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WHEN WOLVES HOWL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD A Story About Thriving Ecosystems & Big Money

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Page 1: WHEN WOLVES HOWL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD · everything. Wolves are more than the animals we make them out to be, they’re a metaphor – a metaphor for the various men and women who

WHEN WOLVES HOWL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD

A Story About Thriving Ecosystems & Big Money

Page 2: WHEN WOLVES HOWL IN THE BUSINESS WORLD · everything. Wolves are more than the animals we make them out to be, they’re a metaphor – a metaphor for the various men and women who

Table of Contents

1Introduction – When the Old Faithful Wasn’t Lush

5Trophic Cascades in the Business Ecosystem: Hiring

12Trophic Cascades in the Business Ecosystem: Employee Engagement

18The Grand Scheme of Things: Where Do We Stand?

23When the Wolves Howl: The Conclusion

Hello There.

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INTRODUCTION

When the Old Faithful Wasn’t Lush

INTRODUCTION1

Human beings are often most impressed with theatricality. It’s a fact based on historical evidence – stories of legend, battles won, miracles that nurtured the idea of a higher being, and well, a lot more. Not without reason, of course. That’s something we can blame the world for.

With growth, war, and technological advancements that move leaps and bounds within a single generation alone, we’ve become jaded. We search for something out of the ordinary,

in a world where change grew into a shell of predictability. A story that we could marvel at, to push the thoughts of a big, bad world behind us.

Well, we have one for you. A storied legend about wolves, and how they’re everywhere. Next to you, even. These are men and women who have graphically changed perceptions by breaking them, building upon them. But a question you might come to fancy is, why call them wolves? Now that’s a story we’d like to tell.

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ABOUT APTITUDE2

TABLE OF CONTENT

The Wolves of Yellowstone National Park – Changing the Force of Nature

Called the land of the Old Faithful, Yellowstone National Park was a victim of defoliation, erosion and an unbalanced ecosystem over two decades ago. In 1995 though, everything changed.[1] That was the year the US government reintroduced wolves to the park.

Before then, predator control programs had all but eliminated the grey wolf from America’s lower 48 states. Deer and elk populations thrived substantially, resulting in overgrazing. We’re talking about willows and other vegetation important to soil and riverbank structure, leaving the landscape vulnerable to erosion.

Now, we all know that wolves kill various species of animals – the whole idea of being an apex predator, but perhaps we’re slightly less aware that they give life to many others. Absent for over seventy years, their reappearance caused the most remarkable effects. All of it, despite their small numbers.

As a first, they killed some of the deer population. Nothing major. But, more significantly, they changed the behavior of the deer. In time, they started to avoid certain parts of the park – places they could be trapped more easily – particularly the valleys and the gorges. They regenerated, and the height of trees quintupled in merely six years even.

Fascinating, isn’t it? Bare valley sides morphed into forests of aspen, willow, and cottonwood. Birds moved in response to the foliage, and the beavers – well, they walked in to eat the trees, of course. But like the wolves, beavers also engineered a change. In fact, their dams provided habitats for otters, muskrats, ducks, fish, reptiles and amphibians.

Wolves hunted the coyote as well, opening room for more rabbits and mice. With them arrived hawks, weasels, foxes, and badgers. Ravens and bald eagles migrated to feed on the carrion the wolves left behind. Bear population improved with lush berries growing on regenerating shrubs, and they served their purpose by reinforcing the wolves’ predatory cause – killing calves of deer and elk.

But here’s where it gets interesting for real. The wolves changed the behavior of rivers. They meandered less, and there was less erosion. More pools formed, more riffle sections. It was the rapidly regenerating forests, stabilizing the banks, inadvertently fixing the river course.

Take in a deep breath. Close your eyes, and merely imagine the impact of a handful of wolves. A trophic cascade – an ecological process that starts at the top of the food chain and tumbles all the way down to the bottom – that changed the force of nature.[2] Yes, a feat previously deemed impossible.

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Now, we all know that wolves kill various species of animals – the whole idea of being an apex predator, but perhaps we’re slightly less aware that they give life to many others. Absent for over seventy years, their reappearance caused the most remarkable effects. All of it, despite their small numbers.

As a first, they killed some of the deer population. Nothing major. But, more significantly, they changed the behavior of the deer. In time, they started to avoid certain parts of the park – places they could be trapped more easily – particularly the valleys and the gorges. They regenerated, and the height of trees quintupled in merely six years even.

Fascinating, isn’t it? Bare valley sides morphed into forests of aspen, willow, and cottonwood. Birds moved in response to the foliage, and the beavers – well, they walked in to eat the trees, of course. But like the wolves, beavers also engineered a change. In fact, their dams provided habitats for otters, muskrats, ducks, fish, reptiles and amphibians.

Wolves hunted the coyote as well, opening room for more rabbits and mice. With them arrived hawks, weasels, foxes, and badgers. Ravens and bald eagles migrated to feed on the carrion the wolves left behind. Bear population improved with lush berries growing on regenerating shrubs, and they served their purpose by reinforcing the wolves’ predatory cause – killing calves of deer and elk.

But here’s where it gets interesting for real. The wolves changed the behavior of rivers. They meandered less, and there was less erosion. More pools formed, more riffle sections. It was the rapidly regenerating forests, stabilizing the banks, inadvertently fixing the river course.

Take in a deep breath. Close your eyes, and merely imagine the impact of a handful of wolves. A trophic cascade – an ecological process that starts at the top of the food chain and tumbles all the way down to the bottom – that changed the force of nature.[2] Yes, a feat previously deemed impossible.

INTRODUCTION3

TABLE OF CONTENT

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ABOUT APTITUDE4

Why This Story Matters

You can ask yourself, “What does an ecological phenomenon have anything to do with me?” Well, the short answer – everything. Wolves are more than the animals we make them out to be, they’re a metaphor – a metaphor for the various men and women who have historically altered the course of time. This, even in the business world.

Over the course of the eBook, we’ll cover a couple of cases and why you should look for your wolves in the business world. Not all of them are easy to find. Some hired. Some nurtured through engagement. But at the end of the day, don’t we all want to change our ecosystem for the better?

TABLE OF CONTENT

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Wolves come in all shapes, sizes, and some hiding in plain sight. As the saying goes, “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing.” Just as we had explained in the previous chapter though, there’s a route that directs to finding this disruptive performer, and another to nurturing one. But let’s focus on the former.

We are in an era where top talent is hardly scarce. Found in almost every corner, what separates their performance depends largely on the ecosystem they inhabit.

This is probably why organizations have shifted their absolute focus from skills alone, creating clever divisions of importance between several aspects including cultural affinity i.e., how effective is an employee – no matter their best on paper persona – to an organization.

It boils down to asking yourself, “Would a wolf in one ecosystem thrive in any other?” A couple of examples could probably answer that question. Yes, more stories! Trophic Cascades aren’t nearly as fun with numbers and stats alone.

HIRING5

TABLE OF CONTENT

TROPHIC CASCADES IN THE BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM: HIRING

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HIRING6

Designers often tend to speak about the genetic code of products and companies. BMWs, for example, are

easily recognized and distinguished from other competitors by their split grilles. It aids to brand

recognition, and in complex objects such as computers – signals operational familiarity.

To whatever degree, Apple ranks high among companies with a distinctive genetic code, largely inherited from a single

parent – Founder Steve Jobs. The man left the company in 1985, but as per people who had worked in close proximity to

Jobs, it was largely he who established the company’s emphasis on industrial design.

An Ecosystem’s Genetic Code: The Jonathan Ive Story

TABLE OF CONTENT

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7

TABLE OF CONTENT

Some would add that he put design above technology.This sharpened the company’s focus into fleshing out a much desired, yet unique ability to create simple products. And while people argued the counter-intuitive nature of such a decision, it worked for Apple. This marked the birth of an era for arguably the greatest wolf to have ever walked the design part of an industry.

[Enter: Jonathan Ive]Few Westerners have seen the forging of a Japanese katana – a sacred practice in the country, and one of the few traditional arts yet to be bettered by modern science. Blacksmiths work through the night – better to judge the heat of the metal by the eye – hammering, melting and forging by hand to produce the finest blades in the world.

The steel is folded and refolded thousands of times to create a hard outer layer and a softer inner core, resulting in a singular blade – terrifyingly sharp and far less prone to breaking than those usually forged in the west.[3]

Once the blade is complete, it’s polished to a mirror finish, an elaborate process that can by itself take weeks. The long, laborious process pushes the metal to its absolute limit, which is precisely why Jonathan Ive wanted to see it first-hand.

Here was a man who endlessly sought crucial knowledge, anything that could help him make the thinnest computing devices in the world. In fact, it surprised no one at Apple that their obsessive designer would want to take a 14-hour flight for a meeting with one of Japan’s leading katana smiths.

But the meeting in Japan paid dividends when Apple rolled out its iPad 2, The machine was the result of research, and the process of making the same product over and over again; in this case, carving metal and silicon until the product was one-third thinner and 0.2lb lighter than its predecessor.

There’s no denying it. In an ecosystem that allowed his genius to come to full blast, Jonathan Ive is now worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the company, currently valued at £580 billion. Yes, he’s a very important man to the company – important enough that the company’s shares would decimate – not an adjective picked at random – by a cool ten-percent with his retirement.[4]

This is a wolf, who reshaped the industry by becoming arguably the most influential designer in the last two decades.

HIRING

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Once the blade is complete, it’s polished to a mirror finish, an elaborate process that can by itself take weeks. The long, laborious process pushes the metal to its absolute limit, which is precisely why Jonathan Ive wanted to see it first-hand.

Here was a man who endlessly sought crucial knowledge, anything that could help him make the thinnest computing devices in the world. In fact, it surprised no one at Apple that their obsessive designer would want to take a 14-hour flight for a meeting with one of Japan’s leading katana smiths.

But the meeting in Japan paid dividends when Apple rolled out its iPad 2, The machine was the result of research, and the process of making the same product over and over again; in this case, carving metal and silicon until the product was one-third thinner and 0.2lb lighter than its predecessor.

There’s no denying it. In an ecosystem that allowed his genius to come to full blast, Jonathan Ive is now worth hundreds of millions of pounds to the company, currently valued at £580 billion. Yes, he’s a very important man to the company – important enough that the company’s shares would decimate – not an adjective picked at random – by a cool ten-percent with his retirement.[4]

This is a wolf, who reshaped the industry by becoming arguably the most influential designer in the last two decades.

TABLE OF CONTENT

8 HIRING

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“I was there when Jony made an excellent presentation to this guy who was wearing a red nose because it was Comic Relief Day. This clown decided to throw his weight around and pulled apart Jony’s design. It was ridiculous. Britain lost Jony Ive then and there.”

Despite the Apple reprieve, however, Jonathan’s start in California was disastrous at best. Apple promised great things, but the company was tanking, and the designer ended up working on his own in a basement office furnishing prototypes that never reached production.

But in 1997, Jobs returned, and with him returned the design over technology model. At the leadership mantle, Steve Jobs reinforced the culture that brought them global success and inadvertently provided Jonathan Ive the perfect ecosystem to morph into a wolf of disruption.

Now, that’s a tropic cascade worth adding to your experience.

But, what would’ve happened had the ecosystem not come to Ive?This must trace back to why the man of the hour left his homeland to contribute his genius to the USA.

“We lost a great talent. We virtually created our own consultancy, Tangerine, just so that we could employ Jony. And if I had to put my finger on why and where we lost him, it would have been one day at Ideal Standard in Hull.””

Clive Grinyer,Premier Design Director at Barclays (Presently)

To unveil the story some more, Tangerine had a consultancy contract with the bathroom fittings company to design a toilet. Here’s what happened according to Grinyer:

TABLE OF CONTENT

9 HIRING

But wolves of such caliber are a hard find, a rare breed, or better yet – the crème de la crème among apex predators. And yes, all this despite the abundance of talent in the business world. Of course, this isn't causing any concern. Wolves are still wolves, even those disguised as sheep.

But what do we mean by that? Jonathan Ive from the previous chapter stood an equal in many degrees to Elon Musk. They’re both cut from the same cloth, albeit through different professional choices. If they’re the alpha choice, betas must be the alternative best.

Simply put, organizations lose a host of beta wolves – just as disruptive collectively – due to poor engagement and mismatched cultural policies. In fact, it’s hard to overstate employee engagement and the importance of it, defined as the emotional and functional commitment of an employee to his or her organization.[6]

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As part of its Campus Engagement exercise, Cognizant in partnership with Mettl crafted a contest to test the skills of B-School graduates on multifaceted parameters. The idea was simple – brand promotion, and to hand-pick students to interact with their CXO team through a contest.[5]

Top B-School students battled in a fierce contest on simulated real-world business problems to find the best solutions. Powered by Mettl’s simulator, the contest dished out challenges across a spectrum of genres – puzzles, case studies, guess estimates, and spreadsheet analysis.

Wary of company-candidate synergy, the challenge was additionally topped off with a psychometric evaluation to provide insights into basic motivations and organizational compatibility of the contestants. Talk about covering your bases.

A leader board throughout the campaign helped create much needed social visibility, invariably enhancing the competitiveness among candidates. A rare case of candidate engagement at its finest, indeed.

Cognizant Technology Solutions Corp is an American multinational corporation and also one of the world leaders in custom information technology, consulting, and business process outsourcing services.

TABLE OF CONTENT

Case in Point:Cognizant – Finding CXO Wolves via Mettl

10 HIRING

But wolves of such caliber are a hard find, a rare breed, or better yet – the crème de la crème among apex predators. And yes, all this despite the abundance of talent in the business world. Of course, this isn't causing any concern. Wolves are still wolves, even those disguised as sheep.

But what do we mean by that? Jonathan Ive from the previous chapter stood an equal in many degrees to Elon Musk. They’re both cut from the same cloth, albeit through different professional choices. If they’re the alpha choice, betas must be the alternative best.

Simply put, organizations lose a host of beta wolves – just as disruptive collectively – due to poor engagement and mismatched cultural policies. In fact, it’s hard to overstate employee engagement and the importance of it, defined as the emotional and functional commitment of an employee to his or her organization.[6]

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The Outcome

“The CXO Challenge is part of our e�orts to foster a spirit of entrepreneurship amongst business students.

In providing first-hand insights into what it takes to successfully grow a business in terms of strategy, competitive dynamics, financials, marketing operations, and so on, the competition helped students not only discover and hone their leadership skills but also understand corporate challenges faced by the CXOs.

It provided an opportunity for students to wear the CXO hat, learn from experienced Cognizant experts, and come up with innovative business ideas.

Sriram Rajagopal,VP Human Resources at Cognizant

B-SCHOOL PARTICIPATION

27STUDENT PARTICIPATION

2,300POTENTIAL CXOS DISCOVERED

8Moreover, the campaign emerged strong with extensive outreach in India, Dubai, Manila, and Singapore.

TABLE OF CONTENT

11 HIRING

But wolves of such caliber are a hard find, a rare breed, or better yet – the crème de la crème among apex predators. And yes, all this despite the abundance of talent in the business world. Of course, this isn't causing any concern. Wolves are still wolves, even those disguised as sheep.

But what do we mean by that? Jonathan Ive from the previous chapter stood an equal in many degrees to Elon Musk. They’re both cut from the same cloth, albeit through different professional choices. If they’re the alpha choice, betas must be the alternative best.

Simply put, organizations lose a host of beta wolves – just as disruptive collectively – due to poor engagement and mismatched cultural policies. In fact, it’s hard to overstate employee engagement and the importance of it, defined as the emotional and functional commitment of an employee to his or her organization.[6]

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TROPHIC CASCADES IN THE BUSINESS ECOSYSTEM:

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Disruptive changes in a business ecosystem are not unheard of, as impressive as it is. Take Elon Musk for example, and his vastly powerful entrepreneurial genius – a relentless effort in the pursuit of greatness that helped him brainchild SpaceX, Tesla Inc, SolarCity, and PayPal. These among others.

Yes, this is a man who’s reached for reduced global warming, multi-planetary life, and colonizing Mars as goals – effectively turning fiction into achievable ideas. And to have cascaded an ecosystem as Elon Musk has, that’s something to truly marvel at.

12 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

But wolves of such caliber are a hard find, a rare breed, or better yet – the crème de la crème among apex predators. And yes, all this despite the abundance of talent in the business world. Of course, this isn't causing any concern. Wolves are still wolves, even those disguised as sheep.

But what do we mean by that? Jonathan Ive from the previous chapter stood an equal in many degrees to Elon Musk. They’re both cut from the same cloth, albeit through different professional choices. If they’re the alpha choice, betas must be the alternative best.

Simply put, organizations lose a host of beta wolves – just as disruptive collectively – due to poor engagement and mismatched cultural policies. In fact, it’s hard to overstate employee engagement and the importance of it, defined as the emotional and functional commitment of an employee to his or her organization.[6]

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But wolves of such caliber are a hard find, a rare breed, or better yet – the crème de la crème among apex predators. And yes, all this despite the abundance of talent in the business world. Of course, this isn't causing any concern. Wolves are still wolves, even those disguised as sheep.

But what do we mean by that? Jonathan Ive from the previous chapter stood an equal in many degrees to Elon Musk. They’re both cut from the same cloth, albeit through different professional choices. If they’re the alpha choice, betas must be the alternative best.

Simply put, organizations lose a host of beta wolves – just as disruptive collectively – due to poor engagement and mismatched cultural policies. In fact, it’s hard to overstate employee engagement and the importance of it, defined as the emotional and functional commitment of an employee to his or her organization.[6]

Companies with Engaged Employees Outperform Those Without By 202%

There are a variety of stats that could add to the large volumes of disengaged and partially engaged employees in an organization. It’s a global struggle and lies in the majority more than the minority. Yes, these are not numbers to scoff at.

13 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

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What is the root cause? You do lose out on good employees via disengagement, and some of them might even come across as disruptive betas; that’s a present fact. But perhaps the organization is not all at fault. Is it truly possible for unique people to respond to a set stimulus of engagement? Or do people and wolves alike respond more to an identity?

There’s a concept attached to this. It’s called the Alpha Theory. To paraphrase what William Shakespeare once said, “Some people are born alphas, while others achieve the status through hardship.”

Via examples, Musk and Ive were people born into it. But there is one who fought his way to grab the grand prize.

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But wolves of such caliber are a hard find, a rare breed, or better yet – the crème de la crème among apex predators. And yes, all this despite the abundance of talent in the business world. Of course, this isn't causing any concern. Wolves are still wolves, even those disguised as sheep.

But what do we mean by that? Jonathan Ive from the previous chapter stood an equal in many degrees to Elon Musk. They’re both cut from the same cloth, albeit through different professional choices. If they’re the alpha choice, betas must be the alternative best.

Simply put, organizations lose a host of beta wolves – just as disruptive collectively – due to poor engagement and mismatched cultural policies. In fact, it’s hard to overstate employee engagement and the importance of it, defined as the emotional and functional commitment of an employee to his or her organization.[6]

What is the root cause? You do lose out on good employees via disengagement, and some of them might even come across as disruptive betas; that’s a present fact. But perhaps the organization is not all at fault. Is it truly possible for unique people to respond to a set stimulus of engagement? Or do people and wolves alike respond more to an identity?

There’s a concept attached to this. It’s called the Alpha Theory. To paraphrase what William Shakespeare once said, “Some people are born alphas, while others achieve the status through hardship.”

Via examples, Musk and Ive were people born into it. But there is one who fought his way to grab the grand prize.

14 EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENT

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But wolves of such caliber are a hard find, a rare breed, or better yet – the crème de la crème among apex predators. And yes, all this despite the abundance of talent in the business world. Of course, this isn't causing any concern. Wolves are still wolves, even those disguised as sheep.

But what do we mean by that? Jonathan Ive from the previous chapter stood an equal in many degrees to Elon Musk. They’re both cut from the same cloth, albeit through different professional choices. If they’re the alpha choice, betas must be the alternative best.

Simply put, organizations lose a host of beta wolves – just as disruptive collectively – due to poor engagement and mismatched cultural policies. In fact, it’s hard to overstate employee engagement and the importance of it, defined as the emotional and functional commitment of an employee to his or her organization.[6]

Everyone has heard of IBM and their analytics. One of the major sponsors for the Association of Tennis Professionals, including the Grand Slams, the company could reveal detailed analysis on what it would take in numbers and percentages for a player to win a match.

In a company driven by data analytics, Diane Gherson remained at the forefront of the HR functionality for 13 years. Working for the technology giant that IBM was, what excited Gherson most was the idea of technology in HR, especially analytics.

It revealed itself like a breath of fresh air, for a department that relied – for much of history – on intuition. Gherson’s intent was to use outcome data such as revenue, productivity, hiring yield, individual performance, or employee engagement to better understand the probability of success in certain key decisions.[7]

In 2009, IBM suffered from high levels of attrition when their salary model fell to an uncompetitive state in India. The company spent more with replacements, but Gherson gambled her version of modern analytics to receive huge funding from the CFO in a promise to retrieve every penny invested.

Diane Gherson: The Advent of Analytics into Engagement

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A concentrated effort with data helped reveal employees with a high propensity to defect, and IBM, in turn, offered these people opportunities such as increased pay, career interventions, or even global experience. It was a program that helped the company save about $300 Million in the years that followed.

When asked why HR globally are yet to adopt such technologies, Diane Gherson answered with three points:

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But wolves of such caliber are a hard find, a rare breed, or better yet – the crème de la crème among apex predators. And yes, all this despite the abundance of talent in the business world. Of course, this isn't causing any concern. Wolves are still wolves, even those disguised as sheep.

But what do we mean by that? Jonathan Ive from the previous chapter stood an equal in many degrees to Elon Musk. They’re both cut from the same cloth, albeit through different professional choices. If they’re the alpha choice, betas must be the alternative best.

Simply put, organizations lose a host of beta wolves – just as disruptive collectively – due to poor engagement and mismatched cultural policies. In fact, it’s hard to overstate employee engagement and the importance of it, defined as the emotional and functional commitment of an employee to his or her organization.[6]

A concentrated effort with data helped reveal employees with a high propensity to defect, and IBM, in turn, offered these people opportunities such as increased pay, career interventions, or even global experience. It was a program that helped the company save about $300 Million in the years that followed.

When asked why HR globally are yet to adopt such technologies, Diane Gherson answered with three points:

1 Unavailability of tools, as they are still not commercially available,

2 A hesitance for people in HR to pursue analytics, and

3 The rejection of analytics for people-related items.

To explain the third point better, one example would see how managers are often surprised to see their employees leave despite analytics having pointed to it all along.

Now, owing to Gherson’s contributions in leading organizational transformations in IBM, HR Executive cited her as one of 2015’s Fifteen Most Powerful Women in HR.

This right here is Gherson’s intervention to bring betas to life, inadvertently becoming an alpha herself.

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1The coding simulator’s built-in auto-grade feature meant that Project Managers needed to merely define test cases. If a candidate succeeded in executing said cases, he or she would be graded instantly and without human intervention. A performance card of everyone tested ensured the IT giant got a hold of the talent they desired most.

2

Case in Point:An IT Giant’s Leaky Bucket

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You miss out on future talent with disengagement. An IT giant, one of Mettl’s biggest clients, endured a severe 10% drop-off among candidates hired through Campus Drives. This resulted from the stipulated delay between the offer letter and date of joining, which hovered at around 4-5 months in the Indian IT/ITes landscape.

The Highest Scorers Joined Immediately

Candidate engagement with the platform informed the company about interest levels. Infrequent engagement raised red flags for the hiring team, assisting them in instantly gauging said candidate for his or her state of mind about the organization.

Engagement Filters

The most recent campus hiring season witnessed drop-offs recede from 10% to 4.56%. Prior this, there was no way for the company to gauge technical acumen spare an interview. But as a solution that stemmed from the digital age, it touched tech-savvy wolves to great effect.

In a joint effort, the company used Mettl crafted coding simulators to engage candidates post-hire but before the onboarding process. The two gigantic benefits?

Bock’s Philosophy can be summarized as the following:

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It’s fascinating to see some people stand out more than the rest. And yes, we’ve often possessed a worldview of inequality. Some people are greater than others – the masses and the people who lead them. We can’t argue that. But these are disparaging thoughts and qualities to possess.

A person’s disruptive ability is unique, and in a manner of speaking stands true to the wisdom: To each their own. While it’s easy to identify the likes of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk as aggressive technologists, people like Jonathan Ive simply sell their craft differently.

It’s the whole you can’t judge a fish on its ability to climb a tree analogy all over again.

Disparity does exist, but certainly not to the extent portrayed in our worldview. If you take the Google story and Laszlo Bock’s era in the firm, there are tons of insights to draw from, both in terms of hiring great, disruptive wolves and engineering their growth into disruption.

Yes, there’s a reason why Google finds in their hands an abundance of apex predators in technology ideation, creation, and entrepreneurial prowess.

THE GRAND SCHEME OF THINGS: WHERE DO WE STAND?

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18 OUR STANDING

Bock’s Philosophy can be summarized as the following:

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Laszlo Bock: Hiring Wolves, Engineering People into Wolves

There’s a saying that the engineers in Google don’t really value Human Resources. They knew of the concept to a certain degree, yes, but failed to see its fruitfulness in a company of crème de la crème employees – the very best even among the best. However, Google is a giant, and giants tend to do things differently.

This is visible in their transformation of Human Resources into something called People Operations. Lazlo Bock, Former SVP, was among the crème de la crème of recruits Google often managed to unearth. Under the man’s leadership, Google’s HR department functions more like a rigorous science lab.

We’re talking sophisticated employee-data tracking programs, an effort to gain empirical certainty about every aspect of a Googler’s life – not just the perfect level of pay and benefits, but also trivial-sounding details such as optimal size and shape of cafeteria tables.

But let’s talk about Bock, the man who added more oomph to an already spectacular Google, who during his stint managed to revolutionize and even shape several HR policies in the industry. He’s done a lot, but we should probably focus on two of his many accolades for this piece – the hiring process and gDNA.

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Bock’s Philosophy can be summarized as the following:

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The Great Hiring E�ort: Identifying Googleyness

Bock pioneered the idea that HR is all about science and data. It was this ideology that saw him transform the hiring process at Google – an arduous, gimmicky one that relied on math – to a well-researched and dependable machine.[8]

According to him, Google looks for four attributes in future employees as their success predictors at the company: Cognitive Ability, Leadership Ability, Role-Related Knowledge, and Googleyness. Add freedom into the mix, and you have a recipe to the hiring practices of one of the most influential, dynamic, and progressive organizations in the world.

2,000,000 In a company that receives 2,000,000 applicants on an annual basis and hires merely a few thousand, Google ranks more selective than Harvard, Yale or Princeton by 25 times.

Bock’s Philosophy can be summarized as the following:

20 OUR STANDING

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Bock’s Philosophy can be summarized as the following:

1 Trust Your People,

2 Hire Only People Who Are Better Than You Are, and

3 Don’t Confuse Development with Managing Performance.

gDNA:An E�ort Unparalleled

There’s no denying that we all have our opinions, case studies, and facts to support our worldview. But even with all of that, there’s precious little scientific certainty around how to build great work environments, maximize productivity, enhance happiness, and cultivate high performing wolves.

With the challenge in sight, the People Innovation Lab developed the gDNA – Google’s first major long-term study aimed at understanding work. Under the leadership of Googlers Brian Welle and Jennifer Kurkoski, Google holds in its grasp glimpses of smart decisions that could profoundly impact future employees and work overall.

And yes, this isn’t your typical employee survey.[9]

The gDNA understands that employee experiences are a combination of innate characteristics – often overlooked – and his or her surroundings. It’s the nature and nurture concept, bringing together static traits such as personality, characteristics that change such as attitudes about culture and their interaction with biographical characteristics like tenure, role, and performance.

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21 OUR STANDING

Google believes that this 100-year project would help them in the short-term alone improve well-being, cultivate better alpha leaders, keep Googlers engaged for longer periods of time, and understand how happiness impacts work.

It’s phenomenal, is it not? How one man, an alpha leader did so much for a company to both adopt and nurture disruptive people. This right here is what we call the breaker of disparity.

But even having said all that, what is it we’re trying to convey to you? Well, keep the pages turning. You’ve reached the last leg of this book.

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Bock’s Philosophy can be summarized as the following:

TABLE OF CONTENT

22 OUR STANDING

Google believes that this 100-year project would help them in the short-term alone improve well-being, cultivate better alpha leaders, keep Googlers engaged for longer periods of time, and understand how happiness impacts work.

It’s phenomenal, is it not? How one man, an alpha leader did so much for a company to both adopt and nurture disruptive people. This right here is what we call the breaker of disparity.

But even having said all that, what is it we’re trying to convey to you? Well, keep the pages turning. You’ve reached the last leg of this book.

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Bock’s Philosophy can be summarized as the following:

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WHEN THE WOLVES HOWL:

THE CONCLUSION

It’s been a journey from talking about wolves and their impact on the natural ecosystem to business metaphors, people hired, people engaged, and people nurtured. And yes, we did also touch upon worldviews on inequality despite talent abundance. Why, though?

Well, and in all honesty, we live in a largely ferocious and competitive world. We seek answers through dire words such as Talent Scarcity, War for Talent when none of them is a problem, to begin with. Take a step back, breathe, and you’ll see the world for what it is – a hotbed of intelligent, culturally synergized people, simply waiting to get noticed. Yes, in abundance.

The concept behind our company even, Mettl started as a way to combat set in stone worldviews – worldviews that led most organizations astray. We would like to talk to all our readers if it ever came to that as well.

But at the end of the day, all we seek is value add and knowledge to you. Our interaction and people solutions are strong because of you, and this is simply one way for us to give it back.

So, from us to you, here are three things we wanted you to know in summary:

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Bock’s Philosophy can be summarized as the following:

1 Wolves are everywhere, search and hire them

2 Not all wolves require an alpha status; betas are just as disruptive

3 Sometimes, engineering a leader into alpha status unveils a host of productive disruption

So, from us to you, here are three things we wanted you to know in summary:

We’ll be back. With crazier analogies, bigger stories, greater angles, and more myths debunked. Look out for us. We hope you enjoyed the eBook, and yes, thank you for reaching all the way here.

Until next time. Godspeed!

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