The Data Driven Leader

A Powerful Approach to Delivering Measurable Business Impact Through People Analytics

Jenny Dearborn, David Swanson

• Publisher: Wiley
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9781119382201
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781119382225
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Data is your most valuable leadership asset—here's how to use it

The Data Driven Leader presents a clear, accessible guide to solving important leadership challenges through human resources-focused and other data analytics. This engaging book shows you how to transform the HR function and overall organizational effectiveness by using data to make decisions grounded in facts vs. opinions, identify root causes behind your company's thorniest problems and move toward a winning, future-focused business strategy. Realistic and actionable, this book tells the story of a successful sales executive who, after leading an analytics-driven turnaround (in Data Driven, this book's predecessor), faces a new turnaround challenge as chief human resources officer. Each chapter features insightful commentary and practical notes on the points the story raises, guiding you to put HR analytics into action in your organization. 

HR and other leaders cannot afford to overlook the power and competitive advantages of data-driven decision-making and strategies. This book reflects the growing trend of CEOs choosing analytics-minded business leaders to head HR, at a time when workplaces everywhere face game-changing forces including automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. It is urgent that human resources leaders embrace analytics, not only to remain professionally relevant but also to help their organizations successfully navigate this digital transformation. HR professionals can and must:

• Understand essential data science principles and corporate analytics models
• Identify and execute effective data analytics initiatives
• Boost HR and company productivity and performance with metrics that matter
• Shape an analytics-centric culture that generates data driven leaders

Most organizations capture and report data, but data is useless without analysis that leads to action. The Data Driven Leader shows you how to use this tremendous asset to lead your organization higher.

Chapter 1
PLAYING THE BLAME GAME

The winter sun shone spectacularly over Lake Michigan, reflecting Pam Sharp’s buoyant mood. She loved a thorny business problem promising big risk and an even bigger payoff, and after a week on the job, she was ready to dive in. From her new office on the 23rd floor, she had an expansive view of both the lake and downtown Chicago, now dusted with a light coating of January snow. She smiled to herself as she imagined the 70-degree weather back in Palo Alto, but Pam knew she’d made the right move.

Pam never expected to become the chief human resources officer of Exalted Industries. With a meteoric career in sales, she had been recruited to Trajectory Systems, an Exalted subsidiary in Silicon Valley, as its chief sales officer. Weak revenues had threatened the company’s survival, and Trajectory CEO David Craig had brought her in to turn things around. A chance meeting with a young data whiz led Pam and her team to embark on a series of data analytics initiatives, transforming sales enablement. In a relatively short time, the company was back on track to hit its revenue targets, and David Craig was promoted to CEO of Exalted.

After just a year leading Exalted, David had flown Pam to Chicago for a mysterious dinner meeting, revealing that the company faced more serious challenges than he’d expected: revenue was down, as were margins, customer satisfaction ratings, and the stock price. The media was extolling competitors’ innovations, while Exalted, although still the market leader, hadn’t launched a new product in three years, instead making several acquisitions that were only moderately successful. Making matters worse, attrition was up, with some high-profile exits. The competition was taking both customers and an alarming number of top sales reps.

Pam had been caught off-guard—something she rarely experienced—when David offered her the role of CHRO.

“I’m flattered, David, of course,” she said, “but why would a new HR leader be the answer to Exalted’s challenges? And why wouldn’t you fill the role with an experienced HR professional?”

“I’ll answer your first question first. Losing key talent is part of it,” David explained, “but I also can’t ignore my leaders across the company who point fingers at HR when they talk about our problems. Sales jobs are going unfilled for months at a time, and our best reps are leaving just when we need them most. The latest employee engagement survey scores show morale at an all-time low, especially in Sales. And we’re desperate for fresh talent to get new products to market, but Talent Acquisition just isn’t bringing in the innovators we need.”

“I can’t imagine that any one department could be the source of all the company’s problems,” Pam countered.

“True,” continued David, “but I appreciate now that everything comes down to having the right people and, to answer your second question, I sense that, under a motivational leader with strong business savvy, which you have in spades, HR could help tease out and solve many of our issues. Besides, I’ve seen what you can do with analytics, and we need more data driven decision making at Exalted. Too much is determined by gut, not facts. You’re the right leader, Pam, to help not only fix what’s broken but also to change our culture to be more data-centric.”

Then David raised the stakes. “You should know that if key business metrics don’t start improving, and quickly, we’ll both be out of a job. Our chief sales officer isn’t making things easy. I think you know Bobby Cash. He’s continually griping about how everyone else is to blame for sagging sales, especially HR. He’ll take aim at you for sure.”

Pam smiled, recalling Bobby’s bravado, Southern drawl, and flashy watches. “Sure, I know Bobby from quarterly sales meetings and annual sales kickoffs. He’s a decent guy, although his attitude toward women in business is from the dark ages. I can handle him.”

“One last thorn in my side, and soon yours,” David cautioned her, “is an activist board member, Thomas Ashcroft. He’s very experienced, but since he sold his last business he’s made us the key beneficiaries of his ‘hard-earned’ wisdom. The guy walks around with a travel mug that says, ‘Retired: I know everything and have all the time in the world to tell you about it.’ He’ll no doubt be on your doorstep soon, full of advice. He fancies himself quite the mentor. In fact, through a board/C-suite mentor match, he’s made himself invaluable to our chief marketing officer, Anne Rodriguez. You’ll like her. She’s tough and smart. Unfortunately, while I know Ashcroft has the best interests of Anne and Exalted at heart, I’m not always sure his guidance is on target.”

“The last and most important piece of information you need,” David said, leaning in and looking her straight in the eye, “is the overall engagement survey feedback, which we’re keeping confidential for now. Many employees said they don’t believe in the company anymore, but for different reasons. Some said we’re a dinosaur, behind the times, afraid to innovate and develop new products. Others said the opposite: we’re moving too quickly and abandoning our legacy by acquiring new products. There’s some deep-seated unhappiness, and we need to get to the bottom of it.”

David’s warnings had only made the opportunity more compelling. After persuading her family to move to Chicago—in the middle of a school year, in the dead of winter, from California!—Pam began preparing for her new role. Always an excellent student, she read voraciously about her new domain: books, articles, reports, and more on HR and human capital analytics. She even discovered that she was part of a trend—CEOs bringing in a leader with P&L experience to head their HR departments, to boost their strategic capabilities and impact.

She had hoped that her new team and peers knew about this trend. That might quell some of the anxieties she imagined they’d have about a sales executive becoming their leader and the CHRO. Unfortunately, based on her first week at Exalted, meeting with her C-suite peers and direct reports, that turned out to be spectacularly optimistic.

Yet she’d never failed at anything, and didn’t intend to start now. She was confident that she’d succeed, winning over her employees, colleagues and any activist investor who crossed her path.

She just didn’t yet know exactly how.

ENTERING THE FRAY

That afternoon, she and her team began their day-and-a-half strategic planning off-site a few blocks away from headquarters. Gathered in the spacious room, surrounded on three sides by whiteboards, were Marcus Long, VP of HR Business Partners; Sameer Mahal, VP of HR Shared Services; Elke Andersen, VP of Talent Acquisition; and Martha Lee, VP of HR Centers of Excellence (Talent Strategy, Total Rewards, Leadership Development, Diversity/Inclusion, and Learning & Development).

After some opening remarks to her staff, Pam dove right in: “We’re facing very serious challenges as a company. At this off-site I want us to start thinking as a leadership team about how we will address these challenges. Here’s the overview I got from David.”

Pam displayed a PowerPoint slide on the screen.

“The numbers tell a pretty dismal story. And yet, the board has given David a goal of double-digit growth by the end of the year, in keeping with the average growth rate for the healthiest companies in our industry. Help this newcomer out. What do we think is going on here?” Pam asked, with a tone that communicated she was looking to gain information, not place blame.

Her team uncomfortably shifted in their seats, glancing at one another.

“Any theories? Hunches? Facts? Rumors?” Pam asked with an encouraging smile.

No one smiled in return. “Well,” began Marcus Long, taking a deep breath and adjusting the sleeves on his neatly tailored black blazer, “only the last two items on that list, about attrition, have anything to do with HR, and they’re pretty much caused by the first five. Among us here, I think people are jumping off what they see as a sinking ship. Some of the latest engagement survey results are so bad that we’re keeping them confidential, as I’m sure David told you. Employees are saying they don’t believe in our leadership or the direction of the company.”

“That’s right,” interjected Martha Lee, nervously playing with her string of pearls. “People are demoralized, so they’re seeking greener pastures elsewhere. I just wish our executives cared more and gave us budget to address it. They even downsized our holiday party this past December. How is that going to help us keep people? And besides, attrition may be at an all-time high for Exalted, but we’re still close to the industry average. We’re doing our jobs.”

Elke Andersen cleared her throat and tucked a strand of her blonde hair behind her ear. “It’s no wonder our best people are leaving, given how little innovation is happening here. How could I be expected to attract new talent when we aren’t putting out new products? Never mind that I am continually dealing with the revolving door of sales reps. We’ll never get revenues up if Sales doesn’t stop driving ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Preface
• Chapter 1 Playing the Blame Game
• Chapter 2 Leading with Business Outcomes
• Chapter 3 Starting with Analytics
• Chapter 4 Early Discoveries
• Chapter 5 Diagnosing What’s Wrong
• Chapter 6 The Road Ahead
• Chapter 7 Results Win Support
• Essential Reading
• References
• About the Authors
• Index
• Eula