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.
Your company values
The few that describe how the business genuinely works, not the website version.
Fully in place
Right person and right seat: they share the values and can do the role. Keep, invest, protect.
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.
Start with a Commercial Assessment →Not ready to talk? Find your constraint in 60 seconds →