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Beyond Personality Tests: Using the OAD Survey to Fix Hiring and Team Fit · The Science of Leading

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  Welcome back to The Science of Leading.
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  I'm Claire Monroe, and with me is my mentor and co‑host,
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  Edwin Carrington.
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  Edwin, today we're tackling something that's everywhere in organizations
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  but not always that helpful: personality tests.
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  Yes.
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  They've become almost a workplace ritual,
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  haven't they?
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  Color codes, four-letter labels,
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  animal types... they're fun icebreakers,
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  but most leaders discover they don't actually help when you're trying
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  to make a hard hiring call or redesign a team.
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  Right,
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  and that's the gap I wanna dig into.
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  Those tools give you a "type," but when I'm sitting with a hiring manager,
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  what they really want is decision support: is this person likely to thrive
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  in THIS role, on THIS team, in THIS culture?
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  Exactly.
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  A label like "blue" or "INFP" doesn't tell you how someone will handle
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  a quota, or a messy integration,
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  or a high-conflict leadership team.
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  Real decisions need more than a catchy category.
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  They need structured signal you can connect to actual work.
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  And that brings
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  us to OAD.
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  So, for folks who haven't heard of it yet,
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  give us the short version.
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  What is the OAD Survey... and what makes it different from those typing
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  tools?
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  The OAD Survey is a workplace assessment built for three things:
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  selection, leadership development,
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  and organizational diagnostics.
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  Instead of rating statements on a one-to-five scale,
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  people pick adjectives from a list.
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  It's adjective-based and scale-driven.
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  And the design separates two things most tools mix together: your underlying
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  traits and how you believe you have to behave at work.
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  So it's not "you're
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  this type," it's "you're here on these scales,
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  and here's how the job is pulling you."That's right.
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  It doesn't put you in a box.
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  It uses two matched questionnaires,
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  each with the same set of 110 workplace adjectives.
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  The first is basically, "Which words describe you?" The second is,
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  "Which words describe how you must behave at work?" From that,
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  OAD builds scale scores instead of types.
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  And those scales can be compared to what a role actually demands.
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  I want
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  to ground this in a story, because I've lived the "great on paper" hire
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  who flames out.
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  Can we walk through one where OAD would've changed the conversation?
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  Certainly.
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  Picture a growth-stage company hiring a sales director.
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  On paper, the candidate is perfect: strong resume,
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  great interview presence, has all the right stories.
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  The team loves them.
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  They hire quickly.
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  Three months in,
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  it's not working.
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  The director is dragging on decisions,
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  seems uncomfortable pushing the team,
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  and avoids difficult conversations with underperformers.
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  The CEO starts thinking, "Did we misjudge their drive?
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  Are they just not a 'fit'?"I've seen that movie.
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  Everyone starts backfilling a story: "Maybe they were never that strong,
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  maybe they oversold themselves."Exactly.
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  Now imagine they'd used OAD before the hire.
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  The "traits" side shows the candidate as thoughtful,
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  steady, more collaborative than forceful-someone who prefers
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  predictability
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  and harmony over confrontation.
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  Solid strengths, just not the classic hard-driving sales profile.
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  Then
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  the "perceived job behaviors" side shows how the candidate thinks they
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  must act at work: much more assertive,
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  faster-paced, more controlling than their baseline.
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  That gap is big.
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  OAD would flag it as significant stretch and a potential burnout or inconsistency
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  risk in a role that constantly demands high pressure and confrontation.
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  So
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  in that hiring meeting, instead of "they seem like a culture fit,
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  let's go," the conversation becomes,
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  "This role needs sustained urgency and tough calls.
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  This person's natural rhythm is measured and harmonious.
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  Can they realistically live in stretch mode all quarter,
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  every quarter?"Precisely.
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  And you'd use that insight to ask sharper interview questions,
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  or to reconsider the role design,
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  or to choose a different candidate.
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  You're not saying, "They're the wrong type." You're saying,
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  "Their trait profile and the job's behavioral demands are far apart.
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  That's a risk we need to take seriously."And that's the key point here:
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  leaders don't need another identity label.
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  They need structured, job-relevant signal.
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  OAD is built around adjectives and scales so you can see those gaps instead
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  of guessing.
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  And importantly, it's one input.
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  It sits alongside structured interviews,
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  evidence of skills, and clear role expectations.
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  Used that way, it prevents a lot of "great on paper" regrets.
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  Alright,
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  let's go under the hood a bit,
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  but keep this in plain language.
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  You mentioned two matched questionnaires with adjectives.
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  Walk us through what someone actually does when they sit down to complete
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  OAD.
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  They see a list of 110 adjectives-workplace-relevant words like
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  "decisive,"
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  "patient," "analytical," and so on.
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  In part one, they simply pick the words that feel like them: "Which of
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  these describe you?" That gives us their baseline tendencies-what OAD
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  calls traits.
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  Then, in part two,
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  they see the same 110 words in the same order,
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  but the question shifts: "Which words describe how you must behave at
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  work?" That's the perceived job behaviors side: how they believe the role
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  and environment expect them to show up.
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  So the magic isn't just the words-it's
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  the comparison between those two passes over the same list.
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  Exactly.
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  When you compare them, you see three things.
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  One, where traits and job behaviors line up-those are areas of natural
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  fit.
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  Two, where the job is asking for a moderate stretch-potential growth
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  areas.
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  And three, where the job is asking for the opposite of who they are most
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  of the time-that's where friction and burnout live.
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  Let's make that concrete.
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  Say someone is naturally calm and methodical-traits side.
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  But their perceived job behaviors show constant urgency and high emotional
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  intensity.
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  What does that tell you?
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  It tells you they believe they have to live in
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  a gear that isn't natural for them.
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  Short-term, some stretch is fine; people can adapt.
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  Long-term, that pattern often shows up as exhaustion,
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  irritability, or inconsistency.
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  One week they're pushing hard,
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  the next week they crash.
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  OAD lets you see that pattern before it turns into a performance issue
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  or a resignation.
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  How does that play out in a hiring workflow,
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  practically?
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  I'm a recruiter, I've got two finalists,
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  both technically strong.
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  In hiring,
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  you start with the role.
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  Define the behavioral demands: Does this job really require high pace?
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  Constant persuasion?
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  Comfort with conflict?
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  Then you look at each candidate's traits versus perceived job behaviors.
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  Candidate
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  A might have traits tightly aligned with the role-say,
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  naturally assertive, comfortable with ambiguity.
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  Their perceived job behaviors are similar,
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  so the role isn't asking them to reinvent themselves.
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  Candidate B might need to dial up urgency and assertiveness far above
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  their baseline just to feel like they're "doing the job right." OAD helps
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  you name that difference and decide which risks you're willing to take.
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  And
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  again, not as a verdict.
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  You're not saying, "Candidate B is bad." You're saying,
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  "If we hire B, we need to be honest about the stretch and support it-or
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  rethink the role."Exactly.
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  Now, in leadership coaching, that comparison becomes a mirror.
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  Picture a leader whose traits show high control and low patience-they
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  move fast, decide quickly.
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  But their perceived job behaviors show more restraint and collaboration
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  because they believe the culture punishes strong opinions.
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  In a coaching
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  conversation, you can say, "Here's your natural style.
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  Here's how you think you have to edit yourself.
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  Where is that healthy, and where is it costing your team clarity?" That
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  often leads to a very specific experiment: maybe being more explicit in
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  decision meetings, or setting clearer expectations in one on one sessions.
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  I
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  like that because it moves away from "this is your personality profile"
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  to "these are two dials you're turning at work-let's be intentional about
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  that."Yes.
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  And the same logic applies to team diagnostics.
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  Suppose you run OAD across a product team.
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  The traits side shows most people as thoughtful,
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  analytical, not naturally aggressive.
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  The perceived job behaviors side shows everyone feeling they must be
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  hyper-urgent and constantly reactive.
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  That gap,
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  repeated across people, tells you there's a systemic issue: maybe endless
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  emergencies, unclear priorities,
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  or leadership rewarding drama over planning.
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  You're not diagnosing "weak personalities." You're seeing predictable
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  friction created by how the work is set up.
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  So,
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  hiring decisions, coaching conversations,
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  simple team reads-it all comes back to comparing traits with perceived
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  job behaviors and asking, "Is this alignment,
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  healthy stretch, or chronic conflict?"Exactly.
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  And always remembering: this is one lens.
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  You still need evidence of skills,
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  structured interviews, and clear expectations.
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  OAD gives you language and data,
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  not destiny.
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  I wanna zoom out now.
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  We've talked about one hire, one leader,
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  one team.
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  But OAD was literally named for Organization Analysis and Design.
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  So how do you go from "interesting individual reports" to real organizational
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  signal?
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  The shift is in what you analyze.
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  Instead of asking, "What's Claire like?" you start asking,
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  "What patterns show up across our sales roles,
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  or our plant supervisors, or our customer support teams?" In other words,
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  you move from job titles to role families.
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  You can look at traits across
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  a role family: are we consistently hiring extremely independent people
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  into roles that actually require tight coordination?
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  Then you look at perceived job behaviors: are those same people all reporting
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  that they must be hyper-collaborative and cautious to survive here?
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  So
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  if traits say "independent, decisive," and perceived job behaviors say
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  "careful, committee-driven," that pattern isn't an individual failing-it's
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  a design issue.
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  Exactly.
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  I've seen this in organizations where managers complain,
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  "No one takes ownership," but the OAD data shows something else: they've
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  hired people who are perfectly capable of ownership,
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  but the environment teaches them that every decision gets second-guessed.
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  So over time, perceived job behaviors shift toward caution and deference.
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  You
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  fix that not by "changing personalities," but by clarifying decision rights,
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  cleaning up incentives, and backing people when they act in line with
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  the role's stated demands.
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  Give me one more example where the pattern reveals
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  a role problem rather than a "people problem."Take a customer support
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  function.
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  Across the team, traits show people who like stability,
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  clear processes, and steady pace.
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  But perceived job behaviors show constant urgency,
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  frequent conflict, and high emotional strain.
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  If that pattern appears
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  across dozens of people, it's not that you hired the "wrong types." It
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  suggests the work has been allowed to become chaotic-maybe no clear escalation
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  paths, maybe sales over-promising,
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  maybe technology outages.
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  The OAD pattern is your early-warning system: the role is overloaded
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  relative to the people you've staffed it with.
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  And leaders can respond
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  in a few ways: redesign the role,
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  add resources, set better boundaries with other departments,
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  or in some cases adjust future hiring profiles because the reality of
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  the job is just different than what they thought.
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  Yes.
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  The key is that you're making those calls with structured signal instead
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  of hunches.
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  You're looking at how traits and perceived job behaviors line up across
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  groups, and asking, "Where is our system fighting our people?"I also wanna
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  underline the ethics here, because you and I are both allergic to using
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  assessments as a blunt weapon.
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  OAD is self-report, it's about temperament and behavior-not skills,
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  not intelligence.
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  How should leaders hold that in mind?
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  They should treat OAD as one piece
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  of evidence, not a verdict.
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  It doesn't decide who you hire or promote.
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  It doesn't predict performance on its own.
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  It adds incremental clarity when you combine it with structured interviews,
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  real work samples, and honest role definitions.
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  And they should resist
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  the temptation to turn scores into identity stories.
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  The goal is not, "You are this,
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  forever." The goal is, "Here are the tendencies you bring,
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  here's how the job is pulling you,
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  and here's what we can do about that at the role,
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  team, and organizational level."Alright,
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  as we wrap, I wanna give listeners something very practical.
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  If you're a founder, a CHRO, a line leader-you probably have at least
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  one role or one team that keeps you up at night.
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  Maybe turnover is high, maybe performance is inconsistent,
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  maybe you just feel like something's off.
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  Pick that role or that team.
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  Use OAD with the people in it.
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  Look at the two lenses: traits and perceived job behaviors.
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  Ask yourself three questions.
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  One: Are we asking for behaviors this role was never designed to support?
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  Two: Are we consistently hiring people whose traits are at odds with
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  what the work really demands?
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  And three: Are there stretch patterns here that explain burnout or friction
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  we've been calling "culture issues"?If you've been relying on gut feel
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  and post-mortems, this is your chance to get ahead of the pattern instead
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  of reacting to it.
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  Don't use OAD as a label-maker.
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  Use it as structured signal to redesign jobs,
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  sharpen hiring, and coach more intelligently.
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  And if you want to see how
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  it behaves on your own terrain,
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  not just in theory, take that real role or team you're worried about
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  and test OAD for free at OAD dot aiEdwin,
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  thanks as always for bringing decades of perspective to this.
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  I'm still learning something new every time we talk about how people
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  and roles fit together.
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  And I'm still encouraged that leaders like you
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  keep asking better questions.
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  That's how organizations actually improve.
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  Alright,
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  that's it for this episode of The Science of Leading.
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  I'm Claire Monroe.
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  And I'm Edwin Carrington.
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  Take care.
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  We'll see you next time.