practice time

9 - 12 hours net, individual practice time with roleplayer+trainer

█ Four dayparts, and on each daypart: one roleplayer + one trainer for you alone​

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  • A daypart is one morning, one afternoon, or one evening (that starts early, around 17h30 / 18h00)

    • We also offer training in the weekends, if trainers and roleplayers are available.

  • A daypart is three hours in the regular formula, and four hours in the senior formula.

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■ The traing has three standard dayparts, and a pre-authorised fourth one

  • In the standard planning, there are four weeks between the dayparts

    • The cadence is like this: daypart (dp) 1 → four weeks → dp2 → four weeks → dp3.

  • For 80% of participants these three dayparts are enough. The rest needs one or two more.

    • From the remaining 20%, half of them needs the fourth daypart, and the other remaining half needs more dayparts beyond the 4th.

    • The fourth daypart is pre-authorised when selling the programme. Dayparts beyond this number need additional authorisation.​

    • If trainer and participant both agree that the routine level (see below at 3/) is not high enough, the fourth daypart is offered upon request of the participant.

    • We dont contact the decider for that. If you and the decider agreed that there should be additional internal authorisation in your own organisation, that is if course fine with us. You have ample time for this.

    • Important is here: you decide yourself, not we, and for that matter we don't contact anyone.

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■ Are you in an urgent situation?

  • It appeared to be useless to do more dayparts on one day. A daypart is fully packed, and exhausting.​

    • The best cadence in urgencies is one daypart per week, or at least a few days between dayparts.​

    • Former participants even say, that a few weeks more between the dayparts enhances effectiveness of the training. That is why we came to the cadence in the first, marked line of this alinea.

  • As a paid option, you can add some more hours to a daypart, but this is to discuss the social situation you want to resolve with us, not for training with a roleplayer.​

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■ What does train-till-routine look like in practice?

  • ​The roleplayer has a number of simulations you can choose from.

  • The roleplayer plays the chosen roles, and you practice the chain of influence you need to strengthen. The trainer directs, and gives feedback.

  • The trainer inserts more and more obstacles that you will encounter in the situation you want to resolve. You learn to take these obstacles, and in this way, you learn to maintain your proficiency level consistent. If you demonstrate that in the incremental practising sequences, you indeed reached routine.

    • These obstacles can e.g. be: time pressure, more and more overt hostile resitance, complexity, ambiguíty, induced ambivalence on your side, induced self directed attention, etc.​

  • There is a multitude of practicising techniques and feedback techniques. Once you come to know them, you might have a preference for some of them. Communicate that with the trainer, so he or she can conduct the training in a manner that is adjusted to your personal preferences.

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■ Train-till-Routine

Benefit from longitudinal research among 300 former participants

The TechSpecs section is not available in English, we therefore present a more detailed text than in the Dutch version.

​■ What was the research about?

  • We followed 300 former participants untill 10 years after the skill audit. These participants were either hired newcomers, or incumbents that were selected for a new job, or management development participants.

  • After their given consent, we obtained a multitude of performance data from their organisations. See below in the pictogrammes.

  • Former participants, that displayed "inconsistent" behaviour in the skill audit, had lower performance later in their jobs.

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■ How do we see consistency?

  • There is a formula for consistency (see the note below), and a simple image also makes it clear.​

  • Compare participant A and B. On our scale below, that goes from -/-2 tot +4, this first participant scores three times +1, whereas participant B scores +4, +1, and -2. 

  • When you compare the mean scores, what is often the common way to make selection decisions, both participants are equivalent.

    • In the 80ies and 90ies most people would say: participant B is better, cause he or she has proven to have the maximal potential on board. Somehow, this participant was not able to realise it all three simulations.​

    • In this same line of reasoning, participant A would be considered less apt, because he or she displays no proof of peak performance.​

    • Still quite some people think that way. We don't anymore. Read below.​​​

image explanantion consistency two participantsv2.png

▲ Click on to magnify / adapt to your screen (tablet)

■ What were the findings?

  • The more consistent, the higer performance, see images below.

  • Do note, that even inconsistent behaviour within the positive side of the scale, leads to lower performance.

    • This means: a fictive participant C, with +1, +2, and +3 as scores, is less performant than candidate A from the image above. Even participant D with +2, +3, and +4 is less performant than A.​

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■ This is for most people a counterintuitive idea.

  • The basis for this idea is often, that people assume that the low score of -/-2 for e.g. participant B, has to do with the intrinsic unrealiabilities of any selection instrument, which is not such a bad idea after all.

  • However, we went at great lengths to get the realiability at a high level. To attain that we took measures like giving more opportunities, increasing the number of simulations, avoiding single appraisers in favour a an appraiser pair, repetitive elecitation of behaviour in a structural way by a trained role player whose training we improved stepwise, and finally we improved the rater training step by step in five makeovers.

  • The role of random underperformances was for that reason reduced.

  • Participant B's score of -/-2 can be considered as a marker for inconsistent proficieny, and not as a measurement error.

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■ The findings in detail

See the images below. Do read further below the images, about what this means for your training!​​​

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The more consistent, the less (arrow down ↓) / the more (arrow up ↑) :

beoordeling baas hoger.png

■ What does this mean for your training?

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  • Train till routine, do not train for one time maximum performance.

    • Rather always a +1, than e.g. performing from +1, to +4, and then to +2.

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  • When your average score is +1, but with inconstencies, we find out what makes you inconsistent.

    • When you are like participant B above, we view your recorded skill audit simulations (only for the chain of influence in question) ​in order to find out how we should design your training to make you more consistent. We then try to replicate the suspected source of inconsistencies in the training, and you learn to take those obstacles with a consistent social performance.

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  • ​This means: take obstacles in an incremental way, and see how you performance develops.
    • We insert even more obstacles into your training, and you learn to take them, in order to stay consistent at a performance level you can "always guarantee". 
    • Why do we say that? Ever higher performance levels can very well be reached, but very often when strains become more prominent, they demand more of your attention. And attention is always needed to realise social performance. The latter is never fully automated. When your attention is fully depleted, there is no more room to guide you social performance, and you will make mistakes, which especially occurs when you have to reduce resistance. In the latter case you are even likely to aggravate it!
    • The amount of attention people need under strain differs from person to person. You have to find out how it is in your case.​​
    • Bigger strains: more attention drawn away! Go for a performance level at +1, and make sure you can always guarantee that. In that case you have spare attention left that you can use to interpret the situation you are in, and think a little longer about your responses before you express them.

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  • When training hits its limits, and you are at +1: be satisfied with that.

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  • If you are consistent at that level, it is the best you can get, our research says.

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Note​

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Technical detail: the formula for consistency is ►here, on page 35.

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