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.

Prior to forming AxiaMetrics I had been sales director at a number of financial and insurance services companies and grew my own organisation in financial sales. Until last year I viewed testing profiles, such as MBTI, DISC, Meyers-Briggs etc, as abject failures at predicting sales success.

Why ? Firstly they are self reports (Garbage in = Garbage out) and secondly, they are unable to predict an individuals drivers and motivation. Last year I was introduced to the Science of Axiology and after trials on my own sales teams I became so interested and influenced by the power of it as a recruitment and development aid I researched the providers in the US and I set up AxiaMetrics LLP to distribute what I found to be the best available derivative.

It is not a self report but an assessment based on your values, thinking process and judgement. It is an online profile that is impossible to cheat as the questions are not leading and its not coroborative, i.e it does not seek to put the respondents in a group or type. It has tailored outputs that have been developed in conjunction with many major US corporations specifically for Sales recruitment and development. Using this technology larger sales teams are able to competency model their sales team to identify exactly what it is in their organisation that makes their elite performers ELITE.

Validity studies are extensive and whilst it only claims to be about 75% predictor of hiring success it has proven to be over 90% acurate predictor of failure, thus helping sales managers avoid those hires that are destined to fail. I would be happy to provide evidence of validity and if you are curious, why not take the test to see some of the outputs for yourself.

Gary May, the founder of the Association of Sales Professionals states that “for me and the Association of Sales Professionals there is only one ‘test’ than accurately and consistently performs as a reliable indicator as to whether someone can sell. That ‘tool’ s based on the Science of Axiology.” Gary goes on to say “As an example I have taken the Axia Profile twice myself and the level of accuracy and the insight I was presented with was astounding. It identified that although I was brilliant at work based problem solving, there were personal issues that were preventing me from putting them to use. [I’d had a personal breakup 3 weeks previous!]. Another example is how it shows levels of empathy. We all know that empathy is at the route of every great sales person BUT how does someone use that their empathy skill. Someone with huge empathy ability could use it to great use in coaching or developing a team but conversely to know what someone else feels means they’ll also know how to hurt and push the wrong buttons. I know not of a another single profile tool which enables you to have such a wonder insight into yourself, your staff and their teams! ”

We are currently running a large scale trial in one of the UK’s most respected call centres, a times 100 employer and finalist in the recent European Call centre of the year awards as they like me have been so impressed with the depth and accuracy of this as a predictor.

If you are at all considering profiling then I’d urge you to talk to us about Axiology, similarily, if you are at all interested in increasing sales revenues, staff productivity, or replicating your elite performers then get in touch, I can guarantee you that the results will speak for themself.