Moneyball: what’s the problem?

In this week’s #ConnectWithContent it’s all about leadership driven HR, the elements of a digital mindset and we share some great lessons to be learned for HR about diversity from the movie Moneyball. Enjoy this week’s pick! Have a great weekend...

Leadership driven HR

It’s time to elevate HR teams and start thinking about them as a vital, strategic partner, not just a people task machine. This article states the importance of a partnership between leaders and managers and the role of HR in business initiatives.

Leadership is your vehicle for successful people programs, and your people are your vehicle for a successful company.

Traditional HR is broken and needs to be left in the dust. The people and HR practices that got your company here, will not get your company there. It’s a bold statement, and acting on it is crucial to your organization’s success.

Leadership, and the structure of its design, is the most critical function in business, today. It’s what drives performance and growth, especially in progressive companies and industries like technology and HR needs to be a part of it.

Any initiative, especially talent acquisition and retention, succeeds or fails with buy-in from the leadership team. Think about performance reviews, rewards, recognition, collaboration, hiring, firing and training. None of these systems run without direct partnership between leaders and managers. And it’s HR that is leading the charge on these initiatives.

CEOs worldwide see human capital as a top challenge, and they rank HR as the eighth or ninth most important function in a company,” according to an article in the Harvard Business Review. The article goes on to question why the chief human resource officer (CHRO) is not as integral to the CEO as the CFO — and it’s this kind of thinking that leads to traditional HR being so flawed. This article look at why traditional HR is so broken.

There is a huge disparity between well run and poorly run HR teams.

If people really are the priority in any organization, you must invest in them properly.

Put money behind your development programs, and you’ll benefit by — wait for it — leaders! Leadership-driven companies spend almost twice as much per employee on HR than their compliance-focused counterparts and the investment in employees creates much better business outcomes.

Read the whole article here

Digital leaders as an organization’s beacon of future hope

The second article is about the rise of a new ‘breed’ of digital leaders, identified, incubated and supported in a safe ecosystem by HR. As market dynamics change faster and organizations feel increasing pressure from those who are digital by default, emerging digital leaders offer the organization a beacon of future hope.

A new class of digital leaders is emerging. While tech-savvy, digital-first organizations have been quick to embrace them, larger organizations struggle to identify them, let alone train them and harness their strengths. Yet early indicators suggest the skills these emerging leaders bring can provide strong business results when nurtured and allowed to flourish.

According to research by Oxford University, only one in five of today's business leaders are considered "digital."

Emerging digital leaders have a work approach shaped by social media usage, access to information on any topic and collaboration with peers as a standard working practice. This experience fosters a digital mindset, and set of cultural values that set them apart from incumbent leaders.

So what are the elements of a digital mindset?

• Inclusivity over Hierarchy
• Leadership Over Management
• Community-Led Decisions Over Centralized Command-and-Control
• Data-Driven Everything Over Knowing All the Answers
• Being Agile Over 'Doing' Agile

Human resource teams are tasked with identifying this new breed of leader. Identifying emerging digital leaders is just the first step in the process. Those identified require incubating to grow new capabilities, and a safe space so that the organization's auto-immune system does not kill off new practices that look and feel unfamiliar. As individuals emerge across the organization, support them in building a sustainable ecosystem of networked contacts inside and outside of the formal structure.

They need confidence they are not alone in their journey, and that they have the air cover they need to work at the known edges of the organization to build new products, services and ways of working to benefit the future firm.

Emerging digital leaders often create digital workplace hub communities around themselves, focusing on a topic, product or service.

Leading the organization of tomorrow is a responsibility that those leading today cannot fathom.

Senior leaders must provide a safe space to try, fail, try again and succeed, playing a coaching and guiding role, which is at odds with the baptism by fire approach they themselves experienced.

Read the whole article here

Moneyball diversity

Moneyball tells the story of Billy Beane and the 2002 Oakland Athletics. Faced with a very limited budget, Beane had to figure out how to put together a winning baseball team. To do so, he relies on “sabermetrics”–basically, the statistical analysis of baseball–to identify and sign great players who are undervalued according to the typical criteria used by other teams. The A’s go on to have a record-breaking 20-game winning streak during the 2002 season.

Watching Moneyball suddenly made the author of this article see diversity issues differently: The real challenge, he thought, is to look for talent that’s being systematically undervalued by the competition. As almost any study will tell us, women and underrepresented minorities hold fewer positions and make less money in almost any industry than other demographic groups.

Since women and minority candidates are every bit as smart and talented as their counterparts, it follows that they’re being systematically undervalued in the marketplace. In other words, if we would take more of a Moneyball approach to diversity, it wouldn’t be a drag on our growth–it would be crucial to it.

Although watching Moneyball helps you think about diversity differently, it won’t magically solve all problems. The analogy quickly comes to an end when for instance we discuss salary. Fair and equal pay is vital to attracting and retaining top but overlooked talent.

It’s about hiring great people who are being unfairly passed over by other companies.

We would really suggest you to watch this trailer or even better the whole movie, because there are a lot of lessons to be learned, not only for HR, not only about diversity.

Read the whole article here

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