What is ghSMART?
ghSMART is the management assessment firm for CEOs and investors. Founded in 1995, our mission has always been to use our expertise in human behavior to help CEOs and investors build valuable companies.
What do you do for clients?
ghSMART is the brand of trusted advisor that helps clients answer their most important business questions. These are questions not of “what”, but of “who.” We are able to achieve very high client satisfaction by leveraging our team of talented experts in human behavior (1 in 500 applicants to ghSMART is hired), our proprietary branded methods (featured in a Harvard Business School case study), and the largest relevant database in existence of CEO and investor performance (a database described as “coveted” by the Wall Street Journal 11/19/2007).
We specialize in management assessment for pre-hire decisions at the CEO and board levels, private equity and corporate M&A management due diligence, M&A integration, CEO succession, board effectiveness, organizational performance improvement, senior management team performance feedback, and executive learning and development to maximize career success and financial performance.
Who are your clients?
Our clients are exclusively people who run or own businesses. Click here for client list.
What are the branded methods you typically use in engagements?
- SmartAssessment®: An intensive, fact-based process of identifying the right person to achieve a specific set of strategic outcomes to drive the financial performance of a business.
- SmartFeedback®: A process for identifying key performance criteria for a team and then collecting in-depth data from interviews with management team members, the CEO, subordinates, board members, and where appropriate suppliers and customers to identify a management team’s strengths and weaknesses and identify priorities to improve financial performance.
- SmartCoaching®: A process designed to help CEOs and investors improve their performance and achieve their career goals through customized, ongoing, individual and/or team-based performance coaching. This includes “onboarding” new CEOs, conflict resolution, and other senior team facilitations to identify and accomplish key business outcomes.
- ghSMART Executive Learning™: ghSMART Executive Learning helps CEOs and investors train their managers on valuable leadership skills. We leverage our research and experience in The A Method for Hiring™, a management system we pioneered.
Are you a search firm?
No. We often work in collaboration with search firms. However, it would be a conflict of interest for us to deliver objective management assessments if we had competing priorities to also sell search projects and recruit talent away from companies.
Who owns ghSMART?
ghSMART is 100% owned by its employees. Our clients trust our objectivity because we are not a part of a larger corporation or an appendage of a larger professional services firm. And as a privately-held firm, we have no public market pressure to achieve quarterly financial targets. The employee owners of ghSMART are interested in building the most respected brand in the industry over the long run.
How do you price your services?
ghSMART does not bill by the hour or project. Each engagement is tailor-made to deliver a specific outcome for a client at a price that is proportionate to the value delivered. Client satisfaction is guaranteed or your fee will be refunded.
What is the connection between ghSMART and Topgrading®?
Geoff Smart of ghSMART and Brad Smart of Smart & Associates co-created Topgrading® in 1997. In their landmark 1997 article “Topgrading the Organization” Geoff Smart and Brad Smart use the word Topgrading for the first time, and define the concept as “the process of proactively seeking out and employing the most talented people available, while redeploying (internally or externally) those of lesser ability or performance.” The four elements of Topgrading are:
- Proactively searching out and identifying A players (from within or outside of the firm).
- Using the most advanced and rigorous selection methods to make fewer mistakes and hire and promote only A players.
- Improving the existing human capital by providing employees with developmental training, and/or redeploying low performers into roles in which they can excel.
- Requiring subordinate managers at all levels to embrace the Topgrading approach for the creation of their teams.
For many years the two firms shared 50/50 the rights to this trademark. In 2011, the exclusive rights to this trademark were sold by ghSMART to Brad Smart.
How do I become a client?
If you own or run a large business, just contact any ghSMART consultant nearest you, and we will listen to what you would like to accomplish. Please click here for contact information.
How do I apply for a job?
If you are a top quartile performer in a professional services firm, please schedule an interview. Please click here to discuss joining our team.
