Building a successful team is never easy, especially in uncertain times. But by utilizing behavioral insights to discover potential new hires strengths and weaknesses, it’s possible to gain a competitive edge.

In a webinar hosted by Stream Realty Partners’ Executive Managing Director Martin Pupil on Aug. 20, he discussed how his firm has used strategic advisory firm Culture Index to optimize the organization through hiring, managing and motivating top tier talent.

“We’re in an industry where our workforce is dominated by salespeople on the one end because we have a heavy brokerage component,” said Pupil. “We also have a large property management and development services business as well as investment management. You can imagine that all of that requires very different types of people. Where we were the least successful on the hiring side was on the brokerage side of the business.”

By utilizing the Culture Index survey in the hiring process, Pupil said that his firm has been much more efficient in filling out a team.

“For us, having that roadmap and filing it in has been a big part of our success,” he said. “There’s still some mysteries and this isn’t a foolproof deal but I think it has personally made me a better leader and taught me how to get the most out of people and communicate most effectively.”

Joining Pupil on the webinar were Matt White, executive advisor at Culture Index; Russell Buster, CEO at building restoration service C-Sharpe and Lucie Voves, CEO at college diploma framing firm Church Hill Classics.

Culture Index is a survey that is a self-report inventory that measures seven personality traits and seven behaviors which most researchers and users consider important to work-related activities. The seven constructs are Autonomy, Social Ability, Pace, Conformity, Energy Units, Logic and Ingenuity.

An individual would complete the survey based upon their own perceptions and beliefs of their personality and required job behaviors. The survey takes around ten minutes to administer and complete.

The survey format consists of 174 words spread across two sections. The first section asks the respondent to check those words which describe him or herself. The second section asks the respondent to check words that describe how you must behave to be successful in your current position. The survey employs a free-choice technique, which means that an individual can choose to check a word or not and does not have to pick one word from a series or group.

“We don’t measure character or integrity or values or moral compass,” said White. “It’s not the end all be all in the hiring process, it’s just that we want to start with analytics instead of instincts. How statistically valid is your gut decision on people? This is just using data and science in the beginning of the hiring process.”

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