About the Tilt 365 People Innovation Scorecard

This simple framework was designed by Tilt 365 people innovation SMEs for individual contributors, leaders, coaches, consultants, and internal experts in HR, OD, people ops, etc. to use when evaluating a team and/or organization’s people innovation. The scorecard highlights 3 meta-trends in people innovation distilled from Tilt 365’s primary research with our clients, as well as a modified informal delphi analysis using 20+ expert sources (e.g., HBR, PWC, Forbes, McKinsey, DDI) with 200+ insights.

How the scorecard works
Add up your score for the 9 trends (between 1 and 5 points for each). Higher scores are better.

What the scorecard means
40 - 45 World-class. Talented people everywhere admire you and want to work with you and for you.

35 - 39 Great. Internal and external stakeholders recognize you as a leader in people innovation.

30 - 34 Good. Your organization and culture could be much more productive and engaged.

20 - 29 Mediocre. Your competitors are stealing talent and/or market share from you regularly.

<19 Lackluster. You’re at a significant risk of disruption from a non-traditional competitor and many people, especially your best leaders and high potentials, are actively looking to leave your organization.

The Meta-trends in People Innovation for 2015

Meta-trend 1: No more lords of business.
Leaders must be inspiring rather than motivating, conscious as well as quantitative, and open to collaboration and feedback.

1.1 Architect engagement. Inspire your people and design conditions for success, don’t try to drive it and/or own it.

We have a mission statement on our website and/or a business plan with a strategy.
We have a mission statement that our organization embodies.
Our mission, which is massive and important to the world, inspires our clients, organization, and other stakeholders.
Our mission and strategy clearly tell internal and external stakeholders what we do and, especially, do not do.
Our mission, strategy, and plan purposefully create engagement and focus on inspiring, enabling, and getting out of the way.

1.2 MIES is the new KISS. Especially with people innovation, less is more and fewer are better. MIES = Make It Even Simpler.

Leadership and organizational development happen naturally in our organization - we don’t have formal programs for either.
Someone in HR and/or a consultant can count the number of development tools and programs you use in your organization from memory.
Someone in HR and/or a consultant can count the number of development tools and programs you use in your organization on one hand.
Most people in our organization use the tools regularly.
Most people in our organization consider the tools essential and frequently ask if we can deploy them more broadly within the organization.

1.3 No one can hide. Feedback has elevated customer/client expectations and eliminated bureaucratic camouflage.

Everyone has performance reviews once a year on a forced curve; for example, there can only be so many top performers on a team.
Everyone in your organization has a personalized development plan.
Everyone knows what users, customers, and/or clients think of your company through client feedback and/or sites like yelp and glassdoor.
Everyone in the organization knows their character strengths, how they are showing up to others, and why strengths are critical for development.
Everyone in the organization appreciates the character strengths of other individuals in the organizations and can Tilt appropriately based on context and business needs.

Meta-Trend 2: Create unicorn potential. Organizations must be participatory, exponential, and balanced.

2.1 Go there! Empathy multiplied participation = perceived value

We know what our users and clients need because we are brilliant and/or a market leader…plus, Steve Jobs didn’t do market research.
Our website has a link where our users and customers can provide feedback.
We hear what clients want from our salespeople and/or marketing team.
We have a design research program with designers and researchers (obviously!) that systematically report findings throughout the organization after spending time directly with clients.
Anyone in our organization can spend time with clients and/or users to learn what clients want to accomplish to create empathy and understanding. No one rises up in our organization without user- and/or client-facing assignments.

2.2 Go big! Design for scale, not for internal bureaucracy.

We create our business value and our mission ourselves.
Our sales and marketing team report what our users, customers, and clients want, which drives our strategy.
We systematically receive and distribute inspiration and insight directly from our clients, prospects, and partners.
We are a platform with an inspired community fueling our growth and business decisions.
Our users and clients essentially sell for us…and our entire fulfillment process is become more automated every day.

2.3 Go home! Take vacation and disconnection as seriously as performance and availability.

Some of our managers still measure employee performance based on who shows up at the office first and leaves last.
We aren’t the type of business where people can or should work remotely, which means that people need to work on nights and weekends to actually get work done.
We allow people to work wherever they want, but require that they are available through email, phone, and/or chat.
We are a results-oriented work environment and require synchronized availability only when necessary.
We minimize interruptions, report status naturally as part of our processes, and force people to take vacation until they feel comfortable taking it themselves.

Meta-Trend 3: Disrupt thyself.
Organizational change must be inside-out, client-focused, and, most importantly, self-disruptive.

3.1 Know thyself. Structured personal development is more personal (and necessary) for everyone.

We don’t invest in self-assessment or 360 feedback software.
We invest in self-assessment or subjective 360 feedback software for leaders; we focus on competencies and fixing weaknesses.
We invest in self-assessment and 360 feedback software for leaders; we focus on strengths.
We invest in self-assessment and/or structured, continuous 360 feedback software for leaders, high potentials, and some functional groups; we focus on character strengths.
We invest in self-assessment and structured, continuous 360 feedback software for all individuals and teams throughout our organization; we focus on character strengths using an inside-out approach to development.

3.2 Know thy clients. Organize around what your clients want to accomplish (specifically NOT what they want).

Everyone can name our competition; sales and executives see customers and/or clients.
Everyone can describe our most important client wins and/or our relative position in the industry; sales, marketing, and executives meet with users and clients.
Our organization appreciates users and clients; everyone can describe the most important challenges that we are solving for our users, customers, and/or clients. Sales, marketing, executives and technical leadership meet with users and/or clients.
In meetings with users and/or clients, it would be hard for an outside observer to tell who is who because everyone is focused on user, customer, and/or client value.
Our organization loves our clients and everyone can describe what our clients want to accomplish; clients have relationships throughout an organization and participate in internal meetings and discussions.

3.3 Know thy red team or know thy (future) substitute. Red teams combine client insights, business expertise, and start-up style without the constraints.

We are an industry leader and disruption-proof.
We appreciate that the best ideas for the future of our business may come from anywhere within our organization - or from our users, customers, and clients.
We have an internal process to capture ideas and inventions, with a reward system.
We train people to accept failure as part of learning as part of formal training about innovation, disruption, etc., and reward appropriate risk taking.
We have funded a red team with business and technical experts internally that interacts directly with clients and creates transformational ideas, prototypes, and other examples of thought leadership which inform our product development and are shared internally and externally.

So what's your score?
Add up your score for the 9 trends (between 1 and 5 points for each). Higher scores are better.

What the scorecard means

40 - 45 World-class. Talented people everywhere admire you and want to work with you and for you.