| Cody |
My name is Cody Carlson. I’m your host for today. I’m a business development manager helping companies across the United States solving any localization problems or challenges they might have. Really excited for today’s guest! We have Vanessa Darling from The Predictive Index. Today we will be talking about what Vanessa does at Predictive Index, what Predictive Index does themselves, how they make a better world and behavioral assessments worldwide. So, with that, let’s let Vanessa introduce herself. |
| Vanessa |
My name is Vanessa Darling. I’m the localization program manager at The Predictive Index, for short to call it PI. I have about over 20 years of experience in the language industry. I graduated in translation and interpreting studies in Paris, France, and this is where I’m from, I’m from France and I have worked in the languages industry in probably all possible capacities for the last 20 years. So, in-house translator, reviewer, terminology specialist, interpreter, project manager, editor and now program manager for software localization, which is fairly new to me. |
| Cody |
Great. Thank you, Vanessa. And we are so glad to have you here today. You’ve obviously had quite a bit of experience in the localization industry. Could you tell us a little bit about what it is The Predictive Index does? |
| Vanessa |
Okay. So, The Predictive Index started as a behavioral assessment provider for HR consulting. And the company was founded probably six decades ago, and it has significantly evolved especially in the last six, seven years. Basically, what it is now—it is a talent optimization company, and this is a category that PI created. And the mission of the company is better work, better world, and they wanna achieve that better work, better world through talent optimization. So, what does that mean? The vision of the company is to basically be the world’s best platform for connecting people strategy and business strategy through talent optimization. So, basically, what this means is companies—businesses—have business problems, which in reality are people problems.
And, The Predictive Index helps to solve these problems through talent optimization, which is a powerful discipline that empowers entire organizations to align the people strategy and the business strategy for the best possible business results. |
| Cody |
What is your scope of localization? |
| Vanessa |
So, scope of localization at PI can be divided into three areas. So, the first one, which is the foundation of PI, which is the behavioral assessment, and later the cognitive assessment was added. So, those two types of assessment are really the foundation and what makes PI really interesting. And the scope is really unique in the sense that we have those assessments is supported into respectively 68 and 71 languages, which is a very unique portfolio. The second part is the software. Those are supported into 20 languages.
Then you have all the training material that we translate for our partners. Those are usually translated into 10 languages. And then there’s also the marketing website, which was translated into five languages. |
| Cody |
We’re talking about the behavioral assessments that you do here at Predictive Index. Obviously, language is different across the entire world. How do your behavioral assessments differ across the globe, and what is the science behind developing surveys that are used worldwide? |
| Vanessa |
Okay. So, the surveys in themselves do not change. And I’m gonna be talking about the behavioral assessment for the most part here, which was what we started with, and I’ll call it BA to make it short. So, the BA does not change. We do not have a separate version. What differs is the way it’s gonna be translated. So, they’ve been translated into 68 languages for the BA. And the BA underwent a very rigorous translation process in accordance with best practices, which include translation, back translation by three separate reviewers, and also additional review to ensure cultural and local appropriateness. Additionally, we conduct validity studies. So, mostly in the US, but also in many other countries, and our assessments, including the translations, are certified by some boards or psychologist associations.
So, for example, it’s been validated by the European Federation of Psychologists Association in Norway and Sweden. And so, what they do is they approve that the terms that have been chosen, picked by us and then translated into are relevant to the culture of their own country. |
| Cody |
I’m curious for everyone listening, characterizing the assessments for us and maybe some of the results that are shown. I know communication style is obviously a big one. In the Midwest, there’s the saying, “Midwestern nice” or “Minnesota nice.” And the East Coast, it’s very to-the-point for the majority. Now, are you seeing communication styles vary across the globe? |
| Vanessa |
So, there will be cultural differences wherever we go. It’s not just by country, but inside your country. So, to your point: But I think what is important to keep in mind at PI—and this is what also makes it different from different types of assessments like the Myers-Briggs, for example—it is based on personality model that looks strictly at workplace behavior. So, not behavior in all areas of life. And I would say this is what makes the BA different from different assessments. So, the BA has been extensively validated for workplace behavior and is also intended for a global audience.
And that means that when we talk about the type of assessment and the fact that it’s valid, it means that it has consistently demonstrated a strong relationship with various performance criteria across jobs, industries and countries. So, it’s not so much about the idiosyncrasies about different regions and cultural aspects. It’s really workplace, work behavior related. |
| Cody |
So then looking at the business as a whole, obviously, there’s a global impact to your business. Your slogan essentially is better work, better world. What does that mean to The Predictive Index? |
| Vanessa |
So better work, better world. The idea if we work better, if we have a better workplace, we simply have better lives and, therefore, a better world. And our approach to better work, better world is through talent optimization, which is a very strong discipline to solve those people problems that most businesses experience. And talent optimization can be divided into four different categories. The first one being design, which drives business results by aligning leadership to a winning strategy. Then the second portion is hire. And, this one is really important, is how we hire the best-fit talent with confidence and fast using people data. Those are BA. Inspire—how to empower managers to build and lead high-performing teams that are gonna be able to champion their culture.
And then the fourth part, which is diagnose. It’s to maximize productivity by identifying the root cause of disengagement and the fastest possible those through basically engagement surveys, etc. So, when you put all this together, this is a way to resolve people problems and to get optimal business results. So that’s, basically, that’s the message of PI as a whole and as a company.
I’m gonna give you an explanation on how the assessment works so that you can understand the key factors and how they function. So, when you take your BA assessment, you’re being given two lists of adjectives. The first list, we ask you to select adjectives that describe the way others expect you or them to act. And, using the second list, we ask you to select words that describe themselves and their own opinion. So how others expect them to ask and then your own opinion. So those are the same adjectives. And each adjective is associated with one of the four key factors that determine workplace behavior. The first one is dominance. The second one is extroversion. The third one is patience, and the fourth is formality.
And they call A, B C and D. A is dominance, B is extroversion, C is patience and D is formality. So, after the people complete the assessment, and depending on the results, we assign them with a reference profile. There are 17 different references profiles. And these reference profiles give you a snapshot of the way that they think and work, without regard to any specific roles. So, we can determine whether a person would do to prepare, for example, before showing up in their office unannounced with a burning question. Some are okay with that, they love the interaction, they’re high B people. So high B people is very high in extroversion, and those people love to be interrupted, you know, in their office. And the ones that are a little low B, they would prefer a little bit of notice, maybe an email, to warn them that we have a question for them and maybe that they would want to prep for it.
So, we have a lot of maverick and captains, which are very high A people. So, people that really love taking the lead move very, very fast, and I’m very happy to delegate, they’re happy to delegate the details to other people who really wanna take care of them.
So, just a matter of respecting everybody’s profile and learn to interact with it, which is really fun actually. |
| Cody |
Are those categories utilized across the world? Do you see certain dominances maybe in areas of the world? Are there any that might stick out in your mind? |
| Vanessa |
So, actually, yes, the collaborator and promoter, which are high B people, so high in extroversion, are the most common profiles in the world. I mean for everybody who took the test. So, those are the dominant, and those profiles are actually the social worker profiles, the people that like to help. So those are dominant. |
| Cody |
Now, when looking at the assessments and, again, you know, taking this back to a worldwide basis, who is translating the assessments, doing the work? And is it more of a translation or transcreation process? |
| Vanessa |
So, I would not say it’s so much transcreation. So localized, I would say, would be the better term for a translation. And so, once it’s localized, then we do those reviews, and back translations that I’ve told you about. And then, finally, the validation is done through our partners, who really are HR professionals and native in the language that they review. So, they really validate, and they tell us if the concept, you know, behind the adjective really conveys.
So, I suppose it would be a hybrid between localization and transcreation. So, culturally adapted, which is basically localized, right? |
| Cody |
Yes, yes. Culturally adapted, localized—more of a hybrid model depending on the content itself. What are some global workplace challenges that PI seeks to resolve? And again, are they different by location or are you seeing a similar trend? |
| Vanessa |
So, there’s definitely workplace challenges wherever we go. They vary per country, per culture, and anyone who has worked in different countries knows that workplace is very much the reflection of a culture. Now, if you’re looking at big picture and not so much of the idiosyncrasies between different work cultures and countries, you really realize, and that’s the reason behind talent optimization, that business problems are often people problems. In every country, the wrong people are hired for a specific job. There’s no team cohesion, and the engagement is very low, which creates significant turnover and, therefore, loss of time and loss of money for businesses. And I think that can be adapted to every single workplace in the world.
So, that’s why PI created the talent optimization so that businesses can actually focus on people strategy, which will help their business strategy. So, talent optimization knows no boundary, it’s for everybody and everyone, everywhere in the world. |
| Cody |
Are you able to elaborate maybe how workplace problems are different in each country? Like, for example, let’s say, the United States versus Europe or versus Asia. |
| Vanessa |
Sorry for French people who are listening to me but, you know, in France maybe you don’t prep as much to a meeting and you tend to be a little bit free-flowing when you arrive and you share ideas, as opposed to the US, where you have more of an agenda, which might be, you know, the same approach in Scandinavian countries or Germany, for example.
So again, those workplace differences—I’m not even gonna call them challenges because they’re just differences—are a reflection of the culture. And when you work there, you just have to be aware of them and you have to adapt if you want to be working with them. Now, to take a step back, using a global tool like talent optimization is just a way to transcend those issues because you’re actually dealing with not so much cultural but workplace behavioral issues. So, you can actually really focus on something that you can all agree on and resolve by doing teamwork style, understanding how your colleague works, how you colleague likes to interact. And those transcend culture and languages, basically. |
| Cody |
I’m curious—what is the most exciting thing that you are working on at PI now? |
| Vanessa |
Dream Teams. This is very, very exciting because it’s very heavy in content. There’s a lot of words and as you know we translate in a lot of languages. So, it’s gonna be the localization of that Dream Team’s project for the software and for the training material, and also for the marketing website. So that’s gonna be a large project that’s gonna keep me busy for the few months to come. |
| Cody |
You had to take a localized approach and see how you are making sure that it’s a successful launch across the world. |
| Vanessa |
Yes, definitely. So, I’m part of the product team, which means that I work with the engineers and also the product managers. So, every time there’s content that’s being developed, it’s submitted to me just to make sure that it is translatable or it’s localizable, in the sense that the concept that we approach, the concept that we use and the terms that we use are not gonna be offensive. You know, just trying to eliminate from the get-go the things that would be unclear. So, try to eliminate basically the black sheep of terms that would just not fly somewhere else. |
| Cody |
Well, we thank you so much for your time. |
| Vanessa |
Thank you so much, Cody. Thank you for having me. |
