#66: At the Intersection of Leadership and Life with David Lahey

Lead the People

David Lahey’s academic background includes an MBA graduate from the Smith School of Business at Queen’s University, Graduate coursework at Harvard University and Graduate Adult Education coursework at the University of Toronto. David has been specializing in predictive leadership development, talent acquisition, change management and productivity with analytics with an improvement for over 25 years across a variety of industries. Under David’s leadership, Predictive Success was awarded to three-time Profit 500 company status. His company was also named to The Globe and Mail’s Fastest Top 400 Growing Companies List in 2019.

Top 3 Takeaways

1. Faith dispels fear. Whether launching a new venture or deciding to advocate for yourself, the best way to push past your fears is by believing in yourself and the positive future you’re building.
2. Build the right team. You may be starting from scratch or you may have inherited a team. Ensure that their natural and potential abilities are a match for what you’ll be asking them to do.
3. Get it in gear. Pit Grit is the tenacity and skill to get an organization moving at top speed. This requires attention to orchestration, communication, and a willingness to do the hard work quickly.

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From the Source

“One of the risks was the fear of the unknown, but I've always said ‘faith versus fear.’ I had faith in the software, faith in my own abilities, and faith in what I saw was the future of predictive analytics.”

“I have ridiculously high expectations and they keep exceeding them every year. But we also celebrate success.”

“I was looking at my team, and I said, ‘All of my doctors are wonderful people, but they are process and precision people, very detailed, very sequential. They're not innovators.’ And I needed an innovative solution to come in and take over because I wasn't going to live.”

“Pit Grit means that you have a team around you that can get you into the race quickly, because we know from my experience that in the business world today, the race is lost in the corners.”

“Do you have a process? Do people have confidence in the role? Do they drop match to the job model and then in certain roles, do they have the tenacity and assertiveness needed to get things done in the, in the scheduled time.”

“Leaders today must act more like scientists. Scientists would only do work after they've got the research done and leaders today are running so fast. They don't have time to hire a chief analytics officer, but they will make time for software that will enhance their decisions and bring the data to them so they can be a scientist of people to execute on what they need done.”

“America is full of great companies as is Canada, but I am worried about the lack of managers that have the training and analytic leadership. Gartner says that analytic training is a top five skill for the next five years. How many companies out there are not aware of that, and they're not training up to that.”

“I always say every year, ‘You're going to ask your manager and leaders for more in the year ahead. That's great. So now what are you going to do to equip them to be able to execute on that?’ If the answer is nothing, then shame on you as a business owner. So that concerns me is that people forget that. That in the future, there's more information that needs to be harnessed, and that information needs to be at the fingertips of your people managers, not just in the HR area.”

Connect with David

Website: www.predictivesuccess.com

From Hire to Inspire (book): https://www.amazon.com/Hire-Inspire-Become-Best-Boss/dp/1770414878/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davelahey/