Day-in-the-Life Simulation Executive Assessment

Purpose

  • To provide organizations with a leadership selection and development tool that has predictive validity, and accuracy
  • To provide a high quality approach to executive Day-in-the-Life Simulation Assessment (DLSA) in order to increase hiring effectiveness and development efficiency.

Day-in-the-Life Simulation Assessment

Overview of DLSA

In most executive selection processes, assessment is typically limited to the candidates experience, behavioral interviews, personality inventories and background/reference checks.  The Day-in-the-Life Simulation Executive Assessment (DLSA), which is at the core of The Leadership Edge’s approach to Executive Selection, can significantly augment these traditional methods that have a limited effectiveness.  Simulations are now widely recognized as the most predictive, statistically reliable and accurate form of executive assessment available.  It provides selection committees with the most powerful information about a candidate’s capability to perform a number of key executive functions including:

Identifying and executing on specific organizational imperatives:

  • Driving change
  • Building talent readiness
  • Setting strategy
  • Growing the business
  • Integrating a new organization
  • Launching a new product or service
  • Coaching, mentoring and developing future leaders
  • Influencing board members and other stakeholders/partners
  • Addressing and resolving complex operational challenges
  • Managing customer satisfaction
  • And more (depending on the client’s desired measurement data).

Impact and Organizational Benefits

Day-in-the-Life Simulation Executive Assessment is proven to help organizations:

  • Reduce risk in critical and difficult hiring and promotion decisions by quantifying individual readiness for specific role challenges.
  • Take stock of the available supply of leadership talent when making critical organizational decisions.
  • Gauge and test assumptions about the organization’s viability to execute new strategies.
  • Ensures that candidates with the right skills, cultural fit, motivational fit and self-knowledge will be leading your organization.

How Day-in-the-Life Simulation Executive Assessment works

Participants engage a fictitious organization as the newly hired leader.  The fictitious organization has a full set of financials, a company history, a fully developed market/industry context including competitors, and a press/PR history.  The assessment process has the following characteristics

Tailored Job Focus

  • The candidate “takes on” a specific organizational role.  Depending on the position for which he/she is being assessed, he/she will function as a Vice President, President, or CEO.

Flexibility

  • Delivery is designed to be flexible.  It is web-enabled and can be globally available.  Therefore, candidates can participate remotely or at an assessment center in Northern California.

Expert Assessors

  • Participants interact with highly trained and experienced assessors in meetings that simulate the key situations described above such as: coaching, influence, customer management, partnering, strategic planning and more. 
  • Sessions are either voice recorded or videotaped for later in-depth analysis.

Stress Testing

  • Throughout the day participants receive emails that challenge them with pressing and complex operational and strategic decisions.

Behavioral Interviews

  • An in-depth behavioral interview is included to test experience relative to DLSA performance.

Integrated Data Analysis

  • The candidate’s performance is then scored against a pre-determined leadership model, and their assessment center profile is integrated with information from other tools such as 360 data, behavioral interviewing, personality inventories, etc.

Comparison to High Performance Profile

  • A profile is created and compared to the ideal profile of the targeted position or it is used to guide the development of the high potential candidate.

Debriefing

  • Each candidate is provided with a full debrief at completion of the Assessment

The distinguishing characteristic of Day-in-the-Life Simulation Executive Assessment is that real-time data regarding critical competencies is generated and added to already available data to improve hiring and promotion accuracy.