How to develop a high-impact team

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by Liz Wiseman

Creating the right environment and implementing five key coaching habits are crucial

“The Dream Team.” It was the name given to the 1992 US men’s Olympic basketball team composed of some of the greats of the game, including Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, and John Stockton. We’ve seen dream teams in other sports, of course—Brazil’s 1970 football team that won the World Cup; the 1980 USSR Olympic ice hockey “red machine” team; and the US team that won the 2019 Women’s World Cup. We’ve seen dense concentrations of star talent working under the influence of strong leadership in other fields throughout history, too, such as the artists of the Italian Renaissance or the five-time Nobel laureates of the Curie family.

We also find dream teams inside our modern workplaces. The best leaders don’t just stumble upon such teams; they know how to build a dream team, even under challenging circumstances. And they do this not by focusing on one or two impact players but by carefully curating team members with the right mindset; developing them as individuals and as a team; and nurturing a robust, healthy culture. Continue reading →

Aligning Individual and Organisational Values

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by Maria Guadalupe, INSEAD Professor of Economics, Zoe Kinias, INSEAD Associate Professor of Organisational Behaviour, and Florian Schloderer, INSEAD Lecturer

How employees’ personal values fit within their organisation.

All kinds of workers enter their organisations as humans first, with their own outlooks and values. These values are the fundamental beliefs that define what they feel is good, motivating their actions. In parallel, the role of organisational values, for good and bad, looms ever larger as firms promote their corporate beliefs. What happens when fighting against climate change, for example, is important to a person’s sense of self? Working for an organisation that lacks ecological commitment would clearly be problematic for that individual.

These tensions between individual and organisational values have been clearly identified in management research. For example, close alignment between individuals’ values and those of their organisations leads to a number of positive organisational outcomes including a reduction in staff turnover. The literature also indicates that reflecting on personal values in an organisational context affirms feelings of self-integrity. Thus, when individuals experience identity threat due to negative stereotypes about the demographic group to which they belong, values reflection can reduce self-doubt and enable them to perform to the best of their ability.

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9 reasons good employees leave — and how to prevent it

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By Sharon Florentine and Mary K. Pratt

Talent is your biggest asset, and while you’ll never eliminate employee turnover, the following strategies can help you keep your best.

News of the Great Resignation isn’t overblown.

Some 4 million people quit their jobs in July, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. And companies reported a record-breaking high of 10.9 million open positions. The IT profession is feeling the effects of that churn, with 80% of tech managers saying they’ve seen an increase in turnover in 2021, according to staffing firm Robert Half.

Seeing all that talent walk out the door is challenging, but losing top workers is even harder — and happening more and more.

“It’s harder to hold onto top-performing superstars when the market is throwing money at them,” says Kim Curley, vice president of workforce readiness consulting at NTT Data Services. “Most companies do not or cannot react quickly enough to either prevent the loss due to a big salary increase offer or to successfully negotiate a satisfactory counter offer.”

And when good employees leave, productivity sinks, morale suffers, and colleagues struggle with increased workloads.

But before you can implement a plan to increase employee retention, you need to determine why valuable employees are leaving. Here are the most common reasons top tech employees jump ship.  Continue reading →

3 ways to hire ‘hidden’ talent and boost your bottom line

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By: Eva Sage-Gavin

There are many words for workers: employees, talent, staff, teammates and colleagues, to name just a few. But at the end of the day, what do we mean? We mean people—human beings with lives, families and ambitions.

Unfortunately, for many people, the hope and dream of a good job is currently out of reach. New research from Accenture and the Harvard Business School’s Project on Managing the Future of Work shows that more than 27 million people in the U.S. fall into the category of “hidden workers.” They’re people who want to work and possess the skills that employers seek—which would be great if organizations with good jobs could find them. The challenge is that many of these workers are not easily accessible at scale.

What’s behind this paradox? A major factor is how companies search for and screen candidates. At a time when the skills gap is growing and the labor market is tight, some of our current hiring systems may automatically exclude qualified workers from consideration—caretakers, veterans, persons with disabilities, immigrants and refugees, formerly incarcerated individuals and many more. According to the research, a quarter of these workers have college degrees in addition to their existing skills and experience.

A significant majority of employers (88%) believe that qualified, high-skills candidates are screened out because they don’t match the exact criteria defined by common job descriptions, such as having a four-year college degree, which may not be necessary if people have the right skills. That number rises to 94% in the case of middle-skills workers with more than a high school diploma but less than a four-year degree.

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Meet America’s best employers for diversity 2021

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By Kristin Stoller

For as long as Keyla Cabret can remember, diversity has been a priority at Aflac. Years before companies started boasting equity and inclusion initiatives, the insurance giant was creating diverse pipelines, recruiting Black high school students in Columbus, Georgia, for its internship program.

That’s how Cabret got her start at the company: In 1995, the then high school sophomore worked two hours a day as a part-time human resources intern. Some 26 years later, she’s come full circle as Aflac’s director of diversity, equity and inclusion.

“It’s been a life-building investment. That was an investment in me and the program the company had. I’m really proud of the foresight we had,” she says. “For young professionals like myself, there has always been an opportunity here. I’ve never had an issue of seeing myself in a lead role. I’ve had plenty of examples of success.”

Those examples still exist today. At the end of 2020, Aflac reported that 46% of its U.S. employees are from underrepresented communities, while 65% are women. And roughly 64% of the company’s board is made up of individuals from both of these groups.

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