TWC Group :: Press Archive

T. Williams Consulting Teams with Penn Behavioral Health at the University of Pennsylvania to Introduce a Management Team Performance Assessment that Significantly Reduces Investment Risk

Collegeville, PA (September, 2001) – Some 83% of all business start-ups fail, often because of intrinsic weaknesses in their management teams. To improve the probability of success, T. Williams Consulting (TWC) today introduced a psychological assessment tool designed to help management teams overcome weaknesses and position their businesses for long-term success.

TWC’s Management Team Performance Assessments combine the management consulting experience of TWC with top professionals at Penn Behavioral Health of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and applies the rigors of clinical behavioral science to the process of evaluating a successful business start-up. Development of the new service offering is spearheaded by Dr. Jody Foster, the Interim Chair of Psychiatry at Pennsylvania Hospital, who also holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

For investors and venture capitalists, the new program provides a powerful way to clinically assess the competencies of a management team - and the ability of its members to work together successfully - as part of due diligence process before an investment is concluded.

“Within the high-risk, high-pressure environment of a start-up, it is the psychology of the management team that represents the single greatest determinant of success,” says Terry Williams, President and CEO of TWC, the Delaware Valley’s fastest-growing management consulting firm, based in Collegeville, PA. “This evaluation has always been based on gut instinct, assumption and even guesswork—that is, until now.”

Intelligence and expertise represent only a portion of the success equation under these circumstances, according to Dr. Foster. “We’re able to identify the management team’s ability to withstand pressure, work together under constant stress and adapt quickly to change in, what can be, the chaotic environment of starting a business. The program is much more than simply identifying personality types. Rather, it integrates the psychology of the entire team—allowing for one member’s weakness to be supported by another’s strength.”

It is just this kind of understanding that venture capitalists now require in a difficult economy.

“The start-up environment has changed dramatically during the past six months,” says Williams. “We have seen many businesses based strictly on great ideas and technologies struggle to meet expectations. Many of their shortfalls come back to the lack of critical success factors in the management teams at the outset of the business.”

The Management Team Performance Assessment consists of:

A structured assessment administered by Foster’s team of clinical professionals that reveals the nuances of each team member’s personality.

A semi-structured interview that tests individuals for cognitive flexibility as well as baseline intelligence.

An unstructured assessment with a team of trained psychiatric and psychological professionals that identifies personality traits under a range of questioning patterns.

An unstructured group exercise that uncovers team interaction, collaboration potential leadership quotients, and naturally occurring hierarchies of interaction.