What CEOs Should Measure Next: From Assessing People to Assessing Conditions

Summary

For decades organisations have relied on individual-focused tools — personality tests, engagement surveys, 360 feedback — to answer the question: who are our people? Leo Bottary argues CEOs should add a complementary lens: measure the conditions that shape how people behave at work. Condition-based assessments examine the shared environment — norms, peer dynamics, psychological safety and implicit rewards — rather than labelling individuals. Drawing on Lewin’s field theory and Amy Edmondson’s work on psychological safety, the article explains that improving conditions often produces bigger, more sustainable performance gains than focusing on individual deficits alone. Bottary highlights Peernovation’s Peer Dynamics Profile as an example of a tool designed to surface peer-driven influences and to shift conversations from blame to system redesign.

The key takeaway: use both lenses. Individual assessments give depth; condition-based assessments give leverage. Together they reveal who people are and what they are responding to — enabling leaders to redesign systems so capable people can perform together.

Key Points

Traditional assessments answer “Who are our people?” — they expose preferences, skills and tendencies useful for coaching and role alignment.
Condition-based assessments ask “What environment are our people operating in?” — focusing on norms, peer influence and psychological safety.
Behaviour is a function of person plus environment — Lewin’s field theory and Edmondson’s research on psychological safety underpin the approach.
Peer dynamics often set the real rules of behaviour long before leaders intervene; measuring them surfaces hidden constraints and incentives.
Condition-focused data shifts the follow-up conversation from fixing people to redesigning systems and shared practices.
Best practice is integration: combine individual and condition assessments so leaders can coach people and redesign conditions that enable collective performance.

Why should I read this?

Want less finger-pointing and faster, stickier improvement? This piece is for busy leaders who’d rather fix the system than keep fixing the same people. It’s short, practical and gives you a clear nudge: measure the conditions your teams share and you’ll get more bang for your development buck.