Score each person plus (+) if they clearly meet it, minus (−) if they clearly don't, and plus-minus (+/−) for the honest middle. A person is the right person when they hold at least a plus-minus on every value, because values are a floor, not an average. They're in the right seat only when fit, drive and capability are all a clear plus.
Example inputs are loaded. Replace them with your own figures to explore your scenario.
Your company values
The few that describe how the business genuinely works, not the website version.
Conversations and support to consider
Right person and right seat: they share the values and can do the role. Keep, invest, protect.
This result uses the figures and judgements entered above. Check the assumptions before acting, particularly where an input is uncertain or several effects overlap.
Right person (shares the values)
3 of 4
Right seat (fit, drive, capability)
2 of 4
Who needs a conversation
Before you conclude you have the wrong people, check the system. The results a business gets are usually the results it's built to produce, not the results its people are capable of. Read this alongside the operating model, so a structural problem doesn't get mistaken for a people one.
A Commercial Assessment reads leadership alongside everything else the business is built to produce; the Owner Dependency Score covers the key-person side of the same question.
A structured judgement aid, not an HR or performance-management instrument, and not a basis for an employment decision on its own. The scores are your assessment and should be evidenced with a written rationale and corroborated before you act. People judgements connect to enterprise value narratively, through leadership depth, key-person risk and succession, rather than a scored value. Not legal, financial or HR advice.
Right person but wrong seat is a design decision, not a firing decision.
The value of scoring both tests is that each position calls for a different move. A Commercial Assessment reads the people alongside the system that shapes what they can produce.
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