ParkerGale Capital
When Chicago-based private equity firm ParkerGale Capital first formed, the partners knew that investing in founder-owned B2B software businesses meant investing in leadership—including their own. The firm’s mission was to build cultures that would last, and the partners understood that culture begins with leadership.
For a data-driven organization that aims to create a legacy of building cultures that last, Hogan has become a critical component of ParkerGale’s ability to achieve its mission. To better understand how their leaders would develop teams and drive culture, the partners sought help from psychologist Steve Julius. They knew Julius had the expertise with science-driven leadership development to take them to the next level. He rose to the challenge. He knew exactly what the ParkerGale team needed to achieve executive team cohesion and optimal performance, both internally and in each and every portfolio company they would invest in.
Julius was familiar with Hogan’s assessments from his previous work—which spanned other private equity firms, Fortune 500 companies, and professional sports teams—and knew the assessments to be both valid and reliable. But it wasn’t just about the science. Julius knew Hogan would take the time to understand ParkerGale’s unique needs.
“In the time that I would spend with the Hogan professional personnel, in terms of tailoring the Hogan for the particular client that they were working with, I found them to be very amenable and helpful in the partnering process,” said Julius.
Inside the Firm
For ParkerGale, personality held the key to harnessing the firm’s competitive advantage in the private equity marketplace.
After everyone at the firm completed Hogan’s assessments, they discovered that they excelled in one particular area when compared to other private equity firms: Interpersonal Sensitivity, a scale on the Hogan Personality Inventory that concerns being warm, diplomatic, friendly, and kind. In an industry known for being competitive and driven by the bottom line, the firm’s partners knew that they needed to leverage this quality.
“We've really leaned into this,” said Jimmy Holloran, a partner at ParkerGale. “We've almost started calling it our firm's superpower. What we do to harness this superpower is we build community and deep enduring relationships with our management teams.”
For a data-driven organization that aims to create a legacy of building cultures that last, Hogan has become a critical component of ParkerGale’s ability to achieve its mission.
“The Hogan team really gets us,” said Holloran.
We build community and deep enduring relationships with our management teams.
Jimmy Holloran | Partner, ParkerGale Capital
Inside the Portfolio
Since ParkerGale and Hogan began collaborating, the relationship has evolved. At first, the plan was to use the Hogan assessments to learn how portfolio companies’ leaders perform on a day-to-day basis and how they handle themselves under adversity. Today, Hogan’s assessments help ParkerGale take an even more strategic approach to understanding its current and future management teams.
“Our management teams are one of our most, if not our most important asset,” said Holloran. “What is a software business? It's a little bit of real estate, it's the code, and it's the people that write and sell that code.”
Pre-Investment
During the due diligence process, all of the potential portfolio company’s executives complete the Hogan assessments and receive personalized feedback on their results. This approach allows ParkerGale to get a sense of how the executives are likely to perform as part of a private equity endeavor and gain insight into the types of cultures they are likely to create. Hogan helps ease the potential portfolio companies’ leaders through this process.
“It can be a scary thing to go through an assessment like this when you are in the process of being hired for an executive role, or when there's diligence happening and you’re about to be acquired,” said Holloran. “I find Hogan’s consulting team really humanizes the process.”
Post-Investment
Once the acquisition has been made, the portfolio company executives participate in a team development workshop. In this setting, the individualized feedback the leaders received in the pre-investment phase serves to help them each explore their role in relation to team dynamics. Together, the leaders can discuss how they’re inclined to communicate with each other, consider potential obstacles to their collaboration, and identify the shared values that will inform their team culture. Because ParkerGale investments often blend incumbent leaders and new leaders, the team workshop is essential not only to accelerate executive team cohesion, but also to mitigate risk for the firm.
Time is of the essence and an important competitive advantage. As Holloran put it, “In the private equity world every year, every quarter makes a difference. The more quickly the teams can understand one another, the more quickly they can do the work to build cohesion, the quicker we can get to growing the businesses.”
“Hogan has brought an intangible type of value to ParkerGale and the portfolio companies that we invest in,” said Julius.
Hogan has brought an intangible type of value to ParkerGale and the portfolio companies that we invest in.
Steve Julius | Consulting Psychologist, ParkerGale Capital
About Hogan
As an international authority in the science of personality, leadership, and job performance, Hogan specializes in helping organizations respond to complex talent management challenges with reliable, scientifically validated approaches.
Using data-driven talent insights, Hogan helps organizations around the globe align applicant skills and job roles, improve retention, develop leaders who will create and sustain high-performing teams, cultivate inclusive and equitable organizational cultures, and inspire people to do their best.
Hogan’s personality assessments are the industry standard for predicting future job performance among working adults across industries and around the world. We believe assessment has a practical job to do: improving overall business performance through people.
Grounded in more than 40 years of psychological research, Hogan’s comprehensive suite of talent acquisition and development solutions are based on three core personality assessments:
Hogan Personality Inventory
A measure of everyday personality characteristics that influence a leader’s ability to achieve career goals, build effective teams, and develop future leaders.
Hogan Development Survey
A measure of counterproductive personality characteristics that have the potential to derail the performance of otherwise effective and long-lasting leaders.
Motives, Values, Preferences Inventory
A measure of core values, motives, and unconscious biases that drive leaders’ behavior, thus determining the kind of culture they create for their teams.