In my previous blog I provided an Axiological definition of Talent as being:

‘ a person’s recurring and habitual patterns of thought’

and we all possess a multitude of these talents.

So knowing what talents a person possesses is of vital importance to any employer, but of equal importance is a way to measure their ability to access their talent.

When conducting talent benchmarking exercises within organisations we have measured the talent of high and low performers in teams and found that both groups contain people with high levels of the right talent required to be a success. However, our system is also able to identify each individual’s ability to access that talent and as shown in the chart below, often it is not a lack of talent but the lack of ability to access that talent that is the key differentiator between high and low performers.

Interestingly, this chart shows that both groups achieved equally high scores on talent and equally poor scores on their attitude, but it was the high performers ability to access their talents that was the key  performance discriminator.

We can all have temporary losses of form or performance, or put another way, have things going on in our lives that will temporarily block us or stop us from being able to access our talent, but as an employer or recruiter you want to avoid employing people for a role that either do not have the talent, or are unable to access that talent, or you will be spending a lot of time and energy managing that employees problems. To read more about the Axia Talent benchmark solution click here

Business values are the core principles that guide the way that you do business and how your people engage with your customers. Your values sum up what your business stands for and what makes it special. While short and long term business plans and strategies may change the core values of your business may remain the same.

Many organisations pay lip service to their values, they come up with a list of statements that they believe their customers want to see , put a plaque in reception and a page on the web site and it is job done.

Unfortunately for them, a lot of evidence suggests they are now missing a trick. A businesses values are the guiding principals for all of their people and organisations that communicate, live and breath their values have greater engagement and productivity.

Axiology is the science of values and teaches us that we all value in three dimensions. These dimensions are Systemic(conceptual) , Extrinsic (pragmatic) and Intrinsic (empathy)

When you ask a person or a business to define their values, they will normally give you a list of words that fall in to the Systemic category, such as :   standards, beliefs, principals, honour, purpose, respect and goals.

So they are missing extrinsic and intrinsic values out completely. Axiologically these dimensions of value are greater than systemic values as a business makes no money from a strategic goal, standards don’t make or deliver a product or a service and we can’t live in a conceptual world.

When looking at you values, involve your people in the process, demonstrate to them the three dimensions of value that exist and let your values show that your business puts its SOUL before its ROLE and its GOAL.

For information about how Axiametrics can help your business define identify the values held by your people contact us today on 0800 195 4162 or email info@axiametrics.co.uk

In the current jobs climate candidates are more likely to lie?

With The UK struggling through recession there are 2.46m people searching for employment at the moment. With 7.8% of the UK work force out of a job there is stiff competition for each and every vacancy, today’s job seekers are more likely to become risk-takers, fuelled by the desperation to secure that all-important role at whatever cost.

Research shows almost a quarter of potential job seekers (24pc) are prepared to stretch the truth to secure a job in this tough economic climate. Many candidates feel they have no choice but to bend the facts to keep up with fellow candidates who they believe will be exaggerating skills and qualifications on their CVs and in interviews.

While this should come as a warning to recruiters, this revelation from candidates is not surprising. People cheat in all walks of life and as long as they think what’s on offer is worth it in comparison with the risks, it is likely they always will.

Cheating is a global issue and recruiters are facing new challenges for which most are simply not prepared. Many are being inundated by applications so the process of sifting through to find the best people is becoming far more difficult and as the research figures show, relying on CVs and interviews to hire the right people is no longer enough.

But what can recruiters do? One way to save time sifting through applications and decrease the chance of cheating is through the use of online assessments. All Psychometric assessments claim to create a level playing field for all candidates and ensure all job seekers have an equal and honest chance to shine, but with a proliferation of books available helping candidates to ‘make themselves more employable’ how do you know your test is not being cheated?

One great litmus test is to see if the questionnaire requires the respondent to answer questions about themselves or to describe their own actions in given situations, as noted recent research shows 24 % of people will stretch the truth or get assistance from books written specifically to manipulate these types of test. Even unknowingly are you ever totally objective when answering questions about yourself, or like most of us, a bit biased and subjective?

So is there an alternative? With the Axia Profile you are never asked to describe yourself, you are never asked to describe what you would or might do given a set of circumstances, and you are never asked what others might expect you to do – this double subjectivity used in psychometric tests is supposedly a way of getting you to describe what you are really like. In fact there are no questions at in the Axia Profile, there are two sets of 18 statements and you simply rank them from best to worst. The Axia profile is not subjective, you are not asked to describe yourself or how you would perform. You are actually performing a task, making a totally objective measurement, and with over 6 quadrillion ways that you can order each set of 18 statements it is incredibly detailed and accurate. For more information on how the Axia Profile will improve your hiring decisions

Developing the Right Environment for Success

In the post-Credit Crunch world, no sector is going to have to adjust more to the fiscal challenges to come than Defence. With Government procurement programmes facing their greatest challenges yet, he reality for many is that the status quo is no longer an option – at AxiaMetrics we are working with experienced firm s in the sector by using the Axia Profile as to identify the ‘people issues’ which hold organisations back. This is part of a suite of services jointly established to offer procurement teams a suite of proven tools, skills and resources to help organisations – large or small, Government or industry – to work at the peak of their effectiveness and efficiency.

In the current environment, firms may feel beleaguered, but they have to ask themselves the following question, “What stops success”?

Below are things that we hear day in, day out which stop firms achieving the desired results:-

“There is no real vision and no strong, clear leadership.”

“The customer isn’t clear about what he wants, or indeed what we need to know, in order to be able to help.”

“We’ve measured everything that you can measure, but we don’t have the right skills and resources to address the evidence.”

“Relationships are not good, there is little trust and as a result, behaviours are not constructive.”

“Dialogue! What dialogue? Communications are none existent.”

If any of these statements apply, progress is often slow, excessive staff turnover and cost overrun can be at epidemic proportions.

AxiaMetrics together with its key partners – Christopher Lewis Associates, Digital Meeting and Precision Leadership offer an end to end solution to provide procurement teams with a range of services that help build relationships, confidence and communication. This includes the development of bid and delivery teams, plus the provision of the best collaborative working environments for successful defence projects and programmes.

Through implementation of the right skills, tools and resources on the soft issues, the right environment for success is created – it’s about going beyond commercial agreements, process, governance and above all, measurement. Through delivering the right culture, attitudes, behaviours, leadership and communication, goals are understood and achieved. It’s about creating a sense of shared ownership aided through timely, transparent information; it’s about the individual and team and psychological contract providing the ability and agility to sustain the right environment through the life of the contract.

With proven success in delivering sustainable improvement throughout the supply chain, our specialist skills will help procurement teams identify where and what critical issues need to be addressed, when they need to be addressed and will deliver the appropriate solutions.

Did you know that in the 1950‘s—in an effort to determine whether soldiers were mentally fit to handle deadly weapons—psychometric testing was created by the U.S. Military? (Actually, a more accurate term would be ‘pathology’ tests).

In the years that followed, a few enterprising entrepreneurs decided these pathology tests (with minor adjustments) could provide them with valuable insights into how people work together to bring about common business goals. After fifty years of testing, we now know the level of accuracy of these tests. We know where they are helpful and where they fall short.

How can you know if the assessment you are using measures up? This Blog provides you with the first of 11 questions you should ask to determine what tool you should use in your recruitment process and to determine the true accuracy.

1: What ‘norm’ are your job candidates being compared to?

Most assessments measure personality and behaviour.

Here’s the simple version of how personality and behaviour based tests are created. As you will see, created is the key word here.

These profiles are created by psychologists who observe the behaviour of a particular group of people. They then create questions designed to show where a person scores in relation to the observed ‘norm’ of that group. In other words, their goal is to match the questions they’ve created to fit the ‘norm’ they are creating.

Every assessment tool in the market place is “culture” driven. When an assessment tool is to be taken in a different culture, they must, again, find the standard of measure, or ‘norm’, for that culture. While this process has some value, there is a massive element of subjective bias involved. Clearly, these tools are affected by many factors including the geography, culture, income, age or gender that group of individuals.

Just know this … subjective bias significantly lowers the accuracy of these tests. Perhaps this is why – after 70 years of trial and error in the hiring process, research clearly shows that typical assessment tools are just not accurate.

Business leaders find it difficult if not impossible to trust the typical hiring assessment. Have you found this to be true for you?

There is a better way…

In the years before the outbreak of the Second World War an amazingly accurate way to measure performance in people was discovered by Robert S. Hartman. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize for his research in 1973. His approach was NOT based on simply observing behaviour or personality.

Hartman’s theory was that we all think and make decisions in the same way—that there are three core decision making dimensions. He called this, “The Structure of Thought.” Hartman spent the next 40 years of his life proving his theory scientifically (not the few few days or hours some take to establish a new norm!).

He proved his theory with a totally objective mathematical formula. This formula measures how people think and how they make decisions.

This was a major discovery because unlike “subjective norms” that come as a result of observing behaviour and personality, Hartman discovered that the structure of thought has it’s own norm. This norm is the same for people all over the world – regardless of culture, geography, income, age, gender, or other factors. We all have the same structure of thought.

Hartman didn’t create subjective norms. His science validation confirms a norm—an objective norm that already exists in all of us. That’s extremely important because when the measurement is totally objective—you can trust it’s accuracy!

The Axia profile scientifically measures how you think and how you make a decision—what Hartman called your ‘structure of thought’. It directly measures skills, competencies, attitudes, talent, whether or not you are accessing your talent, and much more. The Axia profile will quickly identify precisely who will and will not perform in your company with greater accuracy than other human metrics systems.

A growing list of top business leaders are using our system to make more accurate selection decisions and significantly improve business results.

The 27th of January is a special day in the world of AxiaMetrics and Axiology for two reasons.

On this day in 1910 Dr Robert Hartman the ‘Father of Modern Axiology’ was born in Berlin Germany as Robert Schirokaur. He was a brilliant scholar and held a lecturing post at Berlin University and was also an Assistant District Court Judge.

Hartman was forced to flee Germany in 1932 due to his vocal opposition of the Nazi Party. Having experienced Hitler’s rise to power and what he saw as the successful organisation of evil , Hartman dedicated his life’s work to trying to answer the fundamental question of ‘what is good’

Hartman is credited with the discovery that all value has scientific order based on trans-infinite mathematical sets and for developing the hierarchy of the dimensions of thought. By combining these two discoveries he developed the first values based profiling tool, The Hartman Value Profile.

Martin Gilsenan, a father of 3 was also born on the 27th of January (as he is still with us we wont embarrass him by naming the year!) Martin is a partner in AxiaMetrics a UK distributor of the Axia Profile, which is based on Hartmans original work and profile.

Whilst Martin is not yet credited with the significant discoveries of Hartman he believes one of the most significant points in his working life was the discovery of Axiology. Never before had he seen such a detailed and accurate assessment tool. Unlike many flawed psychometrics that rely on subjective questioning the Axia Profile identifies the takers values using an ordering task which provides over 6 quadrillion permutations possible from the Axiological Norm established by Hartman. Essentially it identifies how we think and process information, why we make the judgements we do and the likely behaviour that will follow.

Martin is proud to share his Birthday with Robert Hartman and hopes for the following two achievement in his future:

1. To see QPR win the Premiership

2. That his personal legacy will be having introduced the science of Axiology to both business and education in the UK for the betterment of individuals and companies alike.

There is not a lot of chance of number one but to help Martin achieve number 2 contact AxiaMetrics today to see how this powerful technology can help your organisation.

When calculating the above, most researchers accept that it isn’t simply the salary and benefits of a bad hire they need to measure, painful though this is. They reason, quite correctly, that the “real” cost also includes factors such as reduced team productivity and missed client opportunities. The truth however, is the cost is much, much greater than that.

A bad hire has a profoundly negative effect on co-workers’ productivity and morale and can change their perception of the company “How could they have employed this person?” the rest of the workforce will say to each other, “How could they have got it so wrong?” is what they actually mean.

The biggest cost of a bad hire – by far, is the psychological impact on the leadership of the company – I should know I went through it myself with my 2 co-directors and close friends when we ran our own financial services brokerage between 2003 and 2007. “How did we employ this person?” we quite rightly asked ourselves. Then we had the subsequent cost in management time, coming to the conclusion that we had to get this person out of the company, then finally starting the process to actually do it. This, in turn engenders stress both at work and at home – the conversations with your spouse about that person, about how they drive you absolutely crazy, and about how you can’t believe that you ever offered them a job in the first place? The frustration that “you knew deep down” that you were making a mistake, but made the offer anyway and are now living with the consequences.

What a waste of money! More recruitment and training costs are incurred again – but what are you doing differently? It’s all the more reason to be absolutely sure that you’re making the right choices when it comes to adding new staff. Ask yourself the following – are you using a consistent hiring process to ensure that every open role is afforded the same level of care and attention? Do you have a method of filtering CV’s or applications? Do your staff know the right approach during interviews? Are you conducting thorough reference checks?

You may feel you have learned some lessons about people, one being that clients, customers and colleagues can be upset not only by a bad hire’s incompetence but by their attitude – again though, the same question needs to be asked – what are you doing differently to find out whether a person shares your company’s values?

The answer is simple – use the Axia Profile to underpin your recruitment process. New to the UK and based on Nobel Prize nominated research, this quick, online solution is specifically designed to help employers recruit the right people.

In the video below Gary May, President of the Association of Sales Professionals talks about how Axiology can be used to measure sale performance and increase the bottom line.

Saturday was an unusual day, instead of the usual taxi service for the kids and a trip to Loftus Road to see QPR play Middlesbrough, I found myself presenting to the Board of Governors at a leading London College, discussing the accuracy of axiological science as a tool of measurement when I should have been discussing our forwards lack of accuracy in front of goal.


Anyway, you’re probably asking yourself what I was doing there and why, so I will tell you. Nigel Griffiths, my Partner at AxiaMetrics picked up through the I.O.D. LinkedIn Group, a request from a member of the Board of Governors at Westminster Kingsway College (who also happens to have a highly influential day job) for help with a specific problem. He was looking for a tool that would enable him to assess the Board’s collective attitude to risk. Although inundated with offers of help from experts wanting to run a multitude of subjective testing and analysis (the “tell me what you think your would do in this situation, and I’ll use blind corroboration to analyse your risk profile”, brigade), the Board member concerned picked up on Nigel’s offer as we knew we had the perfect output to measure this and discussions began.


Over the next few days, 20 members of the Board of Governors took the Axia Profile online (quick, easy and only 15 minutes to do) and we generated our Risk Tolerance Assessment report which measures your internal influences in 10 key areas of risk based decision making. By doing this, we were able to pinpoint where the Board stood collectively in their approach to risk as well as providing each member with their own individual report. Running through this with them on Saturday gave me an insight into the really valuable work which they do for the College and their commitment and sense of responsibility was frankly, inspiring.


This does not mean to say that it was all plain sailing though, it is a big ask for a group to understand in one hit why Axiology enables us to identify our internal valuing system which influences our perceptions, decisions and actions – basically “why” we do what we do. I have to say however, that as a group they were both open minded and genuinely interested in Robert Hartman’s pioneering work and the fact that we were able to define where they were in terms of attitude to risk so accurately. Individual members have already been in contact with me since and I am meeting with them in the days and weeks ahead to discuss how they can use some of the 50 outputs from the Axia Profile in their places of work.


Post Script


Anyone who knows the score from the QPR V Boro game on Saturday will know that I used my time wisely by not being at Loftus Road. Is it really too much to ask for 2 good results in one day? If ever a team needed the insight of axiology…hey, there’s an idea, I must refer them to Nigel’s blog on Football vs Business.

Yesterday in the press it was reported that TMobile staff has been selling customers personal details to third parties who then sold them on to the highest bidder compromising the personal data of many of TMobile’s customers. This is not only an embarrassment for TMobile but could spark a potential revenue downturn as current customers evaluate their options.


Could this have been prevented ? We believe it could have. If TMobile had incorporate the Axia Profile as part of their recruitment and assessment processes they would have known what motivated their staff and understood more about the personal values and ethos. Use of the Axia Profile as part of the recruitment process would in most cases have prevented the very staff who sold these details from being employed in the first place, and would have highlighted any staff who were dissatisfied or who posed a risk during an annual assessment process that utilised the profile.


The question is not whether you can afford to include the Axia Profile as part of your recruitment and assessment processes, but whether you can afford not to.