ASSESSMENT
A regional retailer was re-organizing their in-store operations. This meant promoting one of the two department managers in each store to store manager. Before they could do that, though, they needed a fair and legally defensible way to find which candidates were best suited to lead the stores.

ACTION
CMI worked with the retailer to tailor our Management Style & Impact Instrument© (MSI2) 360-degree evaluation to reflect the chain’s existing competency model. Departmental managers in every store went through the process. Ratings from the MSI2 were combined with objective performance data to create a model of successful managers.

ACCOMPLISHMENTS
The MSI2 was able to clearly differentiate between low and high performing managers. Very strong relationships between scores on the MSI2 and objective performance measures were found. Specifically, correlations with customer service goals, budget goals, and performance evaluations were all at least double commonly accepted standards. Through links to objective performance data, CMI was able to show the bottom line benefits of using the MSI2 to select top performers.

Real world improvements: The following graph shows how managers performed against their budget goals grouped by scores on the MSI2. High scorers were clearly more effective at cutting costs and raising revenue for the company!