Shermons Strategic Scan Zone
Shermons Strategic Scan Zone
E BOOK - ISBN 978-0-9947774-6-1 - Shermons Strategic Scan Zone
The organizational scan is a structured method for judging what an employee is likely to do next, built from an objective look at past performance and personality rather than from opinion or memory alone. A panel of reviewers who already know the employee well completes the assessment, drawing on job relevant behavior they have observed directly. Recent behavior counts far more than behavior from years past, since a pattern close to the present carries more weight in shaping what comes next.
The method rests on two combined sources of evidence, a validated questionnaire that surfaces behavior and personality traits, and a profile sheet recording the employee's job and career history. Neither source alone gives a full picture. Organizations turn to this instrument most often during restructuring, large scale hiring, bulk transfers, mergers, acquisitions, new business formation and international postings, and the same eight factors can be applied at the level of an entire culture as well as at the level of one person.
Those eight factors split into two bands. The Job Performance Band covers Competence, Flexibility, Entrepreneurship and Problem Solving. The Personality Band covers Attitude, Integrity, Adaptability and Team Player. Each factor is scored on a continuum rather than against a fixed target, so what counts as a strong or weak position depends on the role and the organization the person sits inside.
The instrument serves four practical purposes. In selection it forms part of a wider battery alongside interviews and ability tests, never the sole basis for a hiring decision. In training it builds a person's own awareness of the behavior shaping their work. In team development it explains why conflict arises and how a group should organize itself. In counseling it helps a person see more clearly how they think, feel and act, and what that means for their next career step.
Scoring runs through a seven step process, five response categories per statement, a raw score per factor, conversion to a STEN value, an averaged STEN score, and a final Scan Zone Score. A shorter form, the Snap Scan Zone, sorts an employee into one of four zones, Star, Unique, Good or Poor, for situations where a decision is needed on an urgent basis and there is no time for the full process.
The method carries a caution worth keeping in view throughout. Personality based assessment is not settled science, and results should sit alongside hard evidence from an employee's actual record rather than replace it. Used this way, the scan gives an organization a defensible, repeatable basis for people decisions that would otherwise rest on impression alone.
