Interview with Chief Identity Hacker ~ Sallyann Della Casa

Organized By: Mahmoud Mansi

“When people feel safe and a sense of belonging to fully show up in life and work that’s where ‘business unusual’ happens and the whole world pays attention.”

Sallyann Della Casa

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWEE

Sallyann is the Chief Identity Hacker at GLEAC, a “future of work” technology focused company using cutting edge neuro-science and behavioral science + A.I. and Machine Learning + Soft Skills Micro-Learning to resolve 21st century organizational challenges.

She also heads up the Growing Leaders Foundation which designs and mobilizes, using corporates as teachers, 21st century skills to schools across the MENA region and Caribbean. She has worked with reputed companies such as Nestle, DP World, NBAD, Repsol, Mubadala, Careem, etc… in the region and has delivered soft skills to over 25,000 youths and adults through her Foundation in the last 6 years.

Sallyann holds a judiciary doctorate, degrees and certifications in Law, Urban Planning, French and Italian and Organizational Behavior from Harvard University, University of Miami, St. Thomas University and Franklin College. She is a published author and speaks five languages. She developed and holds patent-pending technology on measuring soft skills.

THE INTERVIEW

1. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You are using A.I. through your APP, GLEAC to make people more human… is that not very ironic and how exactly are you doing it?

Sallyann Della Casa: The magic is often in the unexpected (said with a chuckle). Our heads are all swirling due to the share length, breadth and speed of technology, robots, A.I., Chatbots, etc… in the HR space, but the truth is the real winners will be those of us with superior human skills.

In an October 2017 CNN interview between Fareed Zakaria and Satya Nadella (the CEO of Microsoft), Satya noted: “In a world where there is a lot of artificial intelligence, real intelligence will be scarce.” Fareed then hit the nail on the head when he chipped in adding: “The challenge is for human beings to figure out how to become more human!”

So why would we not use A.I. to help us embrace our humanness?

A.I. is used in GLEAC to answer the following basic questions:

• Who is the right human with the personality, skills and behavior who can thrive and deliver in a particular role in my organization?

This is the million-dollar question. Gleac uses proven science backed behavioral tests to competency map the people within an organization on their values, behavior, motivations, soft skills, etc… and then align this to dynamic corporate outcomes. A.I. can quickly decipher the people and performance patterns on both soft and hard skills, situational judgment, etc… providing a LIVING cohesive self-adjusting snapshot of a workplace. All of this means a company can predict its present bottom line and its future next move. People are no longer the wildcards when we Gleacerize them ;-).

• How do I measure ROI when developing people in soft skills such as leadership, etc…?

The reason soft skills training in any organization is the first thing to go when tightening the belt is because the impact and outcome is not clear, not measured nor tied to the bottom line. Soft skills development such as creativity, judgement and decision making, communication, etc… all require us to approach something or someone with a new filter. This means we have to develop a new habit or strengthen an existing one. That can only be done with purposeful practice and not the mindless kind of 10,000 hours gets us good at anything. We use A.I. to note the improvement in your quality of thought in our daily 5-minute situational micro-learning modules practicing with precision 10 core soft skills applicable to any 21-century workplace. With time our A.I. learns and measures the improvement in how you are practicing this skill. That info coupled with an automatic simultaneous integration to your performance tell us way more than sending an employee to a weekend team-work and innovation retreat.

• What combination of people within my workforce can give me a World Cup Title?

Vertical career paths become a thing of the past. Workforces are becoming more virtual and internally fluid, assembling and dis-assembling for projects, so knowing exactly the recipe of an all start team to tackle various organization challenges is critical. On a macro level GLEAC uses A.I. to assemble in one click your A team in a dynamic way given every day it is self-learning your people and performance patterns.

2. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: What are we so afraid/apprehensive about unemotional A.I. in the touchy-feely space of HR?

Sallyann Della Casa: We reject any change really. But I do have to say A.I. in HR is really personal since it is taking away from us our human biases, prejudices, assumptions, etc… that literally has driven HR decisions for decades.

3. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: If you can share with us three examples of how A.I. can immediately turn around an HR problem.

Sallyann Della Casa:

• Resumes are the absolute worst predictor of the ability of a person to perform a job yet we still use it. The most cutting edge A.I. driven multi-measures tests, like the one we have on GLEAC, are the absolute best predictor of performance.
• Many companies are using Chatbots such as Amber and Talktospot to get proper reporting and metrics on employee engagement or workplace harassment as an example.
• Sexual discrimination is being tackled head on by companies such as Textio with algorithms that ensure job postings are gender neutral.

4. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You started out at 21 as a corporate lawyer, tell us how you ended up here in the A.I space given you have “0 coding or tech” experience.

Sallyann Della Casa: Don’t count me out so fast! Laszlo Boch, head of Google People for over 10 years, also started out as a lawyer. He moved Google away from traditional HR bringing into HR 30% business consultant types, 30% analytic types and 30% traditional HR types into the People Operations mix which set the stage for the performance we all read about at Google.

Our calling often shows up during childhood and I have always been that kid fully showing up and prodding others along to do it through coaching, mentoring, teaching, etc… It may have come across as trouble making back then but today in the world we live in we want our people leaving no parts of their identity at the door. When people feel safe and a sense of belonging to fully show up in life and work that’s where “business unusual” happens and the whole world pays attention. As for the A.I., well I have to admit I am love data, patterns, etc… but I am not being a micro-person so A.I. became my best friend completing me in many ways, filling my gaps.

5. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: How is your work at your Foundation, Growing Leaders, different from the work in your at GLEAC?

Sallyann Della Casa: What I do to make a living and what I do to make the world a better place has never been so aligned. I can only see it now looking back. The Foundation I started 7 years ago with my inheritance when my dad passed away. I wanted to ensure every child knew he or she was more than a report card. As a result the Foundation teaches and have always taught the exact same 21-century skills we do on GLEAC only off-line and under the umbrella of Leadership. The Foundation has also always used corporates to teach these skills in classrooms. It was as if I always knew the corporates needed to teach through their people what they themselves needed to lean the most. GLEAC does the exact same work of the Foundation only on-line using cutting edge science and technology. Many GLEAC clients I end up putting through the Foundation program to humanize further their Gleac experience. In the end, both GLEAC and the Foundation help us to show up fully who we are and who we can become in the world. What an absolute gift I have been given re-define how we see ourselves and our role in the world!

6. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You clearly have an addiction to discovering people’s potential, is there any evidence or experiences from your childhood that has influenced you into this arena?

Sallyann Della Casa: Both my Foundation and GLEAC are expressions of my own potential, not purposely by my parents who did not know any better, being shut down and ignored as a child. If you look really close at Founders doing really significant work, you will see this common thread of trying to undo a wrong on themselves so I am not alone. I have always been a misfit of sorts. Super confident, curious as ever, never belonging to any one social circle, speaking up about uncomfortable things, etc… and all of that got ignored and/or often times suppressed by the adults around me for fear of who I might become. As a result I went into a shell and became who everyone wanted me to be, great student (3 degrees and 5 languages), lawyer at 21, sat on the right boards, etc, etc… living a life where the doors that made up my identity were 90% shut with no key. Then something shifted when I turned 30. In the unravelling of myself, I have come to discover that it is in the teaching others and helping them find their own potential, I discover the bigness of my own. Make no mistake I am doing the work I was placed here on this earth to do… I can feel it to my core.

7. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Your book is titled “Who will I Become”… we are going to turn the tables on you and ask, “Who is Sallyann going to become?”

Sallyann Della Casa: How very sad it would be if I told you exactly who I was going to become. All I can tell you is I am so going to blow my own mind with my becomings which I plan on happening over and over again until my last breath. Just watch (mischievous smile)!

8. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Let’s say a company wants more women in C-suite positions and came to you to program their leadership academy using your patent-pending technology of GLEAC, what is your unique offering?

Sallyann Della Casa: This is a problem we are actually solving for a few global hospitality companies right now. Really simple: 1- We canvass using our cutting edge behavioral and neuro-science tests top females in this same or similar role within the local context or similar local context, 2- Our SaaS data science system maps the results along with unique Company indicators such as values, etc… coupled with any other verified and published indicators of the same stakeholder group, 3- We create our “ideal success mould/template” to develop women to be C-level ready, 4- We identify through high potential candidates using our unique tests, 5- We then co-design the L and D pathway using GLEAC and other providers to obtain the desired outcomes which is monitored live on our dashboards.

9. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: Why are psychometrics not accurate predictors of performance given many companies use them? And what is the most accurate predictor?

Sallyann Della Casa: Most of us think psychometrics are personality tests and they are not… certainly not alone. There are 3 layers of psychometric tests: Behavioral, Aptitude and Situational Judgement. Behavioral tests are the personality tests and not predictors of performance as a stand-alone test. Aptitude is our capability to do the particular job such as an accountant needing to know how to read a P and L, etc… And situational judgement has to do with how we act in certain instances. This last indicator is probably the most crucial indicator of performance since you may have a candidate who is female, highly persuasive in her behavioral and communication tests but what if culturally this person does not exercise these qualities in the presence of men. And what if the job is corporate communications for a male dominated blockchain company. You can see how she may not be the best person for the job and no test or resume would have shown you that!

10. HR Revolution Middle East Magazine: You are a very happy person calling everyone “Lovely Human” tell us 3 things you do that allow you to operate in the world in this happy way.

Sallyann Della Casa: Awwwww…. you noticed 😉 My trick to being so happy is simple:

1. I guard my space like a hawk. I am extremely boundaried with who I allow into my intimate space and circle of influence.
2. I made a decision that all I have is this moment right now so why not live joy in real time in every moment? Tomorrow is not promised to any of us.
3. Happy people look young and well just look at my face… ha 😉

THANK YOU