Talent Makers

8Driving Operational Excellence

If you're familiar with software development, then you know about systems like Agile. They are frameworks for collaborating, where—among other things— you get together regularly, look back at the work recently done, and collectively think, How can we do this better?

The same is certainly true of sales organizations. The good ones do a lot of planning, have debriefs, and even hire sales-enablement experts to train people how to sell better.

Yet how many organizations put an equivalent emphasis on improving the hiring process? Well, when you're through with this chapter, you'll know how to put a crucial part of the system in place to do just that, and why it's so important.

First Class All the Way

Organizations that are great at hiring have made hiring a first-class process that deserves continual attention. It's a massive evolution compared with the organizations that relegate hiring to something they occasionally pull out and then store away, like the company punchbowl.

Getting great at hiring means building processes with clear key performance indicators (KPIs) and measuring with the intention of continuous improvement. This is the competency that we call “Use data to drive operational excellence and improve over time.” It's a little different from the other three competencies—the candidate experience, recruiting, and making hiring decisions. This fourth competency is the thread to weave those other three into the fabric of your organization. ...