The current global pandemic has quickly disrupted social, educational, political, and financial systems in every country, making 2020 a year of innovation. I can't think of any family or organization that has not faced some level of disruption. Sometimes in the excitement of looking ahead to future possibilities associated with innovation, it is easy to underestimate and forget to consider the impact of potentially devastating adverse reactions by employees. Employees are essential to innovation adoption and implementation, whether innovation is a new use for artificial intelligence or developing work from home policies. Understanding Organizational Antibodies Employees are "like biological antibodies in the human body," where they can both positively and negatively impact organizations (Oster). Negative innovation antibodies lead to significant organizational harm, and positive innovation antibodies lead to the creation, vetting, and implementation of new ideas. Today's growing marketplace challenges have intensified a fear of loss associated with some new technological innovations. However, in reality, the resistance is often not based on real evidence but rather on negative preconceptions of change. Adverse Reactions Negative innovation antibodies can often be identified by their lack of rational objectives versus an employee that is pushing back with valid concerns or speaking truth to leadership. Research has demonstrated that both positive and negative innovation reactions can be anticipated by a person's cognitive style and specific situation. Oreg's Resistance to Change Scale measures can identify positive or negative adoption of innovation reactions before implementation. Leadership using this information can anticipate where an additional emphasis on change management activities will need to be placed. Overcoming systemic adverse organizational reactions to innovation requires the cultural adoption of a worldview where innovation is boundless, and both the risks and the decisions involved are better understood. Communication can lower the amount of perceived change associated with innovation and reduce the organization's current satisfaction with the status quo. Effective communication begins with sparking an organizational debate and promotes active listening rather than launching a campaign to convince others about a point of view. During innovation, implementation leadership needs to react quickly and decisively to create organizational understanding and align the culture and reward systems to prevent adverse reactions. To read more about how leaders can foster innovation check out this recent post: Why Most Senior Leaders Fail to Foster Innovation and What to Do About It References Heidenreich, S., & Kraemer, T. (2016). Innovations—Doomed to fail? investigating strategies to overcome passive innovation resistance. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 33(3), 277-297. doi:10.1111/jpim.12273 Juma, C. (2016). Innovation and its enemies: Why people resist new technologies. US: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190467036.001.0001 Oreg, S. (2003). Resistance to change: Developing an individual differences measure. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 680-693. doi:10.1037/0021-9010.88.4.680 Oster, G. (2009). Listening to Luddites: Innovation antibodies and corporate success. Review of International Comparative Management. vol. 10(4), pages 647-667, October.

In some organizations, silence on the issues impacting the world today is deafening. Organizations and communities are more connected than some may want to believe, and I don’t mean six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon. Minor changes in organizations can lead to significant differences in our communities. Experienced leaders understand that what happens at work does not stay at work, and what happens at home does not remain at home. Society is looking for modern leaders and organizations to be positive sources of influence on global issues. This article reveals the unfortunate truth about how poverty is connected to racism and how an emerging 21st Century leadership approach can be a catalyst for solving racism and poverty. Poverty & Racism Poverty is a little understood issue that creates real disadvantages to achieving the American Dream of upward socio-economic mobility. While most Americans (88.2%) do not live in poverty, as of 2018, African Americans were 2.5 times more likely to be in poverty than whites. The median white family had 10 times as much wealth as the median African American family. Escaping poverty in the U.S. is difficult, and racial difficulties mean that movement out of poverty for African Americans is much more challenging than it is for whites. Over the past century, the issues of poverty and racism are not new and have remained real issues, and earlier attempts to resolve the associated issues have been inadequate. The following figure is from the U.S. Census Bureau, 2007–2011 American Community Survey, and reflects the percentage of the black alone population in poverty in the United States. Servant Leadership Theoretical leadership development has historically been used to explain observations, make sense or bring order to complexity, and solve problems people are facing. In 2006 researchers conducted a review of over 160 articles and books identifying 91 distinct attributes within the literature for defining leadership and there would likely be more today. “probably more has been written and less is known about leadership than about any other topic in the behavioral sciences” (Bennis). The world needs a different leadership approach and Servant Leadership is an emerging 21st Century model that holds potential answers for poverty and racism. This leadership theory promotes attributes of altruistic and compassionate love for others. Compassionate love is “doing the right thing at the right time and for the right reason"(Winston). When organizations adopt a servant leadership approach they measure effectiveness based on the growth of employees, customers, and the community. Servant leaders lead organizations to impact society positively. For example, a servant leader philosophy in an organization will focus attention on leader-follower relationships. This focus on people then leads to growing employees and, in return, growing the company. Pioneering research in 2013 lead by Shruti Gupta found the organizational commitment to the poor and customer growth, has both a positive impact on organizational performance and poverty mitigation. When leaders get involved it makes a difference both in their organization and society. Do you agree or disagree, and why? References Barbuto, J. E., & Wheeler, D. W. (2006). Scale development and construct clarification of servant leadership. Group & Organization Management, 31(3), 300-326. doi:10.1177/1059601106287091 Bennis, W. G. (1959). Leadership theory and administrative behavior: The problem of authority. Administrative Science Quarterly, 4(3), 259-301. doi:10.2307/2390911 Gupta, S. (2013). Serving the "bottom of pyramid" - A servant leadership perspective. Journal of Leadership, Accountability and Ethics, 10(3), 98-106. Jerneck, A. (2015). Understanding poverty. SAGE Open, 5(4) doi:10.1177/2158244015614875 Kuhn, T. S., & Hacking, I. (2012). The structure of scientific revolutions. McCann, J. & Holt, R. (2010). Servant and sustainable leadership: An analysis in the manufacturing environment. Int. J. of Management Practice. 4. 134 - 148. doi:10.1504/IJMP.2010.033691. Wagmiller, R., & Adelman, R. (2009). Childhood and intergenerational poverty: The long-term consequences of growing up poor. National Center for Children in Poverty. Winston, B. E., & Patterson, K. (2006). An integrative definition of leadership. International Journal of Leadership Studies, 1(2), 6-66. Servant Leadership Development Learn how you can bring a virtual or in-person Servant Leadership Program to your organization: Based on the best ideas from the leadership gurus of today, leaders learn how to apply a head, heart, and hands approach to ancient principles that reinforce selfless service. This one-year program for leadership teams includes a pre/post servant leadership 360, pre/post leadership style inventory, quarterly development workshops, and much more. "The signature of the greatest executives we studied is their humility" Jim Collins

If I think of one word on the mind of leaders in all companies, and at all levels, it comes down to uncertainty. Whether it is trade or social conflict, new regulations, artificial intelligence, or the global pandemic leaders are uncertain about the future. So, what can leaders do to gain clarity and grow revenue in an uncertain global economy projected to have slow growth? Check out this short two-minute video on futures thinking and then keep reading. Understanding Strategic Foresight Many organizations do not possess the ability to implement change fast enough to avoid becoming obsolete. To survive organizations, and individuals need to become future smart. Future smart is identifying and understanding the drivers of changes as they are forming, so individuals and organizations can be architects of change. Becoming future smart can be assisted by leveraging practices and frameworks from the field of strategic foresight. Strategic foresight is an ongoing process involving framing, scanning, forecasting, visioning, planning, and resulting in actions an organization takes to prepare for the future. Strategic foresight is a way of thinking, engaging, discovering, and acting. The goal of strategic foresight is not to predict the future but enable better decision-making and preparedness. Strategic foresight is a systemic view of change, considering not just the likely changes but all the possible potential changes. When we think about change and its impact on organizations, Kodak is an example of a company that knew digital cameras were coming but refused to let go of the belief that film would always be a part of their strategy. Strategic foresight is intended to help let go of old beliefs. Traditional strategic planning is heavily focused on the internal organization, and strategic foresight links the organization to the external environment recognizing the company will operate within a larger world rather than be only change in the world. Strategic Foresight Benefits No organization sets out to become obsolete, and there are many benefits to applying strategic foresight beyond avoiding obsolescence. Organizations benefit from being better prepared, having the right tools and resources at the right time, and improved decision-making. Strategic foresight leads to enhanced change management and positions organizations to move from responding and reacting to change to architecting trends. Being the first to market and leading new trends fuels revenue growth. About Strategic Foresight Tools Achieving the benefits of strategic foresight is accomplished by applying proven tools so that vital information does not get overlooked. These tools help organizations look beyond current experiences and areas of capability where individuals and organizations typically focus. Strategic foresight tools increase both the scope and the degree of specificity of foresight. Tools increase the number of points of view to be considered and build individuals and organizations that are future smart. Future Smart Workshop If you are interested in learning more about strategic foresight principles, engaging in a company-specific foresight activity, and learning how to use a strategic foresight tool that will help you understand the future better, then this workshop is right for you. The workshop will take 90 minutes and involve a minimum of 5 participants and 25 participants. Contact us to learn more about bringing this virtual or in-person workshop to your team. Free COVID Strategy Scenario Matrix Offer Does your company have the right strategy for a post-COVID-19 world? Become future-ready with our FREE COVID-19 Strategy Scenario Matrix analysis. We will pressure test your strategy against likely realities and give you specific recommendations as well as a strategy rating! It's simple, easy, and painless. Request your strategy analysis today. According to the Institute for Management Development, the interplay of three factors – viral longevity, global mindset, and digital adoption – can lead to remarkably different future worlds. These divergent views on how the post-COVID-19 world might look, applied within our Strategy Scenario Matrix Analysis, will provide a stress test of your strategy against highly important and likely realities so you can prepare and become future-ready. References: Canton, J. (2016). Future smart: Managing the game-changing trends that will transform your world (First Da Capo Press Paperback ed.). Da Capo Press. Chermack, T. (2011). Scenario planning in organizations: How to create, use, and assess scenarios. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc. Cornish, E. (2005). Futuring: The exploration of the future (First Paperback ed.). World Future Society. Hines, A. (2006). Strategic foresight: The state of the art. The Futurist, 40(5), 18. McGonigal, M. (2020). What’s a futures wheel [video]. Coursera. Ralston, B., and Wilson, I. (2006). Scan™: Radar for signals of change. In The scenario-planning handbook (pp. 245-257). South-Western. The Audiopedia. (2017, April 4). What is strategic foresight? What does strategic foresight mean? Strategic foresight meaning [Video]. YouTube. Van Duijne , F., and Bishop, P. (2018). Introduction to strategic foresight [PDF]. Future Motions.

If you have not seen the musical, Hamilton, you need to add it to your list of future shows to stream or visit once Broadway reopens. Throughout the play, one very entertaining song repeats a quote from Aaron Burr to Hamilton that he needs to "talk less and smile more." Surprisingly, this is excellent advice for those with ideas to create lasting change in their organization. Most organizational changes, up to 70%, do not succeed because of a lack of buy-in (Kotter and Whitehead). Utilizing questions to help others gain new perspectives, is a high-impact method for change, regardless of the topic. Productive conversations to help others transition involve talking less by asking more questions and smiling more instead of convincing your audience with your suggestions. Setting the Stage for Your Change Idea Until a need for change is established, leaders will not likely consider a solution. So, after presenting data supporting the need for change, you should begin the conversation with a question. Merely starting a conversation with the question "I am curious, what is on your mind?" and following that question up with, "And what else?" to learn more is a powerful opening (Stainer). How to Talk Less and Smile More There are two basic types of questions to influence positive change. There are solutions-focused and problem-focused questions. Both types of questions are useful, although solutions-focused questions are more effective at increasing understanding and eliciting a positive response. Solutions-focused questions are "how-to" questions rather than questions that explore the causality or "why" types of questions. The reality is that no conversation is ultimately solutions or problem-focused, and coaches need to move between the two approaches to meet the leader's needs. The basic theory behind the finding is that focus on solutions to work toward change is more positive and energizing for those engaged in the conversation than focusing only on the problem. References: Grant, A. M., & O'Connor, S. A. (2010). The differential effects of solution‐focused and problem‐focused coaching questions: A pilot study with implications for practice. Industrial and Commercial Training, 42(2), 102-111. doi:10.1108/00197851011026090 Kotter, J. P., & Whitehead, L. A. (2010). Buy-in: Saving your good idea from getting shot down. Boston, Mass: Harvard Business Review Press. Miranda, L. (2015). Hamilton: an American Musical [MP3]. New York: Atlantic Records. Stanier, M. B. (2016). The coaching habit: Say less, ask more and change the way you lead forever. Page Two.

Fostering innovation within an organization is an increasingly important leadership behavior for every organization. No leader today is happy with the status quo and desires for their organization to stay exactly the same year over year. Leaders who want to foster innovation and be creative must be self-aware of their high degree of influence on the organization's innovation and be willing to take ownership of and action on new ideas when identified. Senior leaders too often fail to recognize that both their stated communication and their time allocation ultimately determine organizational innovation success. A Failure to Endorse Innovation The following are too often missing organizational signals for senior leadership's endorsement of innovation: "personal example, resource allocation, hiring and promotion practices, internal/external communications, company-wide metrics, strategy alignment, and organizational structure development" (Gary Oster). A Failure to Strive for Excellence Senior leaders need to be inspirational to influence employees to create new ideas and collaborate to listen to their ideas. Research has proven that a transformational leadership style can encourage innovation. When the climate for excellence is high, team innovation is enhanced. Transformational leadership is made up of four components: (1) influence, (2) inspiration, (3) intellectually challenging, and (4) individualized focus. In today's world of asking employees to do more with less senior leaders can fail to adjust strategy and begin tolerating less than an employee's best. "We will chase perfection, and we will chase it relentlessly, knowing all the while we can never attain it. But along the way, we shall catch excellence" (Vince Lombardi). A Failure of Focus When senior leaders fail to focus, it is costly and wastes time. Identifying worthwhile ideas requires seeing new patterns in the data everyone else in the organization is evaluating. As simple as this may appear, the challenge is that expectations shape perceptions. To break free from these perceptions, senior leaders need to avoid distractions and stay focused on the business. An extremely effective strategy for senior leaders is to "start keeping a journal of problems that you find to be personally interesting" (Michalko). Modern senior leaders too often are caught up in schedules that have them rushing from meeting to meeting, and they experience role overload. Innovation-related "recency bias" is a cognitive error to emphasize the most recent issue raised or the most often discussed problem instead of focusing on the most important. Using a journal helps the leader combat this bias in judgment by allowing for equal consideration of all the potential issues identified. Writing in a journal may prompt the senior leader to ask questions that will help expand and contract the problem's scope, and rewriting the challenge can help identify new patterns leading to innovation. References: Eisenbeiss, S. A., van Knippenberg, D., & Boerner, S. (2008). Transformational leadership and team innovation: Integrating team climate principles. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93(6), 1438-1446. doi:10.1037/a0012716 Gliddon, D. G., & Rothwell, W. J. (2018). Innovation leadership (1st ed.). Milton: Taylor & Francis Group. Michalko, M. (2006). Thinkertoys: A handbook of business creativity. Berkeley, Calif: Ten Speed Press. Oster, G. W. (2011). The light prize: Perspectives on Christian innovation. Virginia Beach, Va: Positive Signs Media.

An executive coaching relationship should no longer be viewed as an optional relationship for senior leaders. Back in 2005, Thomas Friedman wrote a book on how the world is flat. Today, the pressures of globalization for executives are immense. We have seen the COVID-19 pandemic create challenges for leaders that no one has ever faced. Helping executives to stay focused on personal development, so it does not get lost in the tsunami of urgent details and day-to-day activities, is an essential benefit of executive coaching. The essence of the power and effectiveness of executive coaching lies in the coach-leader relationship. This robust relationship fosters a leader’s growth through purposeful direction, reflection, feedback, and accountability. Today’s reality for a senior leader is that the marketplace is changing rapidly, and you are either ripe and rotting or green and growing. So, how is an executive to effectively stay green and growing in such a fast-paced environment? Modern peer-reviewed qualitative and quantitative research provides support for the effectiveness of the executive coach-leader relationship. In an extensive quantitative study by Stanley Black & Decker, the Sasha Corporation found that executives receiving coaching increased goal performance by 15% as compared to executives not receiving coaching. Also, some of the most admired companies in the Fortune 100 contribute to the $1 billion executive coaching industry. The coaching sector is the second-fastest-growing sector in the world at a 6.7% average yearly growth rate projected through 2022, according to marketresearch.com. The broad support for executive coaching and the effectiveness is undeniable. DIRECTION & REFLECTION Without an executive coach, a leader can lack perspective and miss the benefit of assistance with setting direction. Any road will get you where you want to go if you don’t know where you are going. Setting direction is vital to growth as a leader. Executive coaching starts with an assessment and setting direction. A coach ensures development goals are purposeful and brings perspective to the best focus area. Also, guided reflection is another critical benefit. Often leaders pressed for time move from one urgent task to another and miss the advantage of pausing to reflect. The executive coach partners with the leader to ask questions that explore learning and maximize the value of the coaching. Peer-review research on the topic of reflection has found slowing down and providing time for intentional reflection improves an individual’s performance. FEEDBACK & ACCOUNTABILITY The reality is that leaders are busy, and without accountability, miss the opportunities for learning and growth. In the executive coaching relationship, external accountability is a crucial benefit. Typically, toward the end of the current year and the beginning of the new year, we all start thinking about self-development and annual goals. Then all too soon after, a week passes, work happens and we barely remember the goal. A coach can prioritize topics most critical to advancing executive development. Executive leaders receive feedback continuously from a wide range of sources on potential areas of development, but also can struggle to make sense of the feedback. Proximity to a problem sometimes impacts the leader’s clarity on importance. Also, general feedback often is not presented in effective or constructive ways. During a recent press briefing, President Donald Trump lit into a reporter for a line of questioning and stated he was a terrible reporter. The non-verbal response of the reporter indicated he was crushed and felt attacked. The reporter received feedback, but it was not specific or constructive. Having a coach can help executives take input from different groups of people that may be emotional to the leader. A coach also can assist the leader with filtering through various points of feedback to return focus on the essential constructive aspects. Now more than ever, due to the complexity placed on senior leadership roles, executives need coaches that can support their continuous development. Falling behind in a rapidly changing marketplace will not lead to success. The coach-leader relationship is an essential tool to foster a leader’s growth through purposeful direction, reflection, feedback, and accountability.

What you need to know to get the most significant return from leadership development. We intuitively know that for leaders to be successful, we need to invest in developing our skills as leaders. The more a leader learns and effectively applies the better they become, and consequently, our organizations achieve better results. This statement is the tenet of leadership development. While there is truth to that statement, it overestimates the impact of the leader on the company and individual results, and it underestimates the impact of company culture, the leader-follower relationship and specific traits. Leaders perform within a company culture and are a part of the culture. Also, by sheer numbers alone the most substantial part of an organization is followers, not leaders. We tend to look to a leader to solve our problems rather than focusing on the reality that a company achieves most of their results through followers. By definition leaders need followers, or they are not leaders. Let's define leadership as service to others and followership as service to the leader both united in a common purpose and dependent on each other. To achieve greater success and maximize our leadership development investment performance we need to make some changes. One More Tool for the Toolbelt While the concept of followership is relatively new as compared to leadership, let’s consider a practical but fictitious leadership scenario to help us understand its meaning. You have likely heard the saying in leadership training that you are going to get another tool for your toolbelt. So, what if I gave builder “X” the best tools in their toolbelt, coached them to be their best physically, mentally and spiritually and put them in harsh working conditions and gave them a capable team that all spoke and understood different languages. Then I gave builder “Y” of same physical, mental, and spiritual well-being the same tools in their toolbelt and placed them in a good working environment with a capable team that all spoke the same language. Then I presented both builders with a challenge where they had the same amount of time and resources to build the same house. Which do you think would create the best home? Of course, the answer is obvious that a builder with better working conditions and a team that can communicate effectively can outperform a team in harsh conditions and cannot communicate effectively or efficiently. For too long companies have focused leadership development on the tools in the toolbelt of the leader, or the physical, mental, and spiritual well-being of the leader and not stopped to consider the impact of the leader-follower relationship, organizational culture, and specific traits. Before discussing what senior leaders need to understand and what they can do to maximize a company’s leadership development return on investment, let’s quickly take a step back and recognize how we got here. Globalization and Today’s Workforce Realities The business world is shrinking as large multinational companies continue to expand into new markets, and the makeup of our workforce in our companies is becoming more diverse. One of the critical issues facing most senior leaders is the lack of having ready now employees within their organization. For more than ten years we have known that as the Baby Boomers start to retire organizations would begin to struggle to find talent. Generation X is not large enough to fill the gaps created by the Baby Boomers exiting organizations. In turn, each of the past five years the war for talent has continued to intensify globally. In the past, it was a company-specific problem, but now globally countries are recognizing the challenges and looking at their policies to help expand their country’s workforce. If you listen to the news, you know our world is full of complex problems like cybersecurity, and global political uncertainty but the topic of talent management is in discussions from the boardroom to the breakroom and companies are turning to leadership development to help solve their complex challenges. The leadership development industry is booming. Likely your company is making new investments in leadership development or considering an investment. 3 Insights You Need to Understand Here are three insights to help you understand how to maximize your company’s leadership development return on investment. 1. Understanding the Leader-Follower Relationship Followership is a relatively new term in comparison to leadership with some of the earliest research literature originating out of the 1960s. Today followership is often seen as common sense, or passive activity; however, conversely effective followership is active and courageous. We are not talking about effective followership being a “yes man” but of speaking truth to leadership and daring to disagree. Buildings and equipment do not achieve results without employees in organizations. Every organizational result is the direct contribution of, at some point, someone doing something, and by sheer numbers in organizations it often comes down to followers. Additionally, even leaders in organizations are followers. The CEO of a publicly traded company will be a leader for the company and a follower to the board of directors. It is common to think of the value of the follower in the leader-follower relationship as a minimum of being half of the total value of the relationship, but it is likely more accurate to think of the value of working on the leader-follower relationship as a multiplier. The follower can improve the results of the leader, and the leader can enhance the outcomes of the follower. Globally organizations sub-optimize leadership development investments when focusing only on the leader. Healthy leader-follower relationships require a supportive organizational culture, specific traits, and development to enhance corporate results from leadership development investments. 2. Cultural Context for the Leader-Follower Relationship Culture is one of those words that if you ask ten employees to define it, you will get ten different responses. Contemporary definitions recognize culture as far more than only what employees do at work, and culture impacts social relationships like the leader-follower relationship. The globalization of the workforce within companies creates an increasingly complex and diverse workplace with a variety of beliefs, values and behavioral norms represented. You may notice these cultural differences by hearing employees talking about how it feels different in this office as opposed to another office, observing leader performance shifts when they take on new but similar responsibility for leading different workgroups, or when there are diverse perspectives on an identified successor. To focus solely on leader development and exclude the culture in which the leader-follower relationship exists limits the effectiveness of the investment in the leader. Cultural beliefs, values, and norms also need to be understood and aligned to support the leader-follower relationship. Research exists for how cultural values support leadership such as, The Culture Map: Breaking Through the Invisible Boundaries of Global Business by Erin Meyer, but there is limited work on understanding how cultural values support followership. It is crucial for organizations to have a culture where the leader-follower relationship can thrive. Globalization and the increasing diversification of the workforce will continue to increase the significance of company culture on leader-follower relationships and organizational results. 3. Follower and Leader Traits The research on an ideal follower and an ideal leader is similar in that there is a lack of agreement on a standard definition for both. However, the volume of research on followership lags leadership research. A quick search of Google for the word “leadership” returns 2.0 billion hits, and the word “followership” returns 0.001 billion hits (as of September 20, 2018). The expanding use of technology that allows information within a company to flow more quickly and freely is also enabling independent decision making by followers. One of the essential traits for a follower is the willingness to disagree and let the leader know the truth even when it is difficult to deliver. Inversely a critical characteristic for a leader is active listening. Leaders need to be able to listen not only to what is said but the feelings also being shared. Recently there has been an increase in focus from senior leaders on understanding the success traits of leaders for use in selection, competency models for development, performance management, and succession planning. Once a company defines the attributes of effective leader-follower relationships they can be used to create similar models for selection, development, and performance. Senior leaders can then use these talent management processes to measure performance and provide meaningful feedback and recognition to employees. 4 Steps You Can Take Now The following is a simple four-step approach to help you get started improving your leadership development investment. Step 1. Setting the Stage A good start for introducing the concept and attributes of effective leader-follower relationships is to conduct a workshop with the company’s senior leadership team on the topic of understanding the meaning of the word’s followership and leadership. The purpose of this discussion is to reinforce the importance of the leader-follower relationship, surface cultural differences that likely exist in a diverse workforce, and start building alignment toward a company definition for both leadership and followership. After discussing definitions, you can use the research that exists on leadership and followership to define the traits identified for effective leader-follower relationships in company-specific language. An example would be to take the followership trait of speaking truth to leadership and leadership trait of active listening and discuss behavioral examples of what each would look like put into action within the company. Enlisting the help of the senior leadership team in identifying and describing the attributes is to help ensure buy-in for company standards when incorporating these into the various talent management processes. Step 2. Creating a Movement Next, engage intact work teams in workshops set up similarly as in the prior step with the senior leadership team. It is essential to use this workshop to discover cultural differences that exist across the organization and work toward alignment. Senior leaders choosing to engage the workforce in this discussion need to recognize the relationship between time, cost and quality. Each of these variables impacts the next. Companies that only invest a minimal amount of time and funding will have limited quality and vice-versa. Step 3. Building Reinforcement At this point, it is important to update the appropriate company competency development models, performance management processes, and job descriptions if they exist to include the ideal leader-follower relationship traits identified in steps 1 and 2. Updating these documents and processes provides clear and explicit expectations and feedback for leaders and followers. Step 4. Creating Sustainability It will also be essential to consider long-term sustainability so incorporating this development into the orientation and onboarding will assist with assimilating new employees into the culture and company. Development of employees in the concept and attributes of the leader-follower relationship will maximize the value in leadership development investments. The intent of this article is not to present that multinational companies facing increased globalization should focus on the leader-follower relationship instead of leadership development, but rather on these critical insights for greater company success and improved leadership development investment performance.

Why it Matters: Employee Retention = Customer Retention Ask any MBA graduate or newly promoted supervisor, What’s the company's greatest resource? Moreover, you will likely hear it is our people. It is widely accepted that behind every organizational outcome is an employee's actions. Employee retention is a measure of organizational health and can be a leading indicator of future company performance. I have observed key customer engagement metrics having strong statistical relationships (R Squared 0.736 to 0.833 and p<0.001) with employee retention metrics. One caution though is that just like with our temperature where 98.6 is considered healthy, 101 or 95 is not regarded as healthy (for most people) and the same is valid for employee retention. The symptoms companies and teams can experience are similar across industries and companies, but different types of issues exist when employee retention rates are both too low or too high. And unfortunately, unlike our temperature, there is not a single standard across all functions and industries that is considered ideal or “healthy.” In fact, I have read some to suggest a benchmark, but I would suggest only for general guidance because many other factors play into your company's specific “healthy” target. Culture eats strategy for breakfast. ~ Peter Drucker One of the most significant negative impacts of low employee retention rates is how it impacts company culture. An organization's culture exists within shared experiences and learnings of its employees. As employee retention decreases the ability of the organization to pass on learnings increases significantly due to lack of experience, fractured relationships and limited employee time due to a lesser skilled workforce. As retention rates drop considerably below healthy levels, the negative impacts are amplified, and companies can find themselves in a retention death spiral. In light of record low unemployment, a shrinking labor force participation rate, and growing economy in the US, there is a perfect storm forming for traditionally high retention companies. In these companies, often culture has and continues to be the single most important competitive advantage for the company, and the impact of this storm can be significant because they have not had to think about these issues before. And unlike with most storm warnings the very last thing these leaders need to do is take shelter. One of the often silent but deadly negative impacts of high employee retention rates is the existence of organizational blockers. Organizational blockers are employees that hold a position that another qualified individual in the organization could fill as a part of their career path. While having good to high performing employees in the same roles on your team for many years may sound like an excellent thing it comes with some of its own serious drawbacks. Most notably is keeping an "up and coming" high performer in another position from gaining the critical experiences needed or preventing someone who could do the job better from getting a chance. In today's world of constant change and need for innovation, organizations must continually be developing and growing their employees and evolving their businesses to stay relevant. A Perfect Storm is Making Landfall in the US - Environmental Factors Many different environmental factors such as, population shifts, societal and generational changes in views on work, and technology are aligning to create the perfect storm for employee retention challenges in the US. One of these environmental factors is today's emerging gig economy: gig e·con·o·my noun 1. a labor market characterized by the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs. The 2017 Freelancing in America study by the Freelancers Union and Upwork estimated that nearly 57.3 million Americans – or 36 percent of the nation's workforce – are now freelancing, most of whom do so by choice (63 percent). This makes retaining a growing part of the economy a challenging proposition. Another one of these environmental factors is that baby boomers are exiting organizations at a faster rate with a smaller population of generation x to fill the gaps. If you have not already, you will want to check out the TedTalk by Rainer Strack: The surprising workforce crisis of 2030 — and how to start solving it now. Another environmental factor is that unemployment has remained at 4.1% for the past 5 months the lowest since late 2000 and is projected to remain under 5% through 2020 according to the Wall Street Journal. The new normal low unemployment is leading to increased opportunities for US employees. Another environmental factor is that American workers with jobs or looking for work has stood at 62.7% for the past year. In context, ten years ago in December 2007, the job participation rate was 66% (Bureau of Labor Statistics). While retiring baby boomers account for much of the weakness in participation, millions of working-age Americans are choosing to not participate in the workforce. Lastly, artificial intelligence and machine learning will create significant churn in the marketplace that is bound to increase turnover as employees reskill for the new jobs created. In a recent white paper from PWC titled Workforce of the Future: The competing forces shaping 2030 it’s predicted that employees will have to become more comfortable learning new skills and making career transitions. "Typical" careers, in which a person advances through the ranks of a particular field, will increasingly "cease to exist" as artificial intelligence and robots replace more human workers over the next few decades. Humans, it says, will have to become more comfortable learning new skills and making career transitions. Measuring Employee Retention Value and not just Cost Many measures should be tracked to help you understand the cost of employee retention. In addition to most visible replacement costs, there are others, such as productivity loss, workplace safety issues, and morale issues. Josh Bersin of Deloitte builds on this understanding and explains that employees are appreciating assets that produce more and more value to the organization over time, which helps to explain why losing them can be so costly. Employee Retention Now a Big Issue: Why the Tide has Turned In support of the point Josh was making, I want to highlight one addition less common but important measure you need to add to your list to calculate which is the “Cost of Vacancy.” This measure attempts to account for the lost value of not having an employee you need. At a minimum the simple way to calculate the direct impact is outlined below:​ Step 1: Find Annual Revenue Generated per Employee = Annual Company Revenue / Number of Revenue Generating Employees Step 2: Calculate Daily Revenue per Employee = Annual Revenue Generated by Employee / 365 days (or total number of days per year spend generating revenue) Step 3: Determine Revenue Lost per Turnover = Daily Revenue per Employee X Average Days Positions are Unfilled Step 4: Find Total Revenue Lost for All Vacant Jobs = Revenue Lost per Vacancy Job X Number of Vacant Jobs If you want to look even more closely and fully capture the impacts of lower retention, you should look into In Dr. John Sullivan’s article on the Cost of Vacancy Formulas for Recruiting and Retention Managers . Then working with Finance and senior leadership establishes actual costs and/or an acceptable rough estimate based on experience and intuition. The following is a list of the additional factors suggested by Dr. John Sullivan: Product Development and Productivity, Team Impacts, Individual Employee Impacts, Increased Management Time and Effort, Customer Impacts, Competitive Advantage, Your Company Image and Recruiting, and Out of Pocket Costs. Product Development and Productivity Team Impacts Individual Employee Impacts Increased Management Time and Effort Customer Impacts Competitive Advantage Your Company Image and Recruiting Out of Pocket Costs How to Have Immediate Positive Impact on Employee Retention So what can you do right now that can have an immediate impact on the likelihood of one of your employees leaving? Stay Interviews a.k.a. talk to your employees with intent to learn how they are doing and what you can do to help. A stay interview can be administered by anyone, but I prefer the leader because they need to develop trust and both the act of listening and then doing something about what is learned will build trust with their team. However, if you have a leader you do not trust, then you need to change the leader and in the meantime have someone that you do trust speak with them. The following are a few of my favorite questions I include in stay interviews: Positive Aspects of Working Here Why were you initially attracted to this opportunity? Do the same reasons exist today? What recognition have you received lately that makes you feel good? What part of your job do you find rewarding? Company Culture What do you enjoy most about working with your leader and the broader company leadership? Based on your experiences and interactions how would you describe our company culture? Strengths and Opportunities? Positive Improvements If you were granted three wishes and could change your job and/or this company what would you wish to change? Looking five years into the future where everything you ever wanted has come true describe what do you see? For some additional impact and accountability print off pictures of each employee that reports to one of your leaders. Ask the leader without looking at their notes to add the name of the employee, and one fun fact they learned from their stay interviews with their employees. Predicting Voluntary Turnover You may often feel like you are looking in a rearview mirror with most of these lagging metrics that tell you what you likely already know and that is you have a problem and opportunity with employee retention. Today though through the use of organizational diagnostics you do not have to settle for being reactive and can better understand what is creating reduced employee retention. I have used one of these diagnostics to understand better the employee stressors that were hindering employee engagement. Then using this understanding focus retention efforts and help reduce employee flight risk and in return improve employee retention. I want to hear from you with your questions, comments, and employee retention experiences. Also, if you need help getting started with employee retention or would like to learn more about how you can use organizational diagnostics, I would like to help.

In today's complex and fast-paced digital marketplace, no organization is looking to stay the same year over year. The use of predictive and prescriptive analytics promises improved strategic foresight. The goal is not to predict the future but enable better decision-making and preparedness so that leaders can grow revenue amid uncertainty. Most of the investments being made by organizations today focus on descriptive analytics that provides an understanding of what happened. While useful, understanding why something happened, what will happen, or what should be done provides greater value (see Figure 1) for organizations. Figure 1. The value of descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics. Predictive analytics reveal natural patterns to predict future outcomes, enable better decision-making, and create change resilience. Data, text, web, and media mining and forecasting are enablers to predictive analytics. Prescriptive analytics rely on mathematical algorithms to assess competing priorities and constrained resources and find the best solution from a set of feasible solutions. Optimization, simulation, and heuristic-based decision modeling are enablers to prescriptive analytics. Organizations have used predictive and prescriptive analytics since the early twentieth century (see Table 1). Table 1. Predictive and prescriptive examples Leaders do not have to focus on fully exploiting descriptive analytics before progressing to advanced analytics. Technology and predictive and prescriptive analytics are shifting the decision-making paradigm norm toward human decision-making enhanced by advanced analytics. The evidence-based benefits of predictive and prescriptive analytics are clear. One recent study of 1500 US retail locations found that predictive and prescriptive analytics applied to expansion decision-making resulted in substantial increases in expected sales. What lies beyond prescriptive analytics? A recent Harvard Business Review article declared that prescriptive analytics is the future. But is it? Experts are now suggesting that the future is not prescriptive analytics but cognitive analytics. Advances in technology are creating massive amounts of data with the potential to create a competitive advantage or overwhelm companies. Implementing integrated data management and analytics is essential to support future needs. Cognitive analytics is a field focused on the imitation of human intelligence. Cognitive analytics uses large amounts of data and advanced analytics to identify connections that support discovery, enhance decisions, and create continuous self-learning feedback. While humans can be unpredictable with decision-making, cognitive analytics can improve quality and consistency for businesses by learning from past decisions. Some have described this as auto-tuning or self-healing to create elasticity in systems rather than reacting to system failures. Cognitive analytics implies that systems can adapt and get smarter over time by learning from interactions with people and data by a feedback loop. Cognitive analytics involve greater complexity and greater value for organizations than advanced analytics by providing real-time responses to complex questions. Cognitive analytics benefits are mining previously untapped data sources, providing personalized services, improving consistency and quality of service, and enhancing knowledge sharing. Cognitive analytics in healthcare can provide personalized healthcare using the petabyte of medical data each of us creates over our lifetime. In the property management industry, cognitive analytics leverages data from internet-enabled devices (IoT) to learn how to improve security and reduce maintenance costs. Not all businesses will want to be on the cutting edge of analytics and pursue moving beyond prescriptive analytics. Still, for those that do, there may be a distinct competitive advantage. For those daring to move ahead with cognitive analytics, Organizations begin with the end in mind and start small to evaluate the business case. We can partner with you to develop a customized solution to transform your organizational culture and build a more future smart organization. Walk with us and build increased organizational resilience and a culture that fits the future of the business you need. Contact us to get started today. References: AngossSoftware. (2016, January 18). Risk optimization with prescriptive analytics[Video File]. Youtube. Bartlett, R. (2013). A practitioners guide to data analytics: Using data analysis to improve your organizations decision making and strategy. McGraw-Hill. New York. Delen, D. (2019). Prescriptive analytics: The final frontier for evidence-based management and optimal decision making (1st ed.). Pearson FT Press. Huang, T., Bergman, D., & Gopal, R. (2019). Predictive and prescriptive analytics for location selection of Add‐on retail products. Production and Operations Management, 28(7), 1858-1877. IBM Data and AI. (2016, August 29). From insight to action: Predictive and prescriptive analytics [Video File]. Youtube. Newman, D. (2020). Why the future of data analytics is prescriptive analytics. Forbes. Nguyen, T. (2016). Leaders and innovators: How data‐driven organizations are winning with analytics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Ronanki, R. (2014). Cognitive analytics – the three-minute guide[PDF]. Deloitte. Vikas. (2018). Going beyond prescriptive analytics – self healing and auto tuning. Eurostar Huddle. Read about the 5 Reasons to Hire an Executive Coach or our coaching solutions. About the Author: Jeff's knowledge and expertise include leadership development, coaching, and workforce strategies to achieve influence and grow organizations. Jeff Doolittle is the founder of Organizational Talent Consulting in Grand Rapids, MI. He can be reached at info@organizationaltalent.com or by calling (616) 803-9020. Visit https://www.organizationaltalent.com/executive-coaching to learn more about executive coaching services provided.

Acquiring, advancing, and retaining talent is essential for organizations to achieve their mission. A study of over 8,000 leaders across Asia, Europe, North America, and South Africa, conducted by the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) discovered that leaders committed to talent management achieve 25 percent higher performance. These gains in performance resulted in a seven percent improvement in revenue and a six percent increase in profit. Unfortunately, the study also revealed that less than 20 percent of senior executives possessed the commitment and capability to achieve these talent outcomes. Getting the right people leaders in the right seat at the right time is easier said than done. While there is no one single strategy that fits all situations some leading organizations are using predictive analytics to create data-based behavioral models to identify critical behaviors that predict organizational success. Social media, big data, robotics, and artificial intelligence-based applications are providing new insights to improve talent management decision making (See Table 1). Measuring Leadership While there is little agreement on a definition for leadership, there is broad agreement on leadership's importance. Effective leadership fosters innovation and creates a climate of excellence. Determining what to measure and how to measure leadership is essential to efficiently and effectively make equitable talent management decisions. Many CEOs point to a lack of qualified, ready now leadership talent as a significant threat to their organization's growth. Growth-oriented organizations need to understand if they have the right leaders with the right skills in the right jobs and have a sufficient pipeline of ready-now leaders for future growth. Companies like Agilent are using leadership effectiveness audits based on external norms to improve business outcomes. Once the organization reaches the top quartile for a given metric, it revises the audit to introduce a new leadership quality metric. A tool being used by many top-performing companies to measure leadership is the value and promotability matrix or nine-box grid (see Figure 1). Leaders are rated as low, medium, or high for performance, values, competence, and ability to promote. Beyond differentiating leaders, this matrix helps organizations create personalized development plans and accountability for growing the leadership pipeline. In my experience, when implemented correctly, this tool and the additional insights from leadership measurement can add immediate organizational value. To obtain the most value from the nine-box grid, it is vital to clearly define value and promotability and use talent review meetings to gain alignment across the organization. Ethical Considerations As organizations make investments into new technologies to measure leadership attraction, development, and retention, there are potential ethical challenges. One such challenge is equity in decision making. Technology creates the potential for unintended bias or violations of employee privacy rights. In a high-profile case involving technology-enabled decision-making bias, an artificial intelligence algorithm used to predict violent crime recidivism was twice as likely to misclassify black defendants than white defendants. Building a reporting and accountability culture is an important step toward spotting and halting technology-enabled ethics violations. We can partner with you to develop a customized solution to get the right leaders in the right seat at the right time. Walk with us and build a culture of leadership excellence that supports organizational growth. Contact us to get started today. References Dahlbom, P., Siikanen, N., Sajasalo, P., & Jarvenpää, M. (2019). Big data and HR analytics in the digital era. Baltic Journal of Management, 15(1), 120-138. Ellehuus, C. (2012). Transforming business leaders into talent champions. Strategic HR Review, 11(2), 84-89. Gandossy, R., & Guarnieri, R. (2008). Can you measure leadership? MIT Sloan Management Review. Larson, J., Mattu, S., Kirchner, L., & Angwin, J. (2016). How we analyzed the COMPAS recidivism algorithm. ProPublica. Ledet, E., McNulty, K., Morales, D., & Shandell, M. (2020). How to be great at people analytics. McKinsey & Company. Marr, B. (2019). Artificial intelligence has a problem with bias, here's how to tackle it. Forbes. Oster, G. W. (2011). The light prize: Perspectives on Christian innovation. Virginia Beach, Va: Positive Signs Media. Shen, K. (2011). The analytics of critical talent management [PDF]. People and Strategy. 34(2) Sivathanu, B., & Pillai, R. (2019). Technology and talent analytics for talent management – a game-changer for organizational performance. International Journal of Organizational Analysis (2005), 28(2), 457-473. Upcoming Webinar Series We know you are going to love these complementary leadership and professional development events! Organizational Talent Consulting’s webinar content is developed to help leaders meet today's complex workforce and digital challenges. Our free live webinars deliver superior leadership development based on the latest research with no travel costs. Participants interact directly in question and answer discussions with subject matter experts and authors on crucial topics to enhance expertise. Webinars are recorded and shared with participants for convenient on-demand access after the live event. Topics include leadership, strategic planning, coaching, change management, and more (register and learn more). About the Author: Jeff's knowledge and expertise include leadership development, coaching, and workforce strategies to achieve influence and grow organizations. Jeff Doolittle is the founder of Organizational Talent Consulting in Grand Rapids, MI. He can be reached at info@organizationaltalent.com or by calling (616) 803-9020. Visit https://www.organizationaltalent.com/executive-coaching to learn more about executive coaching services provided.

The advances in technology within the workplace are revolutionizing Human Resources (HR) and creating many exciting new opportunities. Technology is collecting massive amounts of data with the potential to create a competitive advantage. As the world changes, people and businesses must change too. There is a growing need to focus on using analytics within human resources (HR) to hire top talent and achieve diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). CEOs and boards recognize they need to have the right people with the right skills in the right jobs to gain a competitive advantage and are championing these changes. Data analytics is changing the HR game and improving organizational talent decision making. "It is logical to expect that the better we manage our talent, the better an organization will be at achieving its mission" (Mayo, 2018). Changing the Game Leading HR organizations are using descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive people analytics. Unfortunately, many organizations have inequities in their hiring and compensation processes. HR is using analytics to understand pay-equity attributes such as tenure, location, experiences, and skills so organizations can make better compensation decisions. Additionally, studies support that when HR applies people analytics to identify low and high performers' skills and attributes, leaders tend to make unbiased decisions in talent acquisition processes. Blockchain is a disruptive technology trend with promising new opportunities for HR functions. The secure decentralized network verification created through blockchain simplifies hiring, performance management, and total rewards. For example, blockchain is being used to: verify applicants' backgrounds in the hiring process streamline verification of external credentials for performance management simplify international compensation in local currencies eliminating the use of a go-between improve workforce competency through learning and development. In the constrained resource reality within Human Resources departments, the apparent benefits of improved efficiency and reduced costs attract many leaders to consider the use of technology for automation. However, before investing in automation, HR leaders need to consider if perceived or real diminished service levels will offset the value of automation for employees, key stakeholders, and customers. Sometimes in the excitement of looking ahead to future possibilities associated with innovation, it is easy to underestimate and forget to consider the full range of potential reactions. In Olaf's words from the movie Frozen, advancing technology can be both our savior and our doom without proper change management. Cultural Considerations It takes more than selecting the right technology investment to realize a positive return on investment from analytics. Investments in people analytics have underperformed primarily due to HR organizations' failure to change their operating model, data architecture, and user experience. Organizations need to consider company culture, processes, and people's role to maximize an organization's investment into data analytics. We can partner with you to develop a customized solution to transform your organizational culture and build a more change resilient organization. Walk with us and build increased organizational resilience and a culture that fits the future of the business you need. Contact us to get started today. References: Bartlett, R. (2013). A practitioners guide to data analytics: Using data analysis to improve your organizations decision-making and strategy. McGraw-Hill. New York. Fachrunnisa, O., & Hussain, F. K. (2020). Blockchain-based human resource management practices for mitigating skills and competencies gap in workforce. International Journal of Engineering Business Management, 12 doi:10.1177/1847979020966400 Intelligent HQ. (2018). Using blockchain in human resources. London: Newstex. Kaji, J., Hurley, B., Gangopadhyay, N., Bhat, R., & Khan, A. (2019). Leading the social enterprise: Reinvent with a human focus [PDF]. Deloitte Development, LLC. Marler, J. H., & Fisher, S. L. (2017). Making HR technology decisions: A strategic perspective (First ed.). New York, New York (222 East 46th Street, New York, NY 10017): Business Expert Press. Mayo, A. (2018). Applying HR analytics to talent management. Strategic HR Review, 17(5), 247-254. doi:10.1108/SHR-08-2018-0072 Noack, B. (2019). Big data analytics in human resource management: Automated decision-making processes, predictive hiring algorithms, and cutting-edge workplace surveillance technologies. Psychosociological Issues in Human Resource Management, 7(2), 37-42. doi:10.22381/PIHRM7120196 Oster, G. (2009). Listening to Luddites: Innovation antibodies and corporate success. Review of International Comparative Management. vol. 10(4), pages 647-667, October. Upadhyay, P., & Kumar, A. (2020). The intermediating role of organizational culture and internal analytical knowledge between the capability of big data analytics and a firm’s performance. International Journal of Information Management, 52, 102100. doi:10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2020.102100 Zielinski, D. (2019). People analytics software is changing the HR game. SHRM HR Magazine. Upcoming Webinar Series We know you are going to love these complementary leadership and professional development events! Organizational Talent Consulting’s webinar content is developed to help leaders meet today's complex workforce and digital challenges. Our free live webinars deliver superior leadership development based on the latest research with no travel costs. Participants interact directly in question and answer discussions with subject matter experts and authors on crucial topics to enhance expertise. Webinars are recorded and shared with participants for convenient on-demand access after the live event. Topics include leadership, strategic planning, coaching, change management, and more (register and learn more). About the Author: Jeff's knowledge and expertise include leadership development, coaching, and workforce strategies to achieve influence and grow organizations. Jeff Doolittle is the founder of Organizational Talent Consulting in Grand Rapids, MI. He can be reached at info@organizationaltalent.com or by calling (616) 803-9020. Visit https://www.organizationaltalent.com/executive-coaching to learn more about executive coaching services provided.

Fostering innovation is a critical leadership responsibility. Leading in today's turbulent and digital marketplace requires more than cliché advice about out-of-the-box thinking. Leadership performance expectations are increasingly more complex. Leaders are expected to deliver low cost and high reliability, standardization and personalization, global consistency and local sensitivity, to name a few. Advances in technology are driving this evolution as leaders scramble to provide choices to stakeholders with competing priorities. The challenge leaders face is that our thinking is easily limited by the familiar. A closed mind is a hard thing to open. It is a classic "blind men and an elephant" parable problem where an individual perceives absolute truth based on subjective experiences. The conventional advice for leaders to think outside the box does not go far enough to produce significant positive change. Leaders looking to innovate need data-informed creative thinking. “There’s one thing worse than change and that’s the status quo.” John le Carre Debunking an Innovation Myth Innovation and analytics thrive in a change-based environment. A commonly held myth is that innovation comes from an epiphany versus hard work, personal sacrifice, and taking risks. The story of how Isaac Newton discovered gravity is a commonly used example of the widely held oversimplification of innovation. In reality, Isaac Newton used mathematics to explain how gravity works, rather than an apple falling on his head that lead to the discovery. The epiphany aspect of innovation is like when the last piece of a puzzle fits together. What matters is the ability for leaders to clearly see a problem with the talent to solve it rather than the epiphany moment. What Leaders Really Need Technology is collecting a deluge of information that has the potential to make or break any organization. In a 2019 Gartner survey of HR leaders, only 21% believe their organizations effectively use talent analytics to make better decisions. Descriptive, diagnostic, predictive, prescriptive, and cognitive analytics provides leaders with technology-enabled data-driven models and visualizations within the innovation process. Leaders need the ability to leverage analytics in each of the four phases of innovation: Problem exploration: Answering what are the possible problems? Problem selection: Answering what problems should be solved first? Solution exploration: Answering what are the possible solutions for the selected problem? Solution selection: Answering what are the best solutions to the selected problem? Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a GameChanger Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the world. AI promises to enhance leaders' decision-making speed by making sense of the deluge of data available today, better managing creative complexity and asking and answering questions better throughout the innovation process. Today, AI is already positively impacting each of the four phases of innovation. In one recent case study involving the solution selection phase, a team utilized AI modeling to identify highly-rated features important to 1000 stakeholders from more than 60 countries. The AI model proved to be 23% better at predicting highly-rated features than average community ratings. The case study suggested that AI could indeed help innovation leaders automate solution selection. The volatile marketplace rewards speed and speed creates time for leaders that can be used to generate more significant advantages. We can partner with you to develop a more future smart organization and get the workforce introduction to Artificial Intelligence and data analytics right. Partner with us and build increased organizational creativity and a culture that fits the future of the business you need. Contact us to schedule a conversation. References: Bartlett, R. (2013). A practitioner's guide to data analytics: Using data analysis to improve your organization's decision-making and strategy. McGraw-Hill. New York. BCG Henderson Institute. (2020). In conversation with Yves Morieux about complexity. https://bcghendersoninstitute.com/in-conversation-with-yves-morieux-about-complexity-858c7ccf7b30 Berkun, S. (2010). The myths of innovation (1st ed.). O'Reilly Media, Inc. Kakatkar, C., Bilgram, V., & Füller, J. (2020). Innovation analytics: Leveraging artificial intelligence in the innovation process. Business Horizons, 63(2), 171-181. Kanter, R. (2020). Think outside the building: How advanced leaders can change the world one small innovation at a time. Hachette Book Group, Inc. Ledet, E., McNulty, K., Morales, D., & Shandell, M. (2020). How to be great at people analytics. McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/how-to-be-great-at-people-analytics Upcoming Webinar Series We know you are going to love these complementary leadership and professional development events! Organizational Talent Consulting’s webinar content is developed to help leaders meet today's complex workforce and digital challenges. Our free live webinars deliver superior leadership development based on the latest research with no travel costs. Participants interact directly in question-and-answer discussions with subject matter experts and authors on crucial topics to enhance expertise. Webinars are recorded and shared with participants for convenient on-demand access after the live event. Topics include leadership, strategic planning, coaching, change management, and more (register and learn more).