Latest / Edan Haddock - Total Talent / Partner → Inform → Transform – A Simple, Effective Framework for Building People & Talent Strategy

Transcript

Partner → Inform → Transform – A Simple, Effective Framework for Building People & Talent Strategy · Edan Haddock - Total Talent

• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone, and welcome back to Eden Haddock Total Talent.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Eden Haddock, Head of Talent and People Experience at Movember.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know some of you are probably listening while walking the dog, on your commute, or maybe hiding in a meeting room pretending you're working on a spreadsheet.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: No judgment.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: I see you.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Today's episode is a big one.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking strategy.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And not strategy in the kind of yawn 60-page deck, no one ever reads it kind of way.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: No.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about a simple, effective, dare I say fun way of building a talent acquisition and people experience strategy with your team.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: And it all comes down to three words.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Partner, inform, transform.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Stick with me.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because I'm going to break this down and also take you behind the scenes at Movember, where we recently ran a full strategy date with the team.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And spoiler alert, it worked.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: It really worked.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: And yes, of course, there were plenty of mustache puns and things going on in the room.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: We love all that stuff.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know me.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: But let's start.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's start with this.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: Why do strategy days even matter?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're anything like most people in talent teams, you're drowning in a day-to-day.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, recruitment fires, filling roles, interviewing candidates, HR policies, someone can't get into your HRIS, someone else forgot their password, there's always a password.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But the risk is you spend too much time reacting.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: You forget to stop and ask.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Where are we actually going?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: What's our plan?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: What's our impact?
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's why stepping back is critical.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And not just for the leader, but for the whole team.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: If the team doesn't own the strategy, they won't live it.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: So what we did at November is simple.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: We booked a whole day, cleared calendars, filled the room with post-its, pens, snacks, moustache puns.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because obviously.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And and and we said, all right, today we build our six-month plan together.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And we anchored it around three circles.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Partner, inform, transform.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds fancy.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: But really, it's dead simple.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the framework.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: Partner, inform, transform.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Let me spell this out.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Partner.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is about relationships.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: With the business, with leaders, with candidates, with each other.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: It's about being seen as a collaborator, not an order taker.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is experience.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Inform.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is about data.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: Storytelling, listening.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't inform, you can't influence.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: And no, a 50-page HRIS report that no one reads does not count as informing.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking dashboards, insights, stories.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Transform.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: This is the fun bit.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's when we take the trust we've built as partners, the insights we've gathered as informers.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we actually do something different.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: We change how the organization works.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the kicker it's a cycle.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: You don't just partner once and retire.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: You keep looping.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Partner, inform, transform, partner again.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: Like shampoo instructions, but for HR.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Alright, story time.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: Let me take you to Monday the fifteenth of September, Mo HQ, 9 a.m.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: sharp.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Caffeine levels high.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_00: Sugar levels also high.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Energy levels cautiously optimistic.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: We kicked the day off with an icebreaker.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: Two truths and a dream.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Each of us had to share two true career highlights.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And one dream initiative they'd love us they would love to see us deliver.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'll admit some dreams were ambitious.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, things like let's have AI do all of our onboarding.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I had in my head, let's just abolish meetings, you know.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, I would vote for those some days, right?
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think we all would.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is we set the tone.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: We got people laughing, dreaming, and actually talking.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then we rolled out the big guns.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: The partner, inform, transform diagram.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: We stuck it up on the wall.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And it and I said, this is our lens.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Everything today, we're putting through these three circles.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: And these three circles define everything that we do in our day-to-day.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: It moves you away from transactional work.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you look at the work that you're doing in partner and you continue it through that cycle of inform transform, and this can be every single interaction that you have with a candidate.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: It can be every single role you fill.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you shift your mind to that flow of partner, inform transform, it really changes the way you work.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: It changes the way you think, and it changes the way you strategize.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So circle one, first up, partner.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: We mapped out where we currently partner with the business.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Post-its everywhere.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Hiring manager check-ins, workforce planning, leadership coaching the works.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Every, every touch point.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then we asked, where are the gaps?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Cue more post-it notes.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Things like we need to be more proactive in workforce planning, not reactive.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: We need to coach our leaders, not just serve them.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then for fun, we had stickers.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we put those stickers next to the most impactful partnership idea.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, it it turns into a popularity contest for post-its, right?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: But hey, democracy works.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: After a quick coffee break, and let's be real, HR runs on caffeine, we we hit circle two, and that was inform.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: We ran a data and storytelling jam.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Each of us wrote down how we currently inform through dashboards, surveys, onboarding insights.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Then we asked, how could we do it better?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the best bit was, you know, the simple, we all use it, the simple traffic light wall.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Green post-it notes for what's working, amber for what needs tuning, and red for what's missing.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: By the end we had a rainbow wall of brutal honesty.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: Spoiler.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently no one reads a twenty tab Excel report.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Shocking, I know, right?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Transform.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Before lunch we got to the sexy bit.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: Transform.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: We asked, what could truly transform the people and talent experience in the next six months?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: The ideas were wild.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: AI for candidate experience.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Motrain 2.0 onboarding.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Leadership labs, even some moonshot stuff like hologram onboarding.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know, I mean, why not?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I actually think it's gonna happen, spoiler.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, these things are in my head.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know me.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: But then we clustered ideas by feasibility and impact.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: Which, by the way, is a nice way of saying that's brilliant, but it's not happening this quarter.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: By the end of the session, we had a short list of bold, realistic transformations.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the energy in the room electric.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it was just the pre-lunch hunger pangs.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of which, speaking of lunch, we didn't just eat sandwiches.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: We went out, we had fun, we continued our brainstorming.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: We had some pretty fabulous food, actually.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: If you want a recommendation in Richmond, reach out.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: But it was great.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, after lunch we came back, slightly carb comatose, but but we were really then ready to plan.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: We drew a big six-month timeline on the wall.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Every project idea from the morning went on a post-it.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Then we dot voted.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And simple.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: Must do, should do, nice to do.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: By the end, we had a clear team-owned roadmap.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And not just words on a page, actual agreement.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: Because everyone had a sticker on it.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then came my favorite part.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Mo Ideas wall.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: A giant blank wall, Sharpies in hand, and one rule.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing is too bold.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: We went for it.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Ideas ranged from realistic to let's say aspirational.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: But the point was, we let creativity run wild.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: And reading reading these ideas out, quick fire at the end, pure energy, laughter, debate, applause, all of these things flow.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Strategy should feel alive, not corporate.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: And we came up with a really big idea that we all loved.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that big idea, we put on a giant post-it note.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that big idea is really our North Star and something we're aiming towards.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not going to share it here.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's a pretty cool idea.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: But what we found is all of the other items that we had in Transformation.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: The items that we had in Partner in Inform.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: They just all led to this big idea.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: That this big idea, if we land everything else, will come to life.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a game changer.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: And it was so exciting for our team to land on something that bold and that big that with the other activities that we agreed on and that we focused on, it made that big idea a natural progression, and it made it less out of reach.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, we closed with one more thing.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: Each of us had to write one personal commitment to support the six-month plan.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: Some were small.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'll improve my reporting, Eden.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: You need to do that.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Some were big.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, leading AI initiatives, further evolving those.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: What's next for our AI strategy?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't realize that we are so further ahead than most people, but that excites us.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: We want to do more.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe it is the hologram.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to say.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, in the square.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, we we loved that post-it note.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was a bit of a another highlight of the day.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: But it was symbolic, right?
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: But also accountability in action.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then, yes, of course, we we celebrated because if you can't celebrate your wins in HR, who will?
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: So what did we learn?
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: That simple framework works.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Partner gave us trust.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: Inform gave us clarity.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: Transform gave us ambition.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the cycle keeps turning.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't complicated.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a one hundred slide deck.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: It was one day, some post-it notes, and a simple model.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: But it worked.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we walked away with a wall of touch points.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: A traffic light map of what's working and missing.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: A prioritized six-month roadmap.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_00: A wall of bold ideas and one even bolder idea that actually suddenly felt realistic.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And importantly, our own individual commitments where we play a part in this, collectively and individually.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is the thing with strategy.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think we tend to over-engineer these things.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're listening and thinking, we never deliver on strategy.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: We have these days, and it never goes anywhere.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I've been in those environments.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: I really have.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I've led those strategy days.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: Hand on heart, I'll admit it.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: They don't go anywhere sometimes.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: But in this case, you can.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the playbook.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Book a day.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Use that partner inform transform cycle as your lens.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: Plan activities for each circle.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: Make it fun.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: And end with a roadmap and commitments.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is so simple.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It is effective.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's tried and true.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: But we're not trying to be highbrow here.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: We're being practical.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's really important.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's the practicality of a simple model, like partner, inform, transform, and that wheel that continues to turn and shifting your mindset of every activity to follow that cycle.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something that is going to get a TED talk.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because it is so, so simple.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: But simplicity is effective.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: It can be engaging and empowering.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: And it was for us.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: So that's it, folks.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: Partner, inform, transform.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: A simple cycle that can change the way your people and talent team build strategy.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: We lived it on Monday here at Movember.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you it worked.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: So give it a go.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And if you do, let me know how it goes.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know you can find me on LinkedIn, Aiden Haddock, yes, the guy with too many mustache props.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: And share your story.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And until next time, keep building, keep transforming.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, even the best strategy starts with a post at note.