After years of working with hundreds of professionals—across my organization and with partners and leaders around the globe—I’ve developed a belief that might surprise some: if you want to understand how a person thinks, how they lead, and how a project will perform, look at their spreadsheet.

In a recent talk at the Ximus Forum, Dr. Yossi Maaravi, the School Dean and Co-founder of the Adelson School of Entrepreneurship at...