What is the greatest challenge organizations face today? Jen Kelchner on ABM_FM

Why human capital insight is needed across organizations?

Here is the interview with Jen Kelchner by host Rob Whetham on allbusinessmediafm. – Recorded live on April 3, 2018.

Additional Insights Not Included In Interview

About Jen’s background and why LDR21:

I have a very diverse background across a few industries and experience working in operations, talent and management consulting related roles in Fortune 100 companies. I found myself with this great opportunity working for Deloitte but found that my desire to grow and do more and asking lots of questions wasn’t well received. There is an order to things in the corporate world and it scares people who manage you when you start to ask questions. I ask questions because it is how I learn and know how to pivot to meet needs.  I left Deloitte out of my frustration with the workplace, I spent several years trying to work on healing the things within myself from past traumas and trying to figure out how to be my best self. What I realized was that I had been conditioned over time to make everyone else comfortable rather than just be myself – to embrace all of the amazing things about me that I could use to contribute to make people and places around me better. When I discovered open organization principles while working with the opensource.com community – it felt like I had found home. This is how people should be working .This is how we should be doing life – these principles of transparency, community, inclusivity, collaboration and adaptability. So I began to learn all I could about how to teach others these behaviors and help organizational cultures shift to these frameworks that help everyone excel.

What makes your company so unique in what you are doing or how you offer your services?

There is a major need and set of challenges presented right now in this time in history. We are in a constant state of rapid innovation – and it extends beyond digital transformation (things like AI, Machine Learning, etc). Myself and my partner, Dr. MaryJo Burchard, have lived our entire lives in constant states of transition and learning about behaviors of people. So we saw this need – this wide open space – to help people learn agility while learning how to stabilize themselves during changes. We are doing groundbreaking work in delivering the next evolution of human capital insight. The tools we build are being delivered through events and web applications for teams and at an organizational level. We cracked this code on change languages – what a person needs, how they respond to change and how they contribute positively during change. And – it is situational – our needs, responses and contribution shift around based on that particular season in life or type of change presented. By revealing the information in our Agility Suite, we provide the insight then to know how to balance teams for performance, to ensure you have enough stabilizers to balance your drivers, to select the right people for the job and culture fit, and become a truly agile workforce. Our Agility Suite reveals not only the interpersonal side of insight but we are building tools that measure the cultural side of an organization on things like trust and idea meritocracy. We believe everyone has a seat at the table and when they know who they, that they have a positive contribution and that they belong – everything shifts. Engagement happens. Turnover reduces. Innovation increases. And for the company – a competitive advantage.  We make change humane and equip companies to ease disruption while being ready for the next wave of change.

What is the biggest challenge facing businesses right now?

The speed of innovation and disruption. Futurist Gerd Leonhardt said that we will see more change in 20 years (2015-2035) than in the 300 years prior of recorded history. This does not mean that the disruption is a bad thing. But with the speed of it the new normal will be one wave after another before people can get up and get their footing before the next wave. We have to begin setting new frameworks for our organization to operate in and empower our people to ride the waves instead of being stuck in the churn. It is the only way to save your business and to maintain any competitive edge. Businesses will begin to fail and fade out without an operational change to allow for agility and new ways of doing work.  People can’t be agile without knowing how they contribute to change. The new normal will not allow for a steady state to reset. The new normal is a constant state of disruption. Organizations require the right framework to allow for agility. People need the tools and understanding to be stable despite a continuous state of disruption.

Can you give us something that people can do right now that helps with change?

For individuals I would say: relax and breathe. Change is personal and it can be very overwhelming if you don’t know who you are, where you belong and how you contribute. Things are changing around you but that doesn’t always mean that you are losing something.  Learn what your change language is and how to communicate your needs with others. These change languages by the way apply to any team – a team is more than one person – so think about relationships with friends, family and in your community – not just the workplace. These insights will lead to respectful, open discourse. For leaders & organizations I would say: Learn about open behaviors and the frameworks to implement so your people can become agile. Begin to implement these open principles so you can not only keep your doors open but can gain competitive edge. When people know who they are and how they contribute and have a workplace culture to actually operate agility in – innovation, engagement, productivity, retention… all of those things go through the roof. You will not survive even in to the near future if you do not change your culture to meet the demands of disruption. Empowering  your people will be your success.