71. How to avoid your company failing with René Janssen

Introduction

Today, we have René Janssen, CEO and founder of Lepaya, join us. René has an impressive track record, having raised $85 million to support his innovative training platform. His journey spans from scaling startups to managing acquisitions by giants like Alibaba.

Summary

In this episode, René Janssen shares his invaluable insights on avoiding company failure through strategic people development. René’s experience facing challenges in scaling productivity and retaining talent, led him to create Lepaya.

Lepaya focuses on ensuring employees have the right skills at the right time, blending technology with human touch to enhance productivity and retention.

Key Models and Methods

• Right Skills, Right Time: Ensuring employees are equipped with the necessary skills at the precise moment they need them.
• Strategic People Development: Viewing talent management and development as a core strategic function rather than a reactive, operational task.
• Blended Learning: Combining e-learning with human-led coaching to address both technical and soft skills effectively.

Main Discussion Points

1. Pain Points and Motivation:
   • René’s drive to solve the pain points he experienced at Lazada, particularly around productivity and retention.
   • The importance of experiencing pain firsthand to be fully committed to solving it.
2. Challenges in E-commerce and Training:
   • Issues faced in the fast-growing e-commerce market in Southeast Asia.
   • The inadequacy of traditional learning methods and the need for innovative, scalable training solutions.
3. Importance of Soft Skills:
   • The crucial role of soft skills in driving productivity.
   • The necessity of human interaction in learning these skills, even in the age of AI.
4. Strategic Function of People Development:
   • Making talent management a strategic priority.
   • Aligning business needs with employee aspirations for mutual growth.
   • Using data to measure the effectiveness of training and making iterative improvements.
5. Role of Lepaya:
   • How Lepaya helps organizations transition from operational training to strategic people development.
   • The impact of combining technology and human facilitation to deliver effective learning solutions.

Memorable Quotes

1. 00:06:37 - "If we don't do something, who will? If not us, then who? If not now, then when?"
2. 00:10:37 - "Soft skills are best learned from soft people. You need to learn how to deal with other people from other people."
3. 00:19:13 - "Collecting data on training effectiveness is crucial. Measure and be honest about the impact."
4. 00:24:26 - "What happens if you train people and they leave? Worse is if you don’t train them and they stay."

Find Rene and Lepaya here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/renejanssen/

https://www.lepaya.com/