Signature II · The Organisation
SignatureIQ : OBS
Organisation Behaviour SignatureBuilds the baseline first. Then measures fit against it.
OBS reads how your organisation actually behaves, drawn from your own people. That becomes your behavioural baseline. Every candidate is then read on the same dimensions and placed against it, so fit stops being a feeling and becomes something you can see.
Every organisation says what it values. Its people show how it behaves.
Why It Matters
You cannot measure fit against something you have never measured.
Most assessments begin with the individual and compare them to a general standard. But fit is never general. The same person can flourish in one organisation and struggle in the next, with no change in ability at all. What changes is the organisation around them. OBS starts there.
Fit is not universal
There is no single right way to behave at work. There is only the way your organisation works, and how closely a person's signature sits beside it.
Values describe aspiration
Culture statements say what an organisation hopes to be. The baseline shows what it is today, in the everyday behaviour of its people.
Without a baseline, instinct decides
When nobody has measured how the organisation behaves, "culture fit" becomes a matter of opinion. The baseline replaces opinion with a reference point.
How It Works
Two phases. The order is the idea.
Both phases read the same fourteen behavioural dimensions, from how quickly an organisation moves to how it learns. Because the language is identical, the organisation and the candidate can be placed side by side.
Phase I
The Baseline
Your own people respond to everyday working situations. Their answers, taken together, form the organisation's behavioural signature.
- Built at the level of the whole organisation
- Refined by role, department or location wherever enough people respond for it to be reliable and to keep individuals anonymous
- Checked for consistency before it is accepted
Phase II
The Candidate
Each candidate responds on the same fourteen dimensions. Their signature is then read against the baseline that matters for the role.
- Opens only once the baseline is in place
- Every dimension completed; no partial reports
- Read against the most specific baseline available
A Glimpse of One Dimension
Collaboration
How much does work move through people together, rather than through individuals on their own? Some organisations decide in the room, together. Others trust individuals to carry things alone. Neither is better. But a person who works one way will feel the other.
An illustrative reading. Switch views to compare.
The organisation · Strong
Work here moves through people. Decisions are shaped together, information is shared early and colleagues expect to be consulted before anything significant changes.
The Fit Score
Fit is a distance. OBS lets you see it.
Across all fourteen dimensions, the distance between a candidate and the baseline comes together in one overall score, described in plain words. Every dimension counts equally. Which dimensions matter most for a particular role is the organisation's judgement, not the instrument's.
Near-Identical Profile
90–100%Close Profile
75–89%Moderate Distance
55–74%Wide Distance
35–54%Substantial Distance
0–34%A distance is not a judgement. A candidate at Wide Distance may be exactly what an organisation needs in order to change. The score shows the gap; the organisation decides what the gap means.
How Dimensions Combine
Behaviour is never one dimension at a time.
OBS also reads how dimensions work together. Certain pairs pull against each other, strengthen each other or depend on each other. Reading them in pairs reveals patterns no single dimension can show.
Tension
Two behaviours that naturally pull in different directions. When both are high, the organisation holds a productive tension.
Amplifier
Two behaviours that magnify each other. Together they become far more visible than either would be alone.
Dependency
One behaviour that relies on another to deliver. When the support is missing, the first struggles to show its full value.
What the Reports Give
Two reports. One shared language.
Phase I Report
The organisation's signature
- A behavioural profile across all fourteen dimensions
- A clear description of each dimension's reading
- How the organisation's dimensions combine
- A mirror the leadership team can recognise and discuss
Phase II Report
The candidate against the baseline
- The candidate's signature and the baseline, side by side
- Where they sit close, and where the distance is wider
- The overall Fit Score, in plain words
- How the candidate's own dimensions combine
What it does
- Measures the organisation before it measures anyone else
- Places every candidate against a real reference point
- Shows fit as a visible distance, dimension by dimension
- Describes, in neutral language, without judgement
What it deliberately does not do
- Tell the organisation whom to hire
- Decide which dimensions matter more for a role
- Judge the organisation's own behaviour as right or wrong
- Improvise interpretation; every word is pre-written
Fit is not a feeling.
It is a distance you can see.