Alongside our core services our clients have been the catalyst for the development of individual services that are highly specialised and do not necessarily fit into our two core service groups, although they are sometimes an integral part of larger performance management programmes. They also stand alone in their own right and constitute a series of interventions that require specialised knowledge, capability and investment in education.
The BoardWalk
The BoardWalk provides the unique opportunity to peek behind the curtains of some of the world’s most prestigious, leading edge companies; speaking to and spending time with the C-suite executives that make the decisions and successfully drive their organisations forward. From global icons such as Apple to The Ritz Carlton, to ‘best of British’ retailers, such as ASDA and technological revolutionaries such as Pace Plc, TSA Europe can take you into the inner-workings of world-class organisations.
Executive Profiling and Assessment
High performing organisations need high performing people sitting on the Board and operating at the Executive level. Whatever high performance at the Executive level means in your organisation, TSA will support you in identifying what high performance is in specific Executive roles against industry/market high performance profiles and any performance gap that may exist in your present Executive team. TSA has defined over 250 high performance profiles from the assessment and analysis of industry high performers at the Executive level and these are used to help clients profile and assess candidates and the performance of their existing Executive team. If any gaps in performance are identified then TSA will help the individual and the Executive team to change behaviours and capability and achieve personal change strategies.
TSA have helped over 15,000 Executives to understand their own performance profiles within the context of their organisation and what is expected of them in their role and helped them to reach high performance through behavioural change. We support our clients in the recruitment and placement of people into high impact-high value Executive positions through behavioural profiling and assessment. Recruitment decisions at this level have to be well informed and any risk has to be mitigated. Our assessment and profiling tools and techniques are world class and leading edge and our consultant’s expert in applying them to help clients make the most informed decisions they can about hiring and the performance of their Executives. With our larger clients we have also trained internal profilers and assessors to a high level of accreditation and performance in these tools and techniques.
Many businesses do not feel that they can rationalise an assessment for high level positions, instead implementing the traditional application and review process, where interviews and feedback from subordinates, colleagues and managers takes precedent. It is in this procedure that underlying psychological qualities are left undisturbed whilst external qualities (which can be managed a lot more easily) thrive.
So the question is how can these internal qualities be bought to the surface and considered when debating not only which candidate fits which job role best, but who will remain and prosper in that position in the long term? The answer simply comes in the form of an executive assessment which TSA would run on your behalf.
The purpose of the assessment is to provide you with an objective psychological profile of a candidate that can be used to enhance and support your knowledge of that individual when making a decision about their future. The procedure we follow consists of running through the organisational competencies along with any other necessities essential for the job role, a discussion of the range of psychometrics available, a Behavioural Assessment Interview (BAI) and a simple report clarifying the individuals profile which can be kept for constant reference.
Executive Coaching and Mentoring
TSA is a long time centre of coaching excellence for the Executives and Managers. As a human performance management consultancy we know that significant behavioural and capability development can be achieved through the implementation of business focussed coaching or mentoring. Our Executive and Management coaching programmes are designed, developed and delivered with the client and the outcomes they require the individual to achieve on a personal or group basis. Our mentors are experienced Executives and Managers in their own right and have the character to challenge and develop individuals in a dynamic and robust manner. In our mentoring programmes answers to issues and challenges are delivered through one to one confidential interactions at a tempo that ensures that the clients get to implement timely and effective decisions.
Investigative Interviewing
Investigative interviewing is a methodology that ensures that the maximum quality of information is mined from a high value business interview using techniques and behaviours used and continuously improved by Police and other investigative organisations in the UK and United States.
Investigative interviewing is not only a strength in TSA Europe’s specialist services, but it is also something that we continuously look to improve in order to have the most well rounded, accurate and informative interview techniques at our disposal. Presently we perform Behavioural Assessment Interviews (BAIs) which can be used as part of psychological profiling in very diverse situations such as restructuring a company or finding the ideal candidate for a high value role.
In addition to our BAIs we also have a very active interest in Content Based Criteria Analysis (CBCA) which is one of the most widely used statement veracity assessments for discriminating between true and fictitious accounts.
Assessing Credibility and Truthfulness (ACT)
Dishonesty in business is, sad to say, a growing challenge to Executives and Managers alike; indeed some commentators have called it the “Deception Epidemic”. The consequence of which can be measured in billions of lost revenue, increased costs or straight fraud, consequences that are magnified when deception is used at the Executive level and during high value dialogue.
How valuable would it be to you if a member of your team for a negotiation or Executive recruitment event could provide you with information about the truthfulness and therefore, credibility of those sat across the table from you? Whatever the scenario, TSA can provide you with a skilled consultant or team who can provide this dimension of information to your high value decision making process. The flip side is that you will be able to build lasting relationships with “trusted” people based on the evidence of their dialogue, psychology and physiology. Our consultants have been used in business and government negotiations, people analysis, mergers and acquisition and high level Executive credibility analysis to support the decision making team or individual to evaluate the truthfulness and credibility of what is being said to them and of the individual who is saying it.
Every individual possess their own unique behaviour or cluster of behaviours that can indicate their level of truth telling. It is these subtle signs which TSA have the ability and expertise to detect and validate and ensure that you know if the individual is simply making information up.
This is done by examining an individual’s verbal and non-verbal behaviour when they are asked non-emotional questions and the behavioural changes the questions illicit from them. Our knowledge and expertise in this area of psychology can be applied to any aspect of business and we are more than happy to share our knowledge and skills in this specialist area through workshops.
Impression Management
‘All the World is a stage’ and Executives and Managers who understand and use impression management are able to influence how others perceive them and subsequently shape and influence how others react to them and interact with them. TSA helps Executives and Managers define and establish a personal brand that communicates strengths through personal strategies, both assertive and defensive, that can be deployed to navigate and exploit business politics and achieve personal outcomes.
Especially effective with Executives and Managers who are planning personal progression within an organisation the TSA Impression Management programme has helped Executives achieve their personal and professional goals. TSA consultants help and support Executives and Managers to establish and sustain their personal branding and its perception and credibility through the application of behavioural profiling techniques that identify perception gaps and weaknesses based on personal outcomes. Thereafter, personal communication, presentation and behavioural techniques are embedded to achieve the perception of others required in order to influence relationships and interactions.
In social psychology impression management is a conscious self-presentation strategy in which people attempt to influence the perceptions and opinions of others through their non-verbal behaviour (appearance, demeanour), verbal cues (vocal pitch, tone and rate of speech grammar and diction) and expressive acts (citizenship, job performance).
Successful impression management can generate numerous personal and organisational benefits, including career advancement, client satisfaction, better work relationships, and a more fulfilling work experience in general. In order to create a positive professional image, impression management must effectively accomplish two tasks: building credibility and maintaining authenticity.
Your “true-self” or authentic self-portrayal, will not always be consistent with your key constituents’ expectations for professional competence and behaviour. Therefore, you need to build credibility which will involve leveraging your strengths in order to gain social approval and professional benefits whilst sustaining a genuine and authentic persona.
Overall, there are two key aspects to impression management. Firstly, you need to assess your current image and the current perception that others have of you along with if you care about others’ perceptions of you? Secondly, you need to identify your ideal state including what core competencies and character traits you want people to associate with you. Along with which of your social identities you want to emphasise and incorporate into your workplace interaction? This aspect of psychology is crucial to influencing and creating a strong rapport when meeting a client or team member for the first time, because as we all know you don’t get a second chance to make a first impression.
Non Verbal Communication
Whatever human beings are doing they continually communicate their emotions, thoughts and reactions through psychological and physiological channels to the outside world. You don’t have to speak to communicate.
In 1939 Psychologist Albert Mehrabian became most well-known for his work on verbal and non-verbal communication and the 7%-38%-55% rule. This rule states that there are three separate components of communication; words account for 7%, tone of voice (paralinguistic) accounts 38%, and the remaining 55% is taken up with body language.
Therefore, due to a large amount of our communication being transferred non-verbally, the psychologists of TSA couldn’t resist gaining knowledge and expertise in spotting non-verbal cues and what they may tell us about what the person is really saying, whether they are confident in their statement or are hiding something.
TSA’s experience, expertise and knowledge in this area of psychology can be applied to any aspect of our client’s business, and we share our knowledge and skills in this specialist area through workshops and coaching programmes.
Negotiation Observation
Quite simply high stakes negotiations inspire high stakes deception and every aspect of business requires some sort of negotiation. Actions as simple as agreeing on a deadline or granting a raise involve negotiation, but those negotiations which tackle the more serious business issues of buying and selling shares of a business, and where significant amounts of money are involved, naturally make everyone involved more ruthless and willing to deceive if it means they walk away with their desired result.
But how can you be sure those who you are negotiating with are not completely bluffing? How can you make sure that you are the one who has the upper hand in being able to read your opponent like a book? With qualified, knowledgeable and experienced members of TSA present we can help to steer you in the right direction so that you and your company know when to push and when to pull back.
Early Intervention
If Executives and Managers do not address employee issues in a timely and appropriate manner then they run the risk that the issue will fester, grow and may end up in court as an accusation of discrimination or perhaps worse against the individual Executive or Manager and the organisation. Executives and Managers must know how to manage and lead their people without exposing themselves and their organisation to the risk of such accusations that may result in significant financial penalties and damage to brand name and manager credibility. To ensure that an organisation’s Executives and Managers are equipped to recognise and tackle risk TSA has developed a two day highly interactive and challenging Early Intervention workshop that is tailored to reflect the local and regional employment law within which the organisation operates as a business. TSA deliver this workshop into global companies as a mandatory part of an Executive’s and Manager’s development profile in order to protect the company and its leaders.
Diversity Workshops
Most organisations claim to be equal opportunity employers based on the employment laws of their country and regions but many Executives and Managers can be guilty of unintentional exclusion or indeed unintentional discrimination. TSA has developed a national and regional highly interactive two day workshop that ensures that organisations have protection from these issues through the compliant knowledge and behaviours of their leaders.
Diversity is a hot topic in many countries and all Executives and Managers should be sensitive to the risks to them if they are not compliant with laws and company policies that demand diversity in their organisation.