Weekly Business Insights from Top Ten Business Magazines | Week 309 | Strategy & Business Model Section | 1

Extractive summaries and key takeaways from the articles curated from TOP TEN BUSINESS MAGAZINES to promote informed business decision-making | Since September 2017 | Week 309 | August 11-17, 2023

Identify Critical Roles to Improve Performance

By Boris Groysberg et al., | MIT Sloan Management Review | Fall 2023 Magazine

Listen to the Extractive Summary of the Article

Talent can be a source of competitive advantage only if great people are in the most critical roles. Having stars in jobs that aren’t critical is just a waste of talent.  Data can be used to help tease out both who your current stars are and what positions have the greatest influence on organizational outcomes. It can help identify hidden talent in situations where performance is a team effort and point out roles that may be much more important to success than leadership has realized.

The authors data analysis shows in soccer although defenders may not get as much fan adoration, the numbers indicate that they are the biggest difference makers for winning.  This kind of analysis works regardless of industry. Every organization or function is similarly likely to have its own underappreciated roles. While the sales team may land the account, it could be the service department that keeps that account renewing each year.

Talent scarcity matters, too. Comparing the left versus right positions for fullback, midfielder, and center defender, the roles on the left side contribute disproportionately more. Why? While left-footed soccer players are naturally advantaged for these roles, the number of world-class left-footed players is considerably smaller than right-footed players. In critical roles where exceptional talent is scarce, having performers in such roles is doubly important.

Organizational leadership and structure also matter. When included in the models, coaches are the third-most-important factor, behind only the fullback positions. Team organization, systems of play, and staffing govern how critical roles are deployed.

A similar analytical approach can be applied to businesses by combining performance and HR data. First, gather the data that identifies your workers by location, role, and timing. Second, be sure to gain an understanding of contextual factors that influence outcomes but are unrelated to staffing (for example, stores may perform differently due to location, age, format, or season). This allows you to separate an individual’s impact on outcomes from circumstantial factors. Third, collect performance outcome data for the unit; it’s best to obtain multiple types of metrics, since outcomes are multidimensional.

Leaders can take a page from the soccer playbook and consider the following lessons for their own organizations:  know your critical roles and where you need to invest; use data where you can, and invest in making it informative; hire for and develop based on key skills, and align systems and structure.

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Talent can be a source of competitive advantage only if great people are in the most critical roles. Having stars in jobs that aren’t critical is just a waste of talent.
2. Data can be used to help tease out both who your current stars are and what positions have the greatest influence on organizational outcomes. It can help identify hidden talent in situations where performance is a team effort and point out roles that may be much more important to success than leadership has realized.
3. Leaders can take a page from the soccer playbook and consider the following lessons for their own organizations:  know your critical roles and where you need to invest; use data where you can, and invest in making it informative; hire for and develop based on key skills, and align systems and structure.

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Topics:  Strategy, Performance, Data Analysis