Chief People Officer Dessalen Wood
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Today I\\u2019m joined by Dessalen Wood, Chief People Officer at Thoughtexchange. Dessalen has used the Thoughtexchange product to gather deep insights about employee motivations, and has used the data to determine the gap between what employees report is most important in a role, as opposed to which factors actually lead to increased retention and job satisfaction.
Key Points From This Episode:
- Dessalen explains what the purpose of ThoughtExchange is.
- The transformational first experience that Dessalen had using ThoughtExchange.
- How Dessalen came to work at ThoughtExchange.\\xa0
- What Dessalen learned from doing a ThoughtExchange asking people what would prevent them from quitting their job.
- Reasons that people want more out of their job now than they did in the past.
- Four themes that Dessalen ended up with when she ran an internal ThoughtExchange on what employees want more of.
- The value of being transparent as a company.
- How the most attractive elements of a job have changed over time.
- Why being a leader now is more challenging than ever.
- An explanation of what Dessalen calls the \\u201cfrom-for\\u201d balance.
- Dessalen shares an example of what it means to be transparent as a leader.
- Self-awareness isn\\u2019t enough, you have to be able to self-manage too.
- What Dessalen learns about a person from asking them about decisions they made that they regret.
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Tweetables:
\\u201cIf you\\u2019re using ThoughtExchange early in the decision-making process, you\\u2019re actually getting ideas and you\\u2019re actually improving the decision that you\\u2019re going to make by iterating with a large population.\\u201d \\u2014 @dessalen [0:03:47]
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\\u201cWe are a purpose-driven company. What we\\u2019re doing is really important in the world by bringing a way to have an unbiased and diverse conversation inside large organizations..\\u201d \\u2014 @dessalen [0:10:59]
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\\u201cActual happiness often is linked to autonomy and unhappiness is linked to feeling controlled.\\u201d \\u2014 @dessalen [0:21:58]
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\\u201cSelf-awareness without any self-management is irresponsible. Self-awareness with the ability to manage what you\\u2019re aware of, that\\u2019s actually a tremendous strength.\\u201d \\u2014 @dessalen [0:31:25]
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Links Mentioned in Today\\u2019s Episode:
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