The GC Index: How to stop making the wrong hire (even when the candidate seems perfect)
I’ve made bad hires.
Not because the person wasn’t smart or incapable. Not because they didn’t interview well or have compelling proof of past success. In a couple of cases, it was because I hired someone whose energy for impact was misaligned with the role, our culture and my leadership style.
It’s painful to see how often President’s Club performers fall flat on their face in new environments and under different leaders.
That’s why I’m a certified GC Index Partner AKA GCologist.
Since adopting the GC Index, I’ve learned a lot about who can be successful working with me. It has helped me understand hiring mistakes and prevents me from repeating them.
If you’re working out how to hire top producers, the GC Index helps to look beyond past success resumes and interviews. You need to understand the type of contribution someone is naturally wired to make, and whether your leadership and environment will bring the best out of them.
It’s a psychometric assessment that measures a person’s energy for impact. It helps you understand how someone naturally creates value, where they’ll thrive, how they work with others and what will frustrate them.
Used properly, it’s one of the clearest ways I know to avoid the most expensive hiring mistake: that game changer hire with all the awards and accolades you could wish for who turns out to be a total misfit in your company.
What the GC Index is (and what it isn’t)
The GC Index focuses on what’s most important for productivity. It doesn’t tell you whether someone is “dominant”, “influential”, or “extroverted”. I don’t even think personality types matter very much for what we do - I’ve seen a full range of people be successful in leadership, sales and recruiting.
It tells you what is actually useful. You learn the kind of contribution someone is wired to make when they’re productive. It also tells you the situations that fight against their natural strengths and diminish their productivity.
This is a key issue in hiring practices today which over-index on experience and under-index on fit.
The five profiles
The GC Index groups people into five profiles. None of them are better than the others. The value comes from knowing which profiles you already have in the business, the profiles you need, and building a team where the profiles complement each other.
Here’s a simple way to think about them:
Game Changer
Energy for transformation.
Thrives when something needs to be invented, broken down or rebuilt by thinking way outside the box.
Gets frustrated in environments where the goal is “business as usual”, “keep it steady” or “don’t rock the boat”.
Strategist
Energy for thinking, planning, and setting direction.
Thrives when the business needs clarity, options, and a commercially viable path.
Gets frustrated when there’s no space to think and everything is reactive.
Implementer
Energy for building and executing systems.
Thrives when there’s a clear plan that needs turning into reality.
Gets frustrated with frequent change.
Polisher
Energy for improving, refining, and raising standards.
Thrives when quality matters and detail makes the difference.
Gets frustrated in chaotic environments where “good enough” is the default.
Playmaker
Energy for people, momentum, and getting things moving.
Thrives in roles that need influence, connection, and pace.
Gets frustrated in siloed environments where communication is poor.
Why this matters for hiring
If your business doesn’t need change, you should think twice before hiring a Game Changer.
Not because they aren’t good. Because that’s where their energy is. They’ll try to change things anyway. In a stable environment, that creates friction. They feel constrained. The team feels disrupted. The hire looks like a problem, when the real issue is misalignment.
Equally, if your business genuinely needs transformation, don’t hire an Implementer. If you hire someone whose energy is to execute an existing blueprint, you’ll get another kind of failure. They’ll keep asking for clarity you don’t yet have. They’ll want stability you can’t offer.
This is the point: you don’t just hire a person, you hire a type of productivity.
A quick way to use this in a real hiring decision
Before you start searching, ask two questions:
Do we know what kind of productivity will get us to where we want to go?
Do we know what energy for impact is missing in our team?
If you’re in a stage where you need experimentation, learning, and new approaches, you’re likely to need more energy for change.
If you’re in a stage where the strategy is sound and the goal is repeatable performance, you’re likely to need energy for execution and consistency.
Once you’re clear on that, the GC Index becomes a practical tool:
It helps you shortlist for the right contribution.
It helps you interview with more precision.
It helps you onboard properly because you understand what will motivate someone and what will drain them.
It’s not just about individuals, it’s about teams
Most hiring failures aren’t single-person failures.
You can simply hire five smart people with great billing history and expect the past to repeat itself. If they all bring the same type of energy, things can go wrong. For example, a team full of imagination can struggle to execute. A team full of implementers can lead your business in the wrong direction fast.
The GC Index gives you a language to spot those gaps and build a balanced team.
Why I can interpret it (and why that matters)
I’m accredited to interpret the GC Index. That means when someone takes the assessment, I don’t just send a report and leave you to guess.
I run a follow-up session to translate it into practical decisions:
what the profile means for the role you’re hiring
what kind of management style will get the best out of them
where the risks are, and how to set them up for success
how this person fits into the team you already have
It’s also a tool we use internally too. It can surface why two capable people are clashing, and what to change so they work better together.
If you’re hiring soon and you want to reduce risk, talk to me about the GC Index assessment.
If you’re looking for a truly different approach to hiring sales people and recruiters, this conversation would be a great ste in understanding why Lyle Alexander is a uniquely partner. It helps us get clear on who you are and the profiles you actually need, before we go to market searching for President’s Club as a keyword.