Roy Exum
There is a huge global company in Stockholm called “Universum” that surveys over 400,000 students and professionals each year. Experts at the Swedish brain trust claim the top five traits to making a good hire are professional, high energy, confidence, self-monitoring and intellectual curiosity. Another source, Inc. magazine, believes the top five things employers must look for are accountability, flexibility, creativity, communication and passion.
Yet the most perplexing task facing every company in America, whether it has five employees or 5,000, is how an employer can successfully determine if a potential new hire has the key traits that the most successful people do.
“You can take the most well-educated, clean cut, promising person and it is still a guess and a gamble,” Dr. Steve Byrum told me last week, “but I have a way that has shown consistently it will tell you about a person’s judgment and values in about 15 minutes and I prove it every day.”
Understand, I’m not into a lot of hokey-pokey, voodoo, Meyers Briggs tests or those “intelligence” tests. They make me nervous. But corporate America spends millions every year in its search for the best job candidates. I just became fascinated in the process because of David Longley, the former Baylor coach, and the fact I have appreciated him for nearly 50 years.
In a casual conversation not long ago, the former Vanderbilt quarterback was telling me about a revolutionary hiring tool that can determine the judgment ability and the values content in almost anybody. Are you kidding me? Not even David Copperfield has a magic trick that can do that. But David promised he can convince me or anybody else this is true.
To illustrate such a phenomena, he actually talked me into submitting to a Judgment Index test that Dr. Byrum has created after spending a lifetime, oddly enough, in philosophy instead of the more widely-used psychology. Byrum was a disciple of UT’s famed philosophy professor Robert Hartman – who was nominated for the Nobel Prize because of the admittedly-dazzling technique.
Dr. Byrum has since spent years studying and fine-tuning the art of what is scientifically called axiology and – with the vast computer power now available, he uses Dr. Hartman’s principles to evaluate people through the most unique method I have ever seen. What boggles my mind is why this isn’t used in psychiatry, the National Football League, the Volkswagen plant and anywhere else success is so highly sought.
Seriously, I was absolutely blown away. I can virtually guarantee this is the most stunning evaluation tool of any human being on earth. Bryum’s company, Judgment Index, is so good Coach Longley is now a partner and, very quietly, the small Chattanooga-based company has over six, single-spaced pages of top-tier clients. Due to the confidentiality that Judgment Index provides its clients, the list is private, but includes a number of Fortune 500 companies.
That said, here’s a hint. Before the Krystal restaurant chain was acquired by a private-equity group and moved from Chattanooga, Judgment Index was involved with employees at over 250 of its stores. “Krystal is no longer a client and has new ownership so I don’t think anybody will object to us revealing what we did for them,” said Longley.
“We worked a deal that we would evaluate every employee at every store. Krystal paid us $100 a month per store. When they were sold and our contract was cancelled, Krystal had paid us around $750,000 but they were delighted to do it. Why? Their executives were convinced Judgment Index had saved the company $3.7 million in employee costs and, what’s more, had the documents to prove it.”
The way it worked, and still does, was absolutely remarkable. Every employee at Krystal – from top to bottom – and every potential hire would take an online test that the simplest mind can do in about 15 minutes. I found that the test is actually fun to do for three reasons.
First, there is nobody who passes or fails. All the test wants to achieve is to determine one’s strengths and weaknesses. Secondly, every company that hires Judgment Index has to pledge the test will not be used punitively. Its sole purpose is to place each employee in a position where their strengths will best serve the company.
The neatest is the third part. Judgment Index can create templates where a potential hire’s judgment scores are factored into various templates. This allows human resource experts to place employees within the company where they will have the greatest success, be it in production, contact with customers, handling stressful situations and a myriad of other challenges in America’s modern-day workforce. Don’t you see? This is how Company A competes at a distinct advantage against Company B.
“People believe corporate America has changed, getting away from a people-style model to one more driven by the bottom line, but, if you think about it, that doesn’t make sense. People have always driven any bottom line. The whole objective is determining where everyone should sit on the bus. There are 13 primary judgment types, with no specific one better than the other, but how you arrange them is what makes money, wins football games, builds a church or any other successful endeavor,” explained the personality wizard.
There are two parts to the test. In the first part, you are asked to pick from a list of 18 items and move each to a list you create according to your beliefs and values. Arrange them in order, from the most important down. You might see “Eat a Good meal” or “A scientist’s accomplishments” or even “Torture another person.” What’s more important in your way of thinking? Part Two is a list of 18 quotations. There might be “I usually receive praise for my efforts” to “Sometimes I wish I had never been born.”
Obviously nobody trying to get a job is going to pick torturing someone. The beauty of the exercise is the pupil has no choice. You see, on both Part One and Part Two there are just as many negative items as positive. Some of the negatives, you may feel, require a higher priority than some mundane positive items, but, in both of the test parts, you must rank all 18 items, and this even if you really do wish you had never been born!
I don’t want to ruin the test for anybody but get this: In Part One two of the items are “Torturing somebody” and “A Terrorist act; blowing up an airplane.” Both are reprehensible and wind up at the bottom of most people’s list but –get this -- the order of importance you place on torture and terrorism, when blended with philosophy and the 16 other items, tells a pretty accurate story about us.
The results are fed into a vast computer and, along with the score sheet, 34 personalized pages are generated. The results come on the Work Side (what you do) and the Self Side (who you are.) From 15 measurement categories that the test reveals on each “side”, there are three primary judgment indicators that are created. These reveal how you do with people, work/task, and strategic insight (the overall picture.) This is heady stuff?
Of the 15 measures on the Work Side, the two that draw the most notice are “problem-solving ability” and “stress, coping, attitude.” On the Self Side, the two of the 15 that employers want to know are “value of work” and, once again, “stress, coping and attitude,” this time in an employee’s personal life.
Because the test's outcome cannot be used punitively, where someone gets fired, most employees take someone who is weak in places and pair them with a “mentor” who is strong in the same areas. “We can improve weaknesses by 50 percent once we find them,” Dr. Byrum said, “and the best part is that we try to share it with each person. You reveal someone’s strengths and weaknesses and, automatically, they want to improve. Imagine what that does to any company’s bottom line?”
So what do you seek in an important hiring situation? Passion, confidence, accountability? I don’t believe so. In my mind, I think those traits and others the experts might list are mere subsets of judgment and values.
Dr. Steve Byrum has proven it in his little office in Chattanooga. Good judgment and sound values trump any other cards on the table. And I’ll guarantee it.
Oh, what did my personal test reveal? I refuse to discuss my secrets, but the results confirm I am scientifically better qualified to be the President of the United States than the guy who is now there!
royexum@aol.com