The title of this post was inspired by a collaboration between Dave Bookbinder, Valuation Expert and Best-Selling Author; and David Nast, Talent Optimization Consultant, Workplace Behavior Expert and Award-Winning Business Coach (plus co-author of the following article).
Adding value to our customers is at the core of everything we do.
Whether it’s a blog post, workshop, leadership role or any of the countless meetings we take with people in transition, we look to share knowledge and improve a client’s situation.
And the same thing goes for the tools we add to our mix. CRM – customer relationship management – systems are one area where we have ramped up our capabilities. And now we are thrilled to announce we’ve added The Predictive Index (via Nast Partners) to our arsenal of actionable business tools.
[For those of you unfamiliar, PI and Nast Partners are an amazing team who help clients increase engagement through understanding their employees.]
Completely designed to help our clients, this tool provides insight into both existing team members within an organization, as well as insight for those a company is looking to hire. The addition of this tool will enable us to further serve our customers’ understanding of their #1 asset – their people.
As Dave Bookbinder says in his best-selling book The New ROI (Return on Individuals), “The value of a business is a function of how well the financial capital and intellectual capital are managed by the human capital – so you’d better get the human capital part right.”
There are myriad ways that PI supports a business:
- Attract, Hire, & Select Best-Fit Candidates
- Retain Top Talent
- Build Employee Engagement
- Strengthen Teams & Culture
- Increase Productivity & Job Satisfaction
- Discover & Develop High-Potential Leaders
- Resolve Conflict
- Cultivate & Empower Successful Managers
- Manage Change
- Eliminate Sales Slumps
- Design & Achieve Effective Re-Organizations
- Navigate Successful Mergers & Acquisitions
- Execute Succession Planning
- Optimize Exit Strategies
But how, exactly, does The Predictive Index (PI) work? The Predictive Index is scientifically validated to help a client make informed talent decisions and fully align the “people strategy” with the “business strategy”. As such, it can underpin any initiative that involves people.
In today’s tight talent market, making the right decisions is more crucial than ever. It is vital to find the best match for a given role, team, and culture. One bad hire can set a team of individuals back years (this is no exaggeration), and keep that same team from reaching its full potential and delivering the expected results … which, no surprise, has an impact on the performance and profitability of the company.
We cannot emphasize enough that losing a top employee can damage a team’s productivity, morale, and erode engagement. We can use predictive workforce analytics to help people stretch and develop in way that is comfortable and satisfying for them. This way, the team gets the results they need, and it paves the way to realize discretionary effort from your people.
Imagine, as a manager, that you have a benchmark for every position on your team, plus important data on every team member. Imagine as well that you use this insight – as provided by the analytics – to identify fits and gaps. And add to this picture a custom, tangible coaching guide designed to get the very best from everyone on your team. This is The Predictive Index.
Armed with analytics on the whole team, we are also able to uncover and mitigate blind spots. We use this data to map your team to the current business strategy. As the strategy changes over time (as it always does), you have a roadmap that highlights your change-agents and provides needed insight as to how to coach different people to each strategic initiative.
You will have the needed tools to map your company’s org-chart to assist in succession planning and avoid the Peter Principle when promoting top performers into new roles – this will ensure success for all involved. This approach also applies for a re-organization.
Let’s look at a different scenario. If you are looking to sell your business, workforce analytics can (and likely should) be considered intellectual property. You can approach a potential buyer with everything it takes to be successful in every role of the company. And with data on the existing team, if they do experience turnover after the transaction, this tool will help them replace people faster and better. This reduces risk for the buyer, can speed up the selling process, and sometimes increase the size of the acquisition offer.
Here is a stat you cannot ignore. According to Bain, more than 81% of Mergers and Acquisitions fail to produce the desired results because of “people problems” … On the buy-side of a deal, we can use these analytics to gain insight about culture fit during the due diligence phase prior to the transaction (and put plans into action during the integration after the deal is done).
PI also provides insight into one-on-one communication and behavior. This can be between manager and employee, teammates, potential hires, and anyone in the workforce. We have custom relationship guides designed to reveal two people’s strengths and cautions, as well as providing them with tips to maximize that relationship.
This can resolve conflict, increase speed and ease of on-boarding new employees, and overall create a transparent environment that sets everyone up to perform at their best.
More than 90% of CEOs say that their most valuable asset is their people. (Again, hopefully this isn’t a huge surprise.) People are also the largest expense for most businesses. This makes your people the most crucial investment in your business.
The key to executing on any business strategy and achieving successful results is people. Why shoot from the hip when it comes to making decisions around your most crucial investment?
Put some validated science to work for you!
The ECS team, in a partnership with Nast Partners (the fastest growing Certified Partner for The Predictive Index in the world!) is here to help you make informed talent decisions – and align your people strategy to your business strategy.
We’d love to talk more about Predictive Index with you – here are 2 people at the ready.
Jason Fisher – ECS Managing Partner – can be reached at jfisher@thinkemprical.com or 215-850-8156.
David Nast of Nast Partners at 888-332-0505 or info@nastpartners.com – plus learn more at www.nastpartners.com
And if you want to learn more about the Science of PI in the meantime, find out How This Revolutionary Methodology Works Wonders, and understand more about the Insights that come from PI.
