unconventional talent

Why You Should Invest in Unconventional Talent

The importance of building diverse organisations has been well-established. 

Diversity is linked to greater innovation and performance, and research has shown that more diverse companies have higher profits than their more homogeneous counterparts.

But building teams with different skill sets and life experiences requires intention.

By designing inclusive hiring practices — and letting go of the notion that there’s one ideal candidate type for a role — you can create more opportunities for a range of candidates who are more than capable.

It requires thinking beyond the confines of traditional hiring.

Prepare for new hires who will shake up your worldview and challenge assumptions about career paths.

And then continue investing in their growth.

Together, you can chart an unconventional course toward an inclusive workplace that welcomes extraordinary talent.

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May21_26_112792865

Dispersed Teams Succeed Fast & Fail Slow

Research suggests that while dispersed teams, working remotely, are often more efficient than co-located teams at successfully completing projects, they also tend to persist with failing projects longer than than co-located teams.

Going forward in a hybrid work environment, managers need to help dispersed teams get better at failing fast. 

This will involve better screening and planning of projects, more frequent synchronous working, and more managerial monitoring and intervention.

More importantly, sharing with your teams that failing is part of the process of learning and you need to fail so you can learn and improve.

Holding out on a project that is going nowhere does not help either teams or businesses in the long term, so having an open culture of success and failure really will help cultivate stronger results and build a more inclusive team mentality.

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May21_24_KierstenEssenpreis

How To Scale Your Sales Teams Quickly

Start-ups and other fast-growing organisations face a common challenge: In the early days of an organisation, people join because they’re passionate about the mission. 

Yet too often, as the team grows, the tether to the original vision weakens, and new salespeople aren’t as successful as those who were there from the beginning.

To ensure your new team is as passionate as your original team, leaders should follow these three tactics:

 1) establish storytelling as a company norm, so every sales member carries your mission into customer conversations.

 2) institutionalise deep discovery into your sales process, teaching new salespeople to ask strategic questions to understand customer goals.

 3) invest in human-to-human sales enablement, which provides the team with the assets to win business, including presentations, market data, tech tools, and a well-organised pool of case studies.

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Old stuff image

Everyone Wants Old Stuff

Selling old is the new new. An ecosystem is popping up to cash in on the second-hand obsession.

Why it matters: Second-hand goods have long been a key part of retail’s future. What’s new is the growing crop of online marketplaces favoured by younger, self-reliant customers, as well as platforms that help brands and designers resell.

Driving the news: Rent the Runway on Wednesday announced that all its inventory is now available for resale. After a shaky year the company is also now reportedly preparing for an IPO.

  • This week, Etsy also announced its £1.1 Billion acquisition of Depop, a resale platform dominated by Gen Z.

The big picture: social media has enabled a younger generation to dictate their own tastes. 

  • Stores or brands might replenish styles a few times a year, but the second-hand market is constantly refreshed — with inventory pulled from individual closets around the world and then uploaded online.
  • Platforms like Depop (90% of users are under 26 years old) and Poshmark have also turned young shoppers into stylists who can make a small income, although many of the massive success stories mask the work required to build a sustainable business.
  • Over the past year, the pandemic forced millions out of a job, reshaping priorities and budgets and driving a new customer base to consider previously owned apparel.

What to watch: With the resale market expected to grow faster than the overall sector, brands are figuring out how to stay in the consumption loop. 

  • Enter Trove. The company helps Levi’s, Eileen Fisher and Patagonia, for example, manage the logistics of customers trading in items for resale in exchange for brand gift certificates.
  • On the other hand, companies like Lululemon are experimenting with building their own inhouse resale system.  

 

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Superman

Does Your Business Rely On Heroes?

Many organisations find themselves in a perpetual state of crisis and rely on company “Heroes” to put out the fires.

While many people love the feeling of saving the day, it shouldn’t be a way of life.

If you’ve wondered why your organisation performs well in a crisis but struggles otherwise, it may be time to pause and ask why.

Your heroes may actually be revealing that you have a deeper problem.

There are four ways to move away from a culture of perpetual crisis.

First, understand that heroism is not a sign of commitment, but rather that it’s time to make changes in your organisation.

Second, make sure the way you’re allocating resources is realistic.

Third, get better at cross-functional co-ordination.

And finally, reward teams, not just individuals.

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