People skills. Business results.

Workplace soft-skills training increased productivity by 13.5%. Gains were stronger on collaborative work and also reached untrained colleagues on treated production lines.

2,703 female garment workers across five Indian factories.

Study scope: One firm and industry; a training intervention, not a hiring-assessment result or a universal productivity gain.

Leadership training showed positive average effects on behaviour at work and results for employees and organisations.

335 independent samples and 26,573 participants; the results-outcome analysis used 78 samples.

Study scope: Mixed study designs and outcomes; this does not establish a universal revenue increase or the effectiveness of candidate assessment.

Some people consistently helped their teams exceed the performance predicted from members’ individual task skills. Social skills helped explain this contribution.

255 participants repeatedly assigned to three-person teams.

Study scope: Short laboratory tasks; the team-player effect was not predicted by personality in this sample. The finding supports observing teamwork, not relying on personality labels alone.

Stores in that group recorded 12.1% higher daily sales relative to controls.

138 Chilean retail stores; managers and sales associates trained together in one treatment group.

Study scope: One retailer and a mixed training package that included sales and product content. The full gain cannot be attributed to soft skills alone.

Top-quartile engagement units had median differences of 23% higher profitability and 18% higher sales productivity versus bottom-quartile units. Turnover was also lower.

736 studies across 347 organisations and 183,806 work units.

Study scope: Work-unit associations, not proof that soft skills alone caused the differences or a forecast of results from Élan.

Psychological safety was positively associated with task performance, learning, information-sharing and engagement.

136 independent samples, more than 22,000 individuals and nearly 5,000 groups.

Study scope: Mostly correlational evidence; psychological safety is a shared working condition, not a fixed personality score or a guarantee of performance.

Destructive leadership was associated with later silence, lower satisfaction and commitment, and stronger intentions to leave.

104 longitudinal studies and 30,314 participants; first published online in 2023.

Study scope: Direction of causality remains complex: reciprocal analyses controlling prior behaviour did not establish a significant leader-to-negative-behaviour effect.

92% believed improving culture would increase company value. Among the 1,130 answering the leadership-time question, 69% said leaders needed to invest more time in culture.

Survey of 1,348 North American executives.

Study scope: Executives’ reported beliefs, not a measured financial return or a comparison of spending priorities.

Changes in how firms selected, motivated and managed people were associated with higher failure risk. Replacing a founder with an outside CEO alone did not show the same pattern.

Young Silicon Valley technology firms; failure analysis covered 154 firms and 28 failures, followed to June 2001.

Study scope: Historical organisational-change evidence, not a test of candidate soft skills. It does not establish that one hire causes business failure or that culture should never change.

In one large service business, the estimated difference between top- and bottom-decile supervisors exceeded the output of an additional worker on a nine-person team.

One technology-enabled service business; 23,878 workers and 1,940 supervisors.

Study scope: An estimated effect in one setting, not a universal multiplier or a test of manager-first assessment.

A study of 58,542 workers found that misconduct-related costs could outweigh the productivity gain from a star performer.

58,542 workers across 11 firms, largely service/BPO settings. Misconduct means termination for egregious policy violations. The cost model included additional colleague turnover.

Study scope: A working paper and context-specific comparison. This does not classify difficult, unfamiliar or disagreeing people as harmful or establish that Élan can predict misconduct.

Public executive indiscretions were associated with weaker operating performance. Events involving CEOs were also associated with fewer new major customers and joint-venture partnerships.

Public executive allegations and indiscretions; 219 distinct events plus 106 related observations.

Study scope: Public events and associations, not the average cost of a bad hire or justification for private-life profiling. Personality assessment is not shown to predict these events.

A study of financial advisers found that exposure to colleagues with misconduct histories increased the propensity for misconduct.

US financial advisers; brokerage mergers used to examine exposure to new colleagues.

Study scope: A specialised financial-sector setting and identification strategy, not a numerical contagion rate for all teams or a personality-based forecast.

In a randomised simulation involving 24 medical teams, exposure to rudeness reduced diagnostic and procedural performance.

24 neonatal intensive-care teams in a simulation, with blinded performance ratings.

Study scope: Simulated medical tasks, not evidence of startup revenue losses or patient mortality, nor proof an assessment can identify a future harmful colleague.

In a survey covering 681 VC firms, 95% considered the management team important in investment selection; 47% named it the most important factor.

885 institutional venture capitalists at 681 firms; firm-level aggregation.

Study scope: Reported investor priorities, not measured causes of portfolio failure or evidence that 95% of investment outcomes depend on team quality.

In a study of 323 new ventures, relationship conflict was negatively associated with performance.

323 new ventures; online publication 2011.

Study scope: An association in a specific model and sample, not a universal failure percentage, a founder diagnosis or an argument for similar personalities.

Eisenmann's Dot & Bo case connects repeated operations-leadership hiring problems with operational disorder and cash consumption, alongside financing conditions.

Dot & Bo case; multiple interacting operational and financing causes. Not a representative statistical estimate.

Study scope: The case contains interacting operational and financing causes; it does not establish losses attributable to one appointment or prevention through assessment.

Structured interviews ranked highest among the selection procedures studied. Earlier estimates were often overstated.

Reassessment of validity estimates across personnel-selection procedures.

Study scope: Supports structured job-related inquiry, not validation of Élan.

Person–job, person–organisation, person–group and person–supervisor fit were examined as distinct layers associated with work outcomes.

172 studies and 836 effect sizes across distinct kinds of fit and work outcomes.

Study scope: Association and context, not a formula proving a particular candidate will succeed.

Narcissism was positively associated with leadership emergence, with no overall linear relationship with effectiveness. Self versus other ratings differed.

Leadership emergence and effectiveness; self-ratings and other-ratings examined.

Study scope: Not all confidence or ambition is narcissism. These findings are not a clinical diagnosis.

Team psychological safety was associated with learning behaviour.

51 work teams.

Study scope: A shared team condition affected by working relationships, not a person’s fixed test score.

Uncontrollable stress can affect attention, working memory and flexible thinking.

Research on stress and prefrontal cortex function.

Study scope: Supports asking about context and pressure; interviews do not measure brain chemistry.