Your football franchise has just completed an extensive search to find your new head coach. The sports media is praising your new hire, and he comes in highly touted for his creativity and innovative play-calling abilities. During training camp, he introduces the team to the new playbook, signals to call in plays, formations and blocking schemes. The new coach meets with his staff and he expresses some concerns. His observation is that some players are unwilling or even unable to adapt and adjust to the new offense and defensive philosophy. The coach shares that he believes some players struggle in their team role, or there is a talent gap to achieve team goals. The coach also recognizes that some players are not melding well with their teammates, and they are being vocal or disruptive in the locker rooms about the changes.
The new head coach approaches the team GM and owner to share some of these challenges, talk about possible trades, benching some players or releasing veterans of the organization. But despite his logical and well thought out analysis of team chemistry,the GM tells him he needs to keep the players in the positions they were drafted for, and not change the makeup of the first team. Although the coach had developed a great strategy, not having alignment or buy-in with all facets of the organization,it ultimately leads to a disappointing season that didn’t achieve the desired results.
Achieving the Desired Results
Just like in sports, talent optimization for business doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is informed by business strategy and it produces—or fails to produce if not implemented—desired business results.
Most businesses have some form of a business strategy or plan. But while they may hire consultants,business coaches or participate in CEO forums, they fail to include Talent Optimization as part of the equation. While they may embrace a business strategy that is explicit and clear and believe they have consensus within their leadership staff, they fail to make the plan people-centric with measurable data. This data includes:
1. Behavioral Profiles
2. Cognitive Abilities
3. Employee Engagement
4. Job Performance
5. Organizational and team culture
6. Employee sentiment
Talent Optimization Informs Business Strategy
Consider these quotes for The Ultimate Guide to Talent Optimization; “As a business leader, it’s your job to make sure your company puts your talent into the optimal position to produce your desired business results and beat the competition. The essence of leadership is aligning employees with business strategy—and that begins with taking an intentional and data-driven approach to getting the people part right.”
“Too often, when execs hear the term “people strategy,” they shrug off the responsibility and send it down the hall to human resources. But when it comes to designing and optimizing your most important (and most costly) business asset—your people—passing the buck is also passing up your biggest opportunity to create a truly great organization.”
So how do you assemble world-class teams? That’s where having an objective methodology and system for optimizing talent comes in. “Talent optimization utilizes quantitative data and analytics so you can comprehend job requirements, identify the best candidates, understand the team dynamics needed to accomplish business goals, and manage employees in a way that pushes everyone to the top of their game”
Bottom line: You need to roll up your sleeves and get really good at understanding and capitalizing on your people's data. It’s the best path to maximizing productivity—and crushing the competition.
Organizations tend to build their business strategies, but they often forget to diagnose, design, hire and inspire their teams to achieve the desired results and outcomes. ATG recognizes that we can work with organizations to assist in developing robust and repeatable strategies for Business Development, Supply Chain Excellence,Marketing Strategy and Strategic planning, but if the best-designed plan does not include talent optimization the odds are you might not achieve the desired business results. That is why we have partnered with The Predictive Index to empower our clients to hire top talent, design winning teams, and manage people brilliantly. Contact us today to learn more about the solutions and platforms that will aid you in achieving accelerated tangible growth.
