How Behavioral Assessment Helps Build Stronger Teams

For many business owners, the hardest part of running a company is not the product, the sales process, or even the finances. It’s the people. In a recent episode of MindShare, Kevin Chern sat down with Lenny LaCour and Dr. Robert Heller of Trust Well Network to explore why human capital creates so many challenges for growing businesses, and how behavioral assessment can help leaders build stronger, more effective teams. From the start, the conversation frames workforce issues not as occasional frustrations, but as one of the most persistent obstacles business owners face every day.

Lenny and Robert make it clear that the best way to build high-performing teams is to understand the workforce’s personality, behavior, and thinking style. As Lenny explained, “If you know what motivates people, then you can bring them to their highest successes.” Consistently successful teams are created by leaders who understand their people more deeply and place them in roles where their strengths translate into performance.

Personality is not the same as behavior

One of the most important ideas in the conversation is that personality and behavior aren’t the same thing. As Robert explained, personality is the more stable part of who a person is. It reflects the traits they naturally bring into the world and the environments in which they are most likely to thrive. Behavior, by contrast, is how a person acts in a given setting, and it can be shaped through experience, expectations, and training. A shy person, for example, can learn to present confidently or interact more effectively, but that does not necessarily change their underlying personality. Leaders need to understand this distinction so they can place their people in situations where they are most likely to succeed. While it’s possible to train someone on behaviors that differ from their personality, people typically perform better when the two are aligned.

The discussion also adds a third layer many employers overlook: thinking style. Lenny pointed out that it’s not enough to evaluate how someone seems to behave on the surface. Leaders also need to understand how a person processes information, what motivates them, and how they are likely to respond under pressure. That distinction matters because businesses often hire or promote people based on what they can see in an interview or on a resume, while missing the deeper factors that influence long-term success. When leaders understand personality, behavior, and thinking style together, they are much better positioned to place people where they can perform well, rather than forcing them into roles that may never fit.

Why teams underperform: the problem is often role fit, not the person

When teams struggle, or individuals underperform, it can be easy to assume they simply aren’t good enough for the job. However, one of the key points from the conversation is that underperformance is often not about a lack of talent. In many cases, the person may be highly capable, but they are placed in a role that does not align with their strengths.

One example raised in the discussion was the common practice of promoting a top-performing salesperson into a sales management role. On the surface, that may seem like the logical next step. In reality, the two roles require very different skill sets. A strong salesperson may thrive on relationship-building, momentum, and pursuing new opportunities, while a manager often needs to focus on structure, oversight, coaching, and accountability. This can also create a trickle-down effect. When someone struggles in a management role, it becomes harder for the team to succeed, which can hurt the whole business. When someone is moved into a position that does not fit their personality, thinking style, or behavioral tendencies, performance can suffer, not because they are incapable, but because they are being asked to succeed in the wrong seat.

That is why role fit is so important. It can be difficult to identify, but getting it right is essential to building effective teams. When people are placed in roles that match how they think, what motivates them, and how they are most likely to perform, success becomes far more attainable for both the individual and the organization.

Team performance is a system problem

When people are repeatedly placed in roles that aren’t the right fit, the issue goes beyond any one employee. It points to a system problem inside the company. In other words, the organization may rely too heavily on resumes, interviews, or instinct, while lacking a consistent way to identify the personality, thinking style, and behavioral tendencies that make someone well-suited for a specific role or team. As Kevin put it in the discussion, team performance problems often reflect a “people system problem.”

Part of the challenge is that interviews can only reveal so much. As Robert explained, “Anybody can look up, for a job, how you’re supposed to behave. And I could fake it for an hour in front of the company that I want to get the job.” That is why Lenny and Dr. Heller emphasize the need for a stronger assessment system.

Rather than relying on guesswork, their approach is designed to help organizations understand how people are wired, where they fit best, and how to build teams with a clearer purpose and stronger alignment. Their model looks at more than personality alone. It also considers how people think, how they are likely to act, and how those traits connect to different role categories and team structures. The goal is to give leaders a practical tool for placing people where they can succeed and for building teams that function more effectively.

When team construction is driven by assumptions, it’s no surprise that performance suffers. But when a company uses a more intentional system to match people to roles, strengthen team design, and support employee development, outcomes improve for everyone. The business performs better, and individuals are more likely to be placed in roles where they can thrive rather than struggle in the wrong seat.