This is the English translation of the article published on “HR On Line” (June 2024)
Companies have always assessed people’s potential through assessment centers, individual assessments, and diagnostic tools that can replace or complement these two formats. Regardless of the method used, the diagnosis of potential is always performed with a focus solely on the individual—as if potential were an attribute belonging exclusively to the person. In the best formats, feedback is provided and a self-development plan is created, containing exercises, readings, and various tools to train weaker competencies in the field and enhance the stronger ones. In this way, the diagnostic investment integrates with development, which some companies also support through training.
All good. Right?
Sorry…
Don’t you get the sense that there is an excess of “classroom thinking” and a kind of void around this whole operation? Is this really how things work in practice?
Let’s assume that a person, after completing the assessment, is genuinely committed to putting their self-development plan into practice and—perhaps with the support of targeted training courses—starts on-the-job practice of, for example, initiative, a competency often found in assessment frameworks. On-the-job practice of initiative presupposes that the person exposes themselves by proposing ideas and solutions (initiative in proposing ideas) and that they have enough autonomy to experiment (initiative in taking action). In most cases, what do you think happens on the ground? In our organizations, is it common practice to seriously consider people’s proposals? Are those in hierarchical roles oriented toward granting autonomy so that people can experiment? And usually, what happens if a person takes an initiative—perhaps one that was agreed upon—and makes a mistake? Is error commonly used as an opportunity for individual and collective learning?
We could ask dozens more questions about the real putting into real practice of a self-development plan. Because “putting it into real practice” (if it’s not just a didactic expression) means entry into the real context, where the first thing that opens or closes the door is the perception of psychological safety. For someone to expose themselves, they must feel that they will not be humiliated, excluded, or punished for making a proposal, saying “I disagree”, taking initiative, or sharing a mistake. We are not talking about psychological safety in general. We are talking about the perception of psychological safety in individual offices, in retail locations, in departments, in work teams—that is, in the context where we operate every day and where the self-development plan must land.
Investing in potential assessment without also working on psychological safety risks having a very limited return. Because psychological safety is the gate that enables people to bring their potential into play and thus truly develop it. As Amy Edmondson, author of The Fearless Organization and Right Kind of Wrong, says, “Psychological safety is the soil, not the seed”. If we limit ourselves to diagnosing potential without measuring and increasing the level of psychological safety in the everyday context, the potentials themselves will fail to be cultivated and will not flourish, causing serious harm to the organization’s overall capability. And our ultra-scientific tools—on which we rely for reassurance about the “reliability” of our assessments—will merely detect the meager results.
by Marina Capizzi, author of Hierarchy to Die or to Thrive?