"Decoded Companies don’t want to control their people; they want to unleash them."
- The Decoded Company, page 67
"Most CEOs, even of non-Decoded Companies, rate talent attraction and retention as the biggest challenges facing their organizations..."- The Decoded Company, page 49
We’ve entered into a new age of business, an age where talent is becoming the key competitive differentiator and where finding and retaining the right talent has to be a critical strategic priority. We’ve entered the “human age”.
Where financial incentive was once good enough to keep your top talent, that’s just not going to cut it anymore. Today’s top talent is looking for more than just financial gain, they’re looking for autonomy, mastery and purpose. (See Dan Pink’s book, Drive, for more on this.)
In order to address this, today’s leaders need to personalize their talents’ experiences. Just as consumer experiences are now tailored to the individual buying habits and data collected, creating a personalized online shopping experience, our experiences in the workplace need to be tailored to meet the individual needs of the employee. That can be everything from the technology they require to do their jobs effectively to the hours they work if they are balancing work and family. How we manage talent can no longer be a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
What that means is that there’s a very good chance that if you’re responsible for providing your team with the tools they need to excel in their jobs and you’re not consulting with them before you implement these tools, you could be doing more harm than good.
People use the technologies that appeal to them, not the ones that are forced on them.
This book illustrates that most workplace systems are built around business needs, processes, and metrics and, unfortunately, almost always designed or purchased by those who won’t be forced to actually use them.
"Traditional annual performance reviews assume that the goals you identified at the beginning of the year are going to be still relevant twelve months later."- The Decoded Company, page 51
Supporting the belief that we need to personalize the experience of our people as much as possible is the understanding that a small course correction at the start of a journey is much easier than having to make larger corrections later one. It’s called “The Rule of 5 Degrees”.
Basically the Rule of 5 degrees tells us that if you start 5 degrees off course, over time you will completely miss your mark. Rather, it’s easier to get back on track if you’re checking in and providing constructive feedback on a regular (i.e. weekly) basis.
Why this is important:
How to do it:
By taking this approach, you’re able to use data to help inform your intuition – which can be difficult to rely on by itself (though many of us often do).
As a result, we are better able to track goals on a daily or weekly basis – which is also a more effective way to track performance.
"It’s ironic that we collectively know so much about the psychology of learning, through generations of studying schools and natural learning, and yet we’re still delivering ineffective, one-size-fits-all training programs."- The Decoded Company, page 112
According to the authors, there are three crucial factors that influence any training program’s effectiveness:
When you combine these three factors, you’ve got yourself a program that can be deeply personalized to the individual. And as a result, more effective.
When we can recognize this using real-time data analysis, a teachable moment becomes the exact instant when an employee should receive training, delivered in a customized way that caters to that employee’s needs.
This is real-time learning: acquiring a skill exactly when you need to.
Delivering just-in-time training is a great start, but in order to provide real value, training needs to meet the learner’s unique needs.
This will ultimately be how companies and organizations provide the greatest value for their people.
As the authors state, “Employee expectations are changing, and meeting individual needs through customized delivery creates happier employees.”
The Decoded Company reminds readers what’s really important when it comes to the success of any business or organization: its people.
Aaron Goldstein is a co-founder and COO of Klick, responsible for orchestrating the creative application of technology that drives the company’s operations.
