The Data Driven Leader: A Powerful Approach to Delivering Measurable Business Impact Through People Analytics - Hardcover

Dearborn, Jenny; Swanson, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1119382203 ISBN 13: 9781119382201

Publisher: Wiley, 2017

Synopsis

Data is your most valuable leadership asset―here's how to use it

The Data Driven Leader presents a clear, accessible guide to solving important leadership challenges through human resources-focused and other data analytics. This engaging book shows you how to transform the HR function and overall organizational effectiveness by using data to make decisions grounded in facts vs. opinions, identify root causes behind your company’s thorniest problems and move toward a winning, future-focused business strategy. Realistic and actionable, this book tells the story of a successful sales executive who, after leading an analytics-driven turnaround (in Data Driven, this book’s predecessor), faces a new turnaround challenge as chief human resources officer. Each chapter features insightful commentary and practical notes on the points the story raises, guiding you to put HR analytics into action in your organization. 

HR and other leaders cannot afford to overlook the power and competitive advantages of data-driven decision-making and strategies. This book reflects the growing trend of CEOs choosing analytics-minded business leaders to head HR, at a time when workplaces everywhere face game-changing forces including automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. It is urgent that human resources leaders embrace analytics, not only to remain professionally relevant but also to help their organizations successfully navigate this digital transformation. HR professionals can and must:

• Understand essential data science principles and corporate analytics models
• Identify and execute effective data analytics initiatives
• Boost HR and company productivity and performance with metrics that matter
• Shape an analytics-centric culture that generates data driven leaders

Most organizations capture and report data, but data is useless without analysis that leads to action. The Data Driven Leader shows you how to use this tremendous asset to lead your organization higher.

About this title

From the Back Cover

PRAISE FOR THE DATA DRIVEN LEADER

"The Data Driven Leader offers an engaging parable that brings to life the value of analytically-based people decisions, and helpful guidance for leaders to enhance those decisions."
―Dr. John W. Boudreau, Professor and Research Director, Center for Effective Organizations and Marshall School of Business, University of Southern California

"One of the most profound changes in business today is the vast amount of people-related data we have to analyze. This book will help HR and line managers understand their opportunity to apply analytics to many of the people decisions we make every day."
―Josh Bersin, Industry Analyst, Principal and Founder, Bersin by Deloitte

"One of the key questions for the future is the impact of artificial intelligence on human work. Here's a great contribution to that debate. Jenny Dearborn and David Swanson, through engaging examples and in-depth analyses, show how data analytics can properly empower the workforce for the future."
―Chris Anderson, Head of TED

"You can't build an organization where people want to show up if you don't truly know your people and you can't truly know your people if you don't have a people analytics strategy in place. Start by reading this book!"
―Jacob Morgan, Author of The Employee Experience Advantage (2017), The Future of Work (2014) and The Collaborative Organization (2012), Speaker and Futurist

"The Data Driven Leader is an essential guide for leaders who want to navigate complexity with brilliance and win in the new game of work. This insight-packed book will show you how to ask the right questions, gather intelligence and enable your team to find the best answers."
―Liz Wiseman, New York Times bestselling author of Multipliers and Rookie Smarts, Founder, The Wiseman Group

"Effective leaders care about truth: the organizations that they really have, not the ones they think (or wish) they have. Moving a company forward requires patient and accurate insights into what people are really doing. This valuable book provides practical and clever tools for this analytical work, demystifying the application of data analytics to HR processes that serve the entire company."
―Dr. Charles Galunic, Aviva Chaired Professor of Leadership, Professor of Organization Behaviour, INSEAD Business School, FRANCE

"We live in a world where data overload and data integrity is questioned every day. Rather than running away from it, we need to boldly step up. Consequently, the ability to synthesize information, analyze data and offer compelling insights and recommendations is one of the most critical skills required by the workforce of today. The HR function has the opportunity to lead and make a huge difference in this space. The Data Driven Leader is an easy-to-read, insightful book that provides great ideas for practical application across many parts of a business."
― Karen Gaydon, SVP, CHRO and Corporate Marketing, Synaptics

From the Inside Flap

The Data Driven Leader offers leaders a hands-on guide for designing data-driven people strategies and the effective programs that can act as catalysts for change and transformation. While most companies are busy collecting data, very few actually use it to drive change internally. Even when an organization's infrastructure is in place, meaningful analysis is all too often lacking. This important resource clearly shows companies that adopt data-driven decision making are more productive and demonstrate superior employee performance.

Using data to drive measurable business outcomes and preparing the workforce to be important participants in driving the strategy and sustainability of an organization are the keys to ongoing success. As Jenny Dearborn and David Swanson--leading voices in data and analytics in the workplace--explains, companies need to move toward diagnosing the "why" behind human resource metrics. Companies must take the leap from simple reports to using diagnostic analytics. Once these metrics are quantified, leaders can act, guided by prescriptive analytics in order to predict a more accurate future for their organizations.

Throughout the book, Dearborn and Swanson introduces illustrative examples of business challenges and then proposes business solutions using sound human resources practices coupled with analytics. Filled with insights and practical suggestions, the examples focus on sales because about 80 percent of any company is typically involved with some aspect of sales, so a sales-focused initiative will usually attract significant buy-in across the organization. Once an organization has implemented people analytics for sales, it can replicate it in other areas across the company.

When a company embraces data-driven strategies, it opens the door to a competitive advantage built by happy, productive, high-performing teams. Designed to be practical and focused on real-world leadership skills, The Data Driven Leader shows what it takes to apply these proven approaches in order to boost productivity and performance with metrics that matter.

The Data Driven Leader is filled with the information needed to motivate and inspire leaders to combine the power of data and analytics with their own expertise, thus enabling the more effective use of an organization's most precious resources: people's time and energy.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wiley
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 1119382203
• ISBN 13: 9781119382201
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272