This issue we roadtest the PROPHET profiling tool
By Stephanie Wyman and Katherine Tulpa
What is it?
PROPHET (Predictive Role Profiling for High-performing Executive Teams), is a business-focused profiling tool to be used for development purposes with executives, especially relevant for senior teams. It looks at aspects of personal motivation and decision-making style, and links these to roles across a typical business cycle.
PROPHET has recently been reviewed by and successfully registered with The British Psychological Society’s Psychological Testing Centre.
PROPHET has been designed for leaders to profile their executive population in order to:
- Fast-track team performance, and
- Shape strategy implementation, supported by HR and L&D partners.
How it works
PROPHET is for use in development-focused interventions, either with individuals or teams, to improve working relationships and company effectiveness, mindful of the requirements of which phase in the business cycle the company is at and/or the strategy. It is not designed for use in making decisions about people as in selection, promotion and redundancy. Those who have experience and skills in using other Level 2 instruments are eligible to be trained to use PROPHET.
PROPHET accredits highly experienced coaches, working as part of an exclusive partnership with Wisdom8, in the use of the instrument. In addition, HR professionals can become accredited to benefit from the insight PROPHET can offer their organisations.
PROPHET is completed online in 15 minutes and can be debriefed by accredited practitioners. It looks at the traits of individuals and what they bring to relationships and teams, in terms of Motivations and Decision-Making Styles.
Why Motivations? Businesses are concerned with motivation, since it is inextricably linked to performance. Business leaders, often supported by HR and L&D professionals, are presented with the continuous challenge of understanding how much motivation their teams or stakeholders, and they themselves, have for a task, and then enhancing this motivation.
Why Decision-Making Styles? Performance in business requires teams to adapt their approach to making decisions at different times. Sometimes, increased productivity comes from people taking fast decisions, accelerating planning and eliminating the irrelevant or less important details.
On the other hand, the correct course of action might be the culmination of careful planning, assessment and concern about potential risks.
PROPHET helps executives understand different approaches to decision-making style in business.
Organisational insight
By better understanding overall patterns of behaviour of people and critical teams, organisations can boost their odds that the strategies they create will be successfully implemented. PROPHET has the capability of profiling groups within a business, and offering immediate insight that can help answer some important business questions pertaining to strategy implementation. This can be vital in supporting business coaches in having relevant, business-focused and insightful discussions.
PROPHET insight can help leaders, supported by their coaches, to arrive at an accurate, sharp diagnosis about:
- How the people in the organisation are likely to respond to strategy implementation
- The impact of the leader
- The critical role of the executive
- The impact of ‘tier 2’ – potential successors to the executive – and their role in taking the business forward
- The impact of pivotal relationships – or key groups of people – on whom the business disproportionately depends
- Possible gaps that the business needs to fill, either through business process or staff development.
The target audience
PROPHET is designed for use by:
- Leaders – giving them insight on their people, shaping how they implement a strategy. Leaders can profile the whole business, the senior population, or a single function
- HR directors – to shape the people agenda.
THE COACH’S EXPERIENCE
- Katherine Tulpa
For years, I was on the lookout for a fit-for-purpose team psychometric that would help facilitate better conversations with top executive teams. One that was practical yet had rigour. So I was delighted to come across PROPHET when coaching a very analytical leader who ran a global Risk function, looking to form better relations with colleagues.
The client shared with me both her individual and team PROPHET report, following a recent Executive Team offsite. They used PROPHET to better align on the new vision and execute on the business strategy. The group was very diverse, spread internationally, with very different ways of working. The insights she/the team gained allowed for some real shifts, and to have the conversations that mattered.
The verdict
The organisation now uses PROPHET across its senior leadership populations. Seeing first-hand the impact of PROPHET, Wisdom8 has entered into an exclusive strategic partnership with PROPHET Profiling. Our joint aim is to accredit top-class practitioners to further maximise difference in teams; build pivotal relationships, and help leaders make more conscious and balanced decisions best for their
people and business.
- Olwyn Merritt
The senior leadership team in a well-known global engineering company wanted to work more effectively as a team in a time of significant organisational change. I was brought in to work with them, using PROPHET as an enabler to help them achieve this.
Leaders were debriefed individually on their personal PROPHET profiles. We then held a team day where I facilitated a number of team dialogues. This helped link their strategic team objectives with an exploration of how they were using individual and combined strengths to fulfil the team’s objectives.
The Verdict
They valued PROPHET because it uses business language, and roles and responsibilities in a business context. They could see where they needed to fill some gaps in current capability.
They are keen to cascade the PROPHET experience to respective direct reports.
- l Adrienne Candy
PROPHET was introduced to the UK strategy team of a European manufacturing company to determine the team’s strengths to lead new strategy. We had 2.5 hours of their two-day offsite to go through their PROPHET Executive Team profile.
Completing their individual profiles before the strategy meeting built a good individual understanding of how PROPHET related to their business roles; preparing them well for the Team profile discussions and the challenges of strategic change.
The Verdict
The client liked PROPHET’s business focus. It helped them decide who would best formulate, lead and drive strategy implementation. ‘Pivotal relationship’ analysis also helped the ‘heads of’ to plan cross-functional communication throughout the roll-out period.
Pros and cons
Upside
- PROPHET models the CEO perspective, using a traditional psychometric
- It is relevant, business-focused, immediately valuable and
straight-talking - It adds one short step into business planning, to maximise the chances of successful strategy implementation.
Downside
- It cannot be used for selection for a role, nor to promote, make redundant, or fire someone
- Unlikely to be suited to junior staff.
- www.prophetprofiling.com
For coaches looking to become accredited in PROPHET contact: W8@wisdom.com - Katherine Tulpa is executive director and Olwyn Merritt and Adrienne Candy are partner coaches, all at Wisdom8
- Stephaine Wyman is MD of PROPHET Profiling