October…. When I say “October”, I bet it brings different thoughts or feelings to different people. Maybe your senses automatically go to pumpkin-spice-everything or warm apple crisp, maybe you automatically hear the crunch of fall leaves. October brings a lot of feelings because it’s a season of change and new beginnings. But, if you know our family, you know October is all about baseball playoffs. (I bet some of you didn’t see that coming). It’s true, when I married my husband, I was immediately immersed into the world of baseball, specifically “Phillies Phandom”. That passion only grew when my son first took the baseball field fifteen years ago as a little five-year-old boy. I have loved being a “baseball mom” and watching him grow on the field, but I have also loved watching the joy of baseball my husband and son share.
But this post is not just about our family’s love of baseball, October also marks the start of the last quarter of the calendar year. Companies everywhere are headed into the home stretch of the year. It’s time to evaluate year to date performance against those targets and strategies that were set, it’s also often time to start setting objectives for the next year. Let’s consider the similarities of business leaders and baseball leaders. Both business leaders and baseball coaches and management need to put the best team on the field to “win”. The question I’d like us to think about is how? How do we put the best team together, whether we want that team to win the World Series, lead our engaged workforce, reduce turnover, hit our sales goal, or develop a new product. All these achievements come down to the team, do you have the right team in your organization, and can you make it to the post-season dance?
In 2002, the Oakland Athletics reshaped the landscape of baseball when coach Billy Beane introduced the use of analytics, sabermetrics, to field the best team. Prior to turning to analytics, baseball teams sent out recruiters to scout the best players, and scouts relied on subjective information such as gut-instinct, video snippets, and coaches’ recommendations. When sabermetrics was introduced to baseball, the game changed. Coaches started making decisions based on objective data. Using this data allowed baseball managers to field the best team they could to beat their opponents.
What do Moneyball metrics have to do with human resources and business? If you are a business leader or HR Professional, wouldn’t you love to have objective data that you could use to put your best team together? Wouldn’t it be great to have objective data, so your leaders know how to best engage their teams? While on base percentage and slugging percentages don’t apply in business, there is another option…. Talent Optimization.
Talent Optimization is a discipline that aligns your business strategy to your talent strategy to achieve your desired business results by analyzing people data from a relatively simple behavioral assessment. Using this people data, leaders can make informed, objective decisions to hire the right people, align teams, cultivate an engaging culture, and develop effective leaders. If you would like to start taking the guesswork out of your decision-making and start making informed decisions about your team to drive your business strategy, reach to me today. I’d love the opportunity to share this exciting new tool with you!
Oh, by the way, Go Phillies!