*This post was authored by ThreeFish Consulting.
ThreeFish Consulting, the authorized distributor for Hogan Assessments in India, welcomed back Ryan Ross, Managing Partner of Hogan Assessments, for a series of three client events across the country to provide thought leadership around the Science of Personality.
The first stop on the tour was in Pune in the western part of the country. The ThreeFish Breakfast Roundtable on July 30th at the JW Marriott was well attended by Hogan Users and a wider audience from a range of industries who were interested in learning more about Hogan and the Science of Personality. This was a great “launch” event for Pune as it was the first time ThreeFish-Hogan held a client event in the city. “The growth of ThreeFish into Pune marks an important milestone – while support has existed in the local market for several years, Pune-based businesses are demanding quality assessments, and Threefish is equipped to meet their need” said Ryan. Given the mixture of current and potential clients, Ryan’s talk focused on the link between personality, leadership, and organizational performance. Elaborating on the view, ‘Who you are is how you lead’, Ryan said “it was such a great event, the way the audience engages in such a lively and smart conversation is one of the best things about being in India. Too often participants are quiet or shy, but not in Pune. It was a thrill from a presenter’s standpoint.“ The engaged audience had a lively conversation around how our personality affects the way we think, behave, make decisions, and build relations, ultimately impacting our performance.
After wrapping up in Pune, the team was off to the ‘Garden City of India,’ Bangalore, wheree we hosted the next Breakfast Roundtable on July 31. It was a warm gathering with Hogan users from both corporate and independent practitioners. There was a lot of excitement in the community to participate in a ThreeFish-Hogan gathering given the long gap since the last event. Ryan’s talk, ‘Chasing Leadership Trends – a Recipe for Disaster’, discussed two key macro trends in leadership hiring – ‘short-termism’ which leads to the celebrity CEO and ‘trend-chasing’, where our knowledge on effective leadership is often ignored. Ryan talked about the “multiplier effect” of good and bad leadership across the organization, drawing attention to Laissez Faire leadership. Reflecting on leadership from the lens of the led, Ryan elaborated on what employees actually want from their leaders, which are the four core aspects of effective leadership: Integrity, Inspiration, Competence, and Vision. The talk was a success with the Bangalore audience and was reflected in the lingering conversations over a cup of “chai” and the buzz that followed. “Bangalore is such a smart market, it is an established market, and one in which practitioners are not only implementing current practices, but being bullish about introducing cutting edge ideas,” Ryan said after the event.
Then, it was off to the premier event, the TechHR Conference 2019 in Gurgaon hosted by People Matters where Hogan-ThreeFish were Gold Sponsors. There was a packed hall on the main stage for Ryan’s session entitled, ‘Bright and Shiny or B.S. – The Role of AI in Talent Acquisition.’ Ryan acknowledged that digital innovations and advances in AI have produced a range of novel talent identification and assessment tools which promise to help organizations improve talent acquisition capabilities. However, he raised the important question of whether these are indeed bright and shiny promises that can propel HR into the digital playing field, or BS promises that are overhyped, over-promising, and perhaps even dangerous to the future of the organization? Ryan shared his perspective that AI, big data, deep learning all have the potential to help but we must use our ethics and beliefs to guide the future. ‘Bright and Shiny’ can be cool, until it rusts. Ryan’s advice was to choose wisely. The question he posed the audience was “Just because we can, should we?” The immediate discussions among the audience were proof that the question was still very much a subject for debate.
“I have been traveling to India for over a decade,” said Ryan. “It is such an amazing country with immeasurable potential. Honestly the amount of skill and talent in the HR/OD space is somewhat intimidating. That said, because India believes in data, it is quite easy to strike up a conversation about assessments and personality – because this is a market that understands assessment has a job to do – that is predict performance.”