From TikTok to Talent Code: Rethinking How We Learn and Lead It’s easy (for me at least) to get jaded, especially when my daughter shows me her TikTok reel. But seeing others moan about “the state of the world” sparks the contrarian, much more constructive. I read pieces in the past few weeks, including one in the NYT, lamenting our dwindling reasoning powers.
The NYT piece by David Brooks argues, among other things:
30% of US adults read “at a level that you would expect from a 10-year-old” The proportion of 10-year-olds unable to grasp the sequence of events in a story is the highest in 20 years. We’re reading less, and as retired general Jim Mattis said, “If you haven’t read hundreds of books… you will be incompetent.” Writing teaches you to take a jumble of thoughts and “cohere them into a compelling point of view”. The ancients lived in an oral culture, and only slowly developed a literate culture. Now we are moving to a screen culture.
So what?
Things change. Yes, we’re in a social media age of “brain rot,” and education (formal and self) ebbs and flows in societies and countries. An interesting book (The Talent Code ) extrapolates (sometimes wildly) on related topics. For example, if you grow up in an area where others have gone on to greatness (or escaped), you’ll be more inclined to a) believe that’s possible, b) have the templates and coaching available to do so, and c) have the hunger. For example, you’ll see some places excel well-beyond their size and resources: boxing (Cuba), baseball (Dominican Republic), chess (Iceland), etc. In this context, the NYT piece takes a vast country and generalises, which can lead us to the wrong interventions and ‘solutions.’
Where am I going with this?
I see a fundamentally flawed version of the NYT argument used in risk and compliance work. I’ve been guilty of this simplified data extrapolation, too. It goes something like: Make compliance into fun one-minute videos, and it’ll work. Or variations of that theme—cue words like micro-learning, memes, infographics, etc.
Here’s where that thinking is wrong and right.
Right: Risk and compliance terminology is (often) legalese (not a 10-year-old test level). That’s a problem in globalised firms where most employees operate in their second (or third) language. We don’t read policies (when was the last time you read app T&Cs, website cookie policies, etc.?)
Wrong: Our social media feeds are customised to us (mine looks almost entirely different from my wife’s, save for memes about kids doing dumb things—wonder why 😬). Risk and compliance are seldom your employees’ brain-rot-of-choice, and they’re even less frequently customised to the viewer/reader. Therefore, the medium is not the message. Oral traditions work in risk and compliance, especially for areas that are not simple go/no-go decisions; those topics that live in the grey spaces need our collective grey matter. We don’t need (most) people to be “competent,” at least in the book-reading sense. We don’t ask construction workers to read medical manuals to understand the perils of a fall from height. “Wear a harness at all times” suffices.
If we work backwards—starting with the action or response we want—the vehicle for message transmission becomes clearer. Don’t sweat it if your content isn’t TikTok-friendly. You’d be much better off looking at your Talent Code—where do people in your organisation get it right? Why? How? And how can we migrate those lessons?
Ethical Alphas
In this context, alpha is investment (not tedious ice-bathing influencer) speak. I’m slowly learning the lexicon (see above 😬). The alpha is an investment’s excess return compared to a benchmark/expected return. I’d not seen “ethical alphas” much until recently.
I’m working with a regenerative agriculture specialist to convince a traditional ag monolith to transition to more sustainable and holistic (regenerative) practices. The catalyst for change is a huge investor the ag firm is courting with concerns about past integrity issues (corruption, worker mistreatment, ESG diddling, greenwashing, etc.). The specialist shared his notes (risks and opportunities), and I chipped in my two cents. The notes we shared as we developed the approach included various “alphas”, including the (paraphrased and anonymised) tract below:
Old model: Compliance as a cost centre New reality: The 2025 Impact Investor demands “Ethical Alpha” - returns from integrity transformation
Case Study: Problem: A recent $27M fine = 9.2x the annual ESG budget Solution: a) Monetisation: Launch integrity-backed sustainability bonds (5.7% oversubscribed in trials) b) Differentiation: Supplier ethical scoring system (consider quantum dot tracking), attracting EU premium buyers c) Valuation: Link 30% of the discounted cash flow model to integrity risk mitigation progress
Next steps:
- Conduct supply chain mapping
- Develop integrity-weighted ESG scoring
- Structure earn-outs tied to UNGC compliance
The path from pariah (under previous management) to partner shows that integrity risks aren’t just about avoiding fines—they’re the new frontier for capturing impact alpha.
Not all these notes and ideas made it to the final cut, but having discussed the concept of the ethical alpha with a few people since, it gets an excitement you don’t often see in our world! How might you identify, define, and convince leaders of ethical alphas in your organisations?