The Right Talent as a Catalyst for Innovation and Impact

Over the last few weeks, I’ve written about the strategic risks leaders must address to thrive in a competitive environment. Recently, I’ve discussed the importance of creating and sustaining a positive culture that helps drive innovation and change.

Critical to creating and sustaining the right culture is the sourcing, finding, and cultivating the right talent is another key catalyst for driving innovation and impact.

Our people are our most strategic resource. We have just implemented a new Human Capital Management system, as employing state-of-the-art technology around talent acquisition and management is critical to recruiting and retaining top notch staff.

The ability to recruit top talent stems from being known as a premier employer and building relationships with feeder institutions such as business, universities and local chambers. And with that we have developed a description of the DNA of those who are successful in The Fedcap Group.

- - Passionate: They are driven to create/identify and resource the most effective ways to solve problems for people with barriers.
  - Informed: They are current within their respective fields.
  - Credible: When they speak, people listen because of their depth of knowledge and expertise.
  - Smart and Fast: They can see the end result and take quick, thoughtful and decisive action.
  - Creative: They generate innovative and often unexpected answers to difficult problems.
  - Curious: They thrive on new information and opportunities.
  - Dedicated: They run a continuous campaign to advance the position of The Fedcap Group and the people we serve.
  - Understands the concept of “Good to Great”: They constantly look for opportunities to improve the work of The Fedcap Group, searching for best-in-class practices–not reinventing the wheel.
  - Flexible: They are able and willing to do whatever it takes to get the job done.
  - Fun: They take their work seriously, but not themselves.

Once recruited, the interview process demands its own structure and expertise. When hiring for top positions in the agency, I ensure they spend time with every key leader. I invite them to one of our “Corp Weeks” – where key staff from throughout the company come to New York to discuss corporate health, emerging trends in our areas of practice, review data about our company’s performance and brainstorm potential areas of innovation.

When I assess talent, these are the things I look for in prospective candidates:

- - How does the candidate think? What is important to them?
  - How does the candidate keep current on trends in their area of focus?
  - What do they see as trends over the next 5-10 years?
  - How do they use information to advance new ideas?
  - How have they made a difference?
  - How have they built effective structure in the past? How do they know they were effective?
  - Is the candidate one who consistently considers “what if?” scenarios?
  - How comfortable is the candidate with ambiguity? And if comfortable, how do they bring clarity and structure to that ambiguity?

The vision, the talent, and the ability of the staff to execute all combine to create the catalyst for driving—and realizing—innovation and ultimately impact in the lives of those we serve—creating a legacy for current and future generations to come.

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Relevance, Sustainability, Impact

In 2009, Fedcap adopted a framework that has served us well over the past decade: Sustainability, Relevance and impact. These three drivers influence the way we think, plan and implement. They are foundational to the culture of our organization, and they guide how we measure success.

Sustainability: A commitment to long-term financial health.

None of our work is possible if we don’t remain financially healthy. Sustainability requires that we establish our core indicators of corporate health, that we report against those indicators, and we build strategies and accompanying structures to ensure we remain financially healthy.

Sustainability advances our ability to innovate and stay relevant.

Relevance: A commitment to continuous innovation and modernization.

An organization must remain ahead of the curve—understanding the emerging trends in practice, funding and technology and how they impact service design and delivery. We simply cannot do what we have always done. We talk a lot about looking forward in our agency. What is next…and what comes after that? These are questions that we explore in detail during our corporate weeks together.

Relevance means that the organization is positioned to thrive regardless of the inevitable twists and turns of the marketplace.

Impact: A commitment to measurable improvements.

Because we are committed to solving (not just serving) problems, we have set bold goals to improve the long-term outcomes for vulnerable populations. We are doing this by changing our own practice and by working with government and private partners to change how systems design, fund and deliver services. We measure our success by tracking the national outcomes of these groups, not just those who walk through our door.

We are embedding research into our program models to ensure the efficacy of our program design and then replicating and scaling our evidence-based interventions.

This very precise frame is one that we can apply throughout our companies, programs, and our services. It is simple, and it is direct, and it is the foundation for our structure and for our plans for growth.

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