Key Responders

We help leaders and organizations assess resiliency or their ability to address discontinuous or disruptive change and agility or their ability to address ongoing or continuous change. We specialize in:

1. Comprehensive assessments of people in leadership roles or those being considered for leadership positions on leadership competencies related to resiliency, agility and overall leadership capabilities

2. Development plans for those assessed which build on strengths, minimize blind spots and encourage versatility

3. Executive coaching and leadership development programs that help organizations install targeted leadership competencies, especially those that relate to resiliency and agility

Why is this important?
The ability to address change is critical for leaders now and in the future. Leading into the Future, a global of almost 1600 companies by the Institute for Corporate Productivity (i4cp) and sponsored by the American Management Association, takes a look at the challenges leaders will face by the year 2015 and the leadership competencies and roles needed to address these challenges. Among the results was the clear indication that the leader of the future must be able to deal with both ongoing rapid change as well as acute episodes of disruptive change.

Economic, competitive and political forces will all contribute to a global environment requiring that leaders must:
• Be open to change (externally driven change), and
• Be highly flexible (internal capacity to execute the needed change), while
• Driving innovation ( creative approaches to novel situations)

Assumptions:
Resiliency helps leaders and organizations manage disruptive change; some of the specific dimensions of resiliency include:
• Ability to absorbing shocks and surprises
• Creatively developing alternatives in a crisis
• Broadly accessing resources
• Executing transformational change – ability to rethink and redesign keeping only that which is most valued or purposeful

Agility is the capacity to manage continuous change that is ongoing; some of the specific dimensions of resiliency include:
• Sense-making – scanning actively, widely, continuously
• Transforming knowledge – interpreting, sharing and applying
• Boundary destruction – minimizing barriers and differences
• Acting decisively – strong action bias with highly effective execution; aligning and realigning resources and ongoing management of commitments

Leadership versatility has to do with assessing the ability for a leader or potential leader to balance use of leadership capabilities; overuse of a capability can impact a leader’s ability to be resilient or agile. Versatility involves the adjustment of skill sets to the appropriateness of the situation. Current research shows that versatility on the balance between being forceful and enabling and on being strategic and operational are highly correlated with leadership effectiveness.

Our Process:
Key Associates, Inc. integrates the feedback from several measures to assess resiliency and agility:
1. Bar-on EQ-i – assesses emotional intelligence including stress tolerance,
adaptability, impulse control, assertiveness and other related dimensions; also we include our research on profiles of change leadership

2. Hogan Inventories (HPI and HDS) - concerns how a person approaches others and their work; also characteristics that can derail a leader including negative tendencies that appear after prolonged exposure to stress and heavy workloads

3. Kaplan 360 Versatility Index – assesses balance of leadership and whether or not it is “lopsided” on key dimensions related to resiliency and agility; requires participation from others such as supervisor, peers and direct reports

4. Assessment Center Technologies – we provide customized assessment center simulations for gauging resiliency and agility as well as other leadership competencies