SCANNER FREEMONT / Data Analyst
Freemont is responsible for the digital conversion of survey responses while adhering to strict quality standards set forth by its managers. Freemont began its career at TruScore in 1996 as a Data Analyst and quickly became pivotal to TruScore's success. As the years passed, Freemont has slowly matured into part-time Data Analyst while also holding many positions in the work environment including On The Floor, On The Empty Desk, and Hold The Door (AKA Hodor).
RON SACCHI / Master Coach
A former Operations Manager in the High Tech Industry, Ron Sacchi brings decades of leadership and management experience to the organizational development and the executive coaching arena. An energetic thought-leader with a track record of success in all areas of Human Capital development, he has consulted and coached managers in start-ups, joint-ventures, high tech, pharmaceuticals, and media. Because of his business acumen and creative approaches to behavioral change, he is respected in the HR community specifically for the ability to direct, motivate, influence and inspire leaders to improve performance.
Holding an MBA from Saint Mary’s College, Mr. Sacchi is also licensed in various management, leadership and psychological profiling tools.
CARLANN FERGUSSON / Master Coach
Carlann inspires leaders to reconnect to their individual purpose and lead with contagious energy. She ensures leaders gain deep self-awareness and eliminate self-sabotaging behaviors. Her guidance is based on coaching, training and selecting hundreds of executives across diverse companies as well as her own journey into the executive ranks.
Carlann is the author of the highly acclaimed book The Insightful Leader: Find Your Superpowers, Crush Limiting Beliefs and Abolish Self-Sabotaging Behaviors (Praeger, June 2018). She holds a master’s degree in Industrial-Organizational Psychology. Her thirty years of experience include leadership roles in Fortune 500s, the private sector, and the U.S. Government. Carlann has been a featured guest on ABC News Radio, Wharton Business Radio and has been cited in CBS MoneyWatch, International Business Times, Newsday and Workday.
DR CHUCH MELTZER / Master Coach
Dr. Chuck Meltzer is a Master Coach and President of the SynTECGroup, an organizational development consulting firm. As an executive coach, he draws on his training at a doctoral level in psychology, direct senior management experience and management consulting with a wide cross section of industries. He has developed an extensive series of strategies to assist leaders in creating organizational wide and personal change. Dr. Meltzer has a decade of direct senior management experience and 20 years’ experience functioning within his consulting and coaching practice. His coaching approach is solution focused and time framed. Based on determined goals, a personally customized approach to the process has enabled his clients to realize sustainable change in a manner that allows them to enhance their effectiveness and success as leaders within their organization.
Dr. Meltzer is certified and a master trainer in several coaching assessment tools that he employs within his practice.
ERIN HIRSCHLAND / Master Coach
Erin is an organization development expert with nearly two decades experience serving organizations of all sizes across industries on a broad range of issues. Working with leadership teams, she helps articulate an actionable vision and corresponding values, connecting these to organizational strategy, execution and results. Her tools of choice include senior team retreats, one-on-one executive coaching and proven survey and related instruments.
Erin’s additional expertise includes designing employee selection systems, developing performance management tools that increase performance across the organization over time and employee and customer experience metrics. An effective facilitator and coach, Erin works with leaders and their teams to build trust, commitment and results.
She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Master of Arts degree in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from the University of Colorado.
SONYA D HAMILTON / Senior Assessment Consultant
Sonya is a Senior Assessment Consultant at TruScore with over 24 years of experience designing and delivering 360 feedback solutions and providing 360-based coaching, training and interpretation.
Sonya has extensive experience working with Managers and Leaders, guiding them through the feedback and development journey and providing insights and direction to help maximize their impact within the organization. Sonya’s areas of expertise include 360-based coaching, 360 data analysis and interpretation, Train-the-Trainer certifications, facilitation, survey & questionnaire design, and the design and delivery of assessment programs.
Sonya has a Bachelor’s degree in psychology and a Master’s of Science degree in Industrial & Organization Psychology from Springfield College with a specialty in Counseling and Psychological Services. She is a Master Trainer for TruScore and the Clark Wilson Task Cycle surveys receiving a Certificate of Achievement in “How to Train a Trainer”. In addition, Sonya is certified to administer a variety of other psychometric instruments including employee engagement and organizational instruments as well as the line of Hogan Personality Assessments.
KAYLEY MOTZ / Assessment Advisor
Kayley draws on her extensive customer service background to provide clients with prompt, quality support. In her role as Assessment Advisor, Kayley works to ensure clients’ needs are being met. She assists in project set up and management, as well as processing and quality checking feedback reports. Kayley also aids in the execution of the day-to-day responsibilities of the production team, such as coaching session scheduling and tech support.
CRYSTAL HUGHES / Assessment Advisor
Crystal leverages her extensive background in Industrial-Organizational (I-O) psychology as she manages the day-to-day operational and tactical aspects of multiple and large scale projects for TruScore.
Crystal assists clients with setting up and managing feedback projects, and serves as the point of contact throughout the entire process. She quality checks feedback reports, and provides tech support when needed.
ELLIE SOLOMON / Assessment Advisor
Ellie manages project implementation for the entire 360 assessment feedback process and ensures that each client’s unique needs are met on time and in an efficient manner. Ellie consults with clients who use TruScore’s off-the-shelf Task Cycle® instruments as well as providing hosting solutions for clients using their own survey content, including custom processes and reports. She helps clients navigate through the TruScore® survey hosting software, having literally written the handbook that several clients are using.
She coordinates and implements all translation efforts, including soliciting bids, managing timelines, providing files to the translation companies, implementing translations for the web pages, and testing.
ULLA WESTERMANN / Software Engineer
Ulla uses her years of experience as a software engineer to maintain and add new features to TruScore's applications. She also helps with customizing feedback reports based on client needs.
HANK CURTIS / Business Development Manager
Hank manages and assists in the analyzing, planning, research, and development of TruScore’s objectives and strategic plans in order to achieve business opportunities, growth, and financial profitability.
Hank drives the expansion of TruScore’s direct sales, establishes relationships with TruScore’s clients, identifies clients, and keeps up-to-date on industry trends and client developments.
TAYLOR BRANTON / Bookkeeper
Taylor is responsible for managing payroll and employee fringe benefits programs, in addition to organizing company gatherings and outings. Taylor oversees day to day accounting needs as it relates to client invoicing, accounts payable, and general compliance requirements. She also has a hand in month, quarter, and year end reports and works closely with the CEO and CTO to furnish details necessary to make accurate business projections and decisions.
KURT BLAZEK / Design Director
Kurt uses a unique blend of strategic thinking with dynamic executions to create TruScore’s visual and interactive design. He is responsible for creating, evolving, and sustaining the company’s brand to internal and external stakeholders through multiple mediums. He oversees all of TruScore’s digital strategies, along with the implementation of social media tools and techniques.
Kurt leverages TruScore’s marketing and messaging information to identify, evaluate, and apply methods to maximize the effectiveness of the search campaigns across all of the major search engines. He tracks and measures the ROI of search engine rankings, direct print, and marketing websites.
JOSH SHEETS / Chief Operations Officer
Josh is responsible for all day-to-day aspects of managing the operations and various functional areas including business development, sales and marketing, client delivery, vendor relations, human resources, and IT.
Josh helps to ensure outstanding customer service, and the administration of long-term and day-to-day business processes that complement the delivery of high quality, innovative customer-focused survey tools, assessments and hosted survey offerings.
TOM KUHNE / Managing Partner and CTO
Tom joined TruScore in 1995 and has served in a number of roles, including Data Analyst, IS Manager, and VP & CIO. In his current role as Managing Partner and CTO, Tom is the driving force behind TruScore's technology vision for the present and the future. He manages all aspects of TruScore’s information systems, ensuring all systems meet the highest functionality and security standards.
Tom enjoys working hand in hand with clients and partners to make sure TruScore® delivers the technology and advancement that has become expected of it as a leader in the online assessment marketplace.
DEREK MURPHY / Chief Executive Officer
Derek joined TruScore in 1996 and has served in a number of roles, including Data Analyst, Operations Manager, and President & COO. In his current role as CEO, he is responsible for planning and implementing the strategic direction of the company. In addition, Derek is involved in product development and overseeing the day-to-day business operations for TruScore.
TruScore founder Dr. Daniel Booth, a pioneer in the field of assessment of leadership and management skills, served as a mentor to Derek for more than a decade. During this time, Derek became certified on TruScore’s full line of management and leadership assessments. He currently uses these skills to lead content debriefings with customers and partners on a regular basis.
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Radical Candor, by Kim Scott. NY: St. Martin’s Press. 2017. 232 pages.
Kim Scott starts her excellent management book by telling a story about one of her employees in the first company she owned. “Bob” was a kind, funny, caring, and supportive colleague. There was just one problem: his work was terrible. She liked Bob, and didn’t want to come down too hard on him. So she didn’t tell him how bad his work was, or how his poor work affected the rest of the team. She didn’t tell him how much he was screwing up. The rest of the team covered for him, and morale suffered.
Eventually, she had to fire him. But it was too late. The dysfunctional team had gotten such poor results that, before long, the entire company failed.
This situation resulted in dire consequences, but it led Scott to try to understand what had happened. Over time, she developed a management philosophy that she calls “Radical Candor.” This is what happens when a manager puts “caring personally” with “challenging directly” together.
Managers need to get to know their direct reports. They can’t know everyone in the company well, but they can share more than just their work selves with the people who report directly to them. “It’s not just business; it is personal, and deeply personal,” says Scott.
Managers also need to be willing to tell people when their work isn’t good enough, and when it is. According to Scott, challenging people is often the best way to show them that you care when you’re the boss.
These two dimensions, when combined well, result in Radical Candor. “When people trust you and believe you care about them, they are much more likely to 1) accept and act on your praise and criticism; 2) tell you what they really think about what you are doing well and, more importantly, not doing so well; 3) engage in this same behavior with one another, meaning less pushing the rock up the hill again and again; 4) embrace their role on the team; and 5) focus on getting results.”
The first section of the book describes the philosophy behind Radical Candor and goes into depth about the lessons Scott learned while working as a mid-level manager at Google, Apple, and other companies. For example, “Care Personally” and “Challenge Directly” can result in Radical Candor, if combined well, but they can also result in Ruinous Empathy, Manipulative Insincerity, or Obnoxious Aggression if combined poorly. She explains how to avoid the negative aspects of this combination, and tells anecdotes about mistakes she and others made before they got Radical Candor correct.
The book’s second section gives detailed suggestions for how to employ Radical Candor. These suggestions are interesting and helpful, both for new and experienced managers.
One of my favorite sections is about how to fire a poorly performing employee. In terms of knowing when it’s time to fire them, Scott asks: Have you given Radically Candid guidance? How is the person’s poor performance affecting the rest of the team? Have you sought out a second opinion, spoken to someone whom you trust and with whom you can talk the problem through?
If you have considered all these, you will need to think about the lies managers tell themselves to avoid firing somebody who needs to be fired. These include: it will get better, somebody is better than nobody, a transfer is the answer, and it’s bad for morale to fire someone.
When you have considered these lies, and you still need to fire that person, the way you do it matters. It’s important to feel the pain that is inherent in the situation, to recall a job that you were terrible at and think how glad you feel that you’re no longer in it. When you fire someone, you create the possibility for the person to excel and find happiness performing meaningful work elsewhere. Just because the person isn’t good at this job doesn’t mean there isn’t another job out there they could be great at.
Every organization has a process for firing people, and it’s important to follow that completely. The process usually involves consulting with human resources, your peers, and your own manager about what you are doing. When you do fire the person, make sure to show that you care about him/her while you also explain exactly why you are terminating their employment. Scott emails people she has fired about a month later, just to check in. She tries to find them jobs for which they are better suited. Even if that doesn’t happen, she keeps in touch.
The book includes many practical suggestions for how to create and implement Radical Candor in your team. The writing is clear, and the author’s thoughtfulness and caring are demonstrated on every page. Radical Candor offers a guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, and it is written for bosses and anyone who has a boss.
