Pleasant surprises

I’m not saying that the £20 and the half-packet of Polos that I found in my jacket pocket from last Spring was the best thing to happen to me this year, but as far as pleasant surprises go, it was well up there.

I suspect you know what I mean.

Small change and mints

Imagine having the same sort of thing happen at work. I’m not suggesting you rummage through colleagues’ coat pockets in search of small change or mints. Rather, imagine the delight in discovering that one or other of your colleagues has strengths they never knew they had (and you only suspected they might). Instead of a months-long expensive search, and then more months of on-boarding somebody new, you discover that you have someone for the job on your team already. Imagine what that would do for retention levels; for dealing with budget cuts.

Data, lovely data

The key to these wondrous things happening is data.

We often think we know our colleagues, having worked alongside them for years – but this is seldom true.

What we really know is only what they’ve allowed us to see. And sometimes what we’ve been perceptive enough to see beyond that. Other colleagues who work with them in a different respect may have seen other versions of them. If you happen to get together and gossip, you might be surprised by what emerges.

Don’t gossip, own it!

But by using data analytics, you don’t need to go gossiping. By working with the data derived from Entelechy’s Discover solution, you canuncover talent in individuals that they never knew they had. The self-assessment they do in the 180 process, and the feedback they receive from the 360 process is mined through our proprietary AI to find patterns in the individual’s strengths and growth opportunities.One of the actions in our system is called Own it. We encourage individuals to own a strength which has been identified by their 360 respondents, which the individual themselves until then deemed to be a growth opportunity.

Similarly, leaders can use the 180- and 360-verified feedback to gain insights into talents that their team members might have, which they are not currently utilising. This data can encourage leadership to use people in areas where they might not have been considered before.

Succession planning

The Character Kaleidoscope, the product generated for leadership by our Discover solution, provides these insights, and more. By dividing up Character Qualities into categories, we emerge with groups of Qualities which will be particularly useful for certain types of job. For example, our nurture and impact categories offer insight into the qualities needed to be a leader. Thus, succession planning in a company can be simplified by taking the 180- and 360-verified data on an individual’s Character Qualities, and seeing who could be a potential future leader of the organisation.

Weeks of recruitment work saved? Tick.

Months of onboarding work saved? Tick.

Thousands in costs saved? Tick.

Company culture intact? Tick.

Team morale and retention boosted? Tick.

How does that measure up to finding a crisp £20 in a jacket pocket on an unexpectedly blustery Autumn morning?

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