A new HR paradigm for architecting winning organisations

The following are extracts from a paper Dr. Asoka Jinadasa was invited to present at the 42nd IFTDO (International Federation of Training & Development Organisations) World Conference in April 2013 and are included in the book ‘Capability Building for Cutting Edge Organizations’:

Why a new HR paradigm?

The exponential complexity and growth of risk/opportunity factors are forcing CEOs, managers and employees to develop competencies to deal with situations they had previously considered improbable or even impossible. By not doing this, Japan’s renowned electronic manufacturers, once the undisputed titans of consumer electronics, are now struggling to survive against nimbler foreign rivals.

This is mainly due to their outmoded leadership development and management competencies caused by stagnant HRD (human resource development) models that have failed to keep up with evolving organisational needs dictated by changing market conditions. The IMF has again warned that recovery has suffered new setbacks, uncertainty weighs heavily on the outlook, and that downside risks have increased and are considerable.

This article presents a new HR paradigm for sustaining organisational performance by continuously aligning competency development with changes in business strategies demanded by changing market conditions and competitive pressures. It transforms the theoretical concept of ‘learning organisations’ into an everyday operational reality, by mobilising human resources at all levels to continuously exploit opportunities and mitigate risks inherent in today’s volatile operating environments.

Inadequacy of the HR function

According to a 2012 worldwide survey by KPMG across major industry sectors in Asia-Pacific, Europe, North and Latin America, the HR function is often dismissed as non-essential or ineffective. Only 17% out of 418 senior executives interviewed maintained that HR is demonstrating its value to the business.

This survey suggests that HR has to start delivering differentiated and sustained performance improvement to business, which it has not been doing for the past 15 years. It highlights the need for HR to recast its strategy to align itself with the changing needs of the entire organisation, instead of continuing with HR management.

Dave Ulrich predicted this situation and highlighted the challenge facing HR when he said that the competencies that served HR well in the past will not be enough to propel it into the future.

Challenges facing HRD

To meet the unprecedented challenges that employees and their organisations could be facing in the difficult years looming ahead, HRD programs must unleash and harness the full potential lying mostly dormant within every person into an everyday business innovation ideology.

The HR function thus faces a complex challenge in ‘future-proofing’ the success of an organisation through evolving employee competency development, given the impossibility of predicting the outcomes of growing turbulence in operating environments.

Most conventional HRD programs develop ‘hard skills’ comprising of work-related knowledge, skills, tools and processes, probably because they are an extension of our education and certification system, and form the basis of employee evaluation schemes.

There is little focus on developing employees’ soft skills for increasing their self-confidence, enhancing awareness and intuition, strengthening motivation and leadership, and integrating new thinking into their daily work – essential competencies for navigating their organisations safely through turbulent times.

Several globally-researched reports on HR competencies have highlighted the need to develop attitudinal, behavioural and interpersonal ‘soft skills’ of employees for sustaining organisational success. For example, SHRM’s 2012 Competency Model for HR has identified nine competencies out of which eight are behavioural, as summarised by: ‘Knowledge (hard skills) + behaviour (soft skills) = success’.

A study by Oxford Economics has identified competencies expected to be in high demand over the next five to ten years. These include digital business skills (such as using IT systems), agile thinking skills (such as dealing with complexity and ambiguity), interpersonal and communication skills (for co-creativity and relationship building), and global operating skills (such as managing employees with cultural diversity). This demands the development of work-related hard skills combined with attitudinal, behavioural and interpersonal soft skills.

Inadequacy of the conventional HRD model

Conventional HRD mainly focuses on improving hard skills related to products, services, processes, resources, administration etc. Except in a few areas such as sales training, scant attention is paid to the development of soft skills, consisting of ‘inner soft skills’ for self-empowerment via improved confidence, assertiveness, creativity, intuition, decision-making etc, and ‘outer soft skills’ for becoming ‘people-smart’ via improved interpersonal intelligence and relational competencies for dealing with and influencing others.

The main weaknesses of this conventional model were: The underdevelopment of soft skills (that enable employees to sense significant trends, either through personal awareness or feedback from others), and the absence of a synergetic link between hard and soft skills.

As a result, employees are unable to detect significant trends and integrate new thinking and methods into their day-to-day work. Consequently, they function within their existing mental and operational frameworks, with no innovation, opportunity-seeking or risk-evaluation underlying their daily focus on problem-solving.

The inadequacy of this conventional HRD model was illustrated by the collapse of many renowned companies during the 2008 global crisis. It was caused not by a natural disaster or shortage of vital resources, but by poor decisions made by individuals in positions of power in affected companies and their regulatory agencies.

Considering the high stature of these organisations, such people must have had well-developed hard skills, but lacked the soft skills needed to sense impending dangers and initiate timely responses, despite prior warnings by astute independent agencies such as Weiss Ratings.

Defining and adopting a new HR model

Any new HR model must provide the foundation for maximising organisational performance through continuous knowledge acquisition and skill development closely geared to changing conditions. In engineering terms, this is analogous to developing an ‘adaptive control system’ that can sustain any desired level of performance by continuously detecting and adapting to changes in operational parameters and environmental conditions.

The HR function is not currently geared to satisfying a similar requirement that organisations have for sustaining performance under unfavourable and changing conditions. Therefore, a new HR model is needed to meet this important organisational requirement.

Under the new HR model depicted in Figure 1, HRD programs arm employees with the competencies needed to navigate their companies safely through increasing turbulence and uncertainty. This requires the parallel development of soft skills and hard skills. Inner soft skills for self-empowerment must be developed first, since they form the foundation for developing outer soft skills for improving interpersonal competencies.

In this new HR model, intuitive insights sensed by empowered employees from changes observed in the operating environment, combined with relational insights gained through their interpersonal competencies from customers, suppliers etc. will guide the acquisition, modification and deployment of hard skills. This provides a powerful and ongoing employee-based feedback mechanism for quickly adapting to rapidly changing conditions in operating environments.

This new HR model requires a major shift from conventional predefined employee training agendas, towards more flexible HRD aimed at creating ‘learning organisations’. The emphasis is on continuous knowledge acquisition and skill development, necessitated by and closely geared to changing internal and external conditions.

Profiling individual competencies

Both individual and organisational success depends on two decisive factors: Knowing what to do next (wisdom), and knowing how to do it (skills). The Wisdom-Skill Matrix depicted in Figure 2 broadly identifies individual competencies and training needs.

‘Wisdom’ stems mainly from experience and hard skills guided by soft skills, while ‘skills’ relate to hard skills tempered with insights gained through soft skills. Without wisdom, a person or an organisation could strive to address wrong issues and solve irrelevant problems. Without skills, what needs to be done cannot be done.

Champions with fully developed Hard and Soft Skills are what HRD programs should aim to produce. Nurturing champions is essential for organisational success, because they are powerful change agents with high levels of wisdom, skills, motivation and engagement, which can lift their colleagues to champion level.

Sustainable employee engagement

The Towers Watson 2012 Global Workforce Study, covering over 32,000 employees in large and midsized organisations across a range of industries in 29 markets, makes the most powerful case yet for the connection between higher organisational operating margins and a new and more robust definition of employee engagement – sustainable employee engagement.

In its analysis of 50 global companies, those with low traditional employee engagement scores had an average one-year operating margin just under 10%; those with high traditional employee engagement had a slightly higher margin of 14%; but, those with the highest sustainable engagement scores had an average one-year operating margin almost three times higher at 27%, as shown in Table 1.

Traditional employee engagement, defined as the willingness to invest discretionary effort on the job, is not sufficient to give employers the sustained performance lift they need in today’s high-pressure work environment. What is needed is ‘sustainable employee engagement’.

This requires the creation of an energising work environment embedded in a culture that focuses on workers’ physical and emotional wellbeing. Employers have to think beyond the current HRD programs and enhance both employee and workplace energy on a far broader scale, by identifying and developing all relevant dimensions that determine success.

The five dimensions of success

The five dimensions of success provide a new energy-based model for HRD via the development of five key attributes symbolised by heart, mind, passion, focus and health, which appear to govern the success of individuals and enterprises even under unfavourable conditions. The five dimensions of success depicted in Figure 3 yield sustainable employee engagement through the associated new concept of 360-degree total personal empowerment.

‘Heart’ governs the emotional intelligence needed for empathising with subordinates, colleagues, superiors, customers, suppliers etc. It is an essential attribute for achieving personal and career success, since we are all in the ‘people business’ dealing mostly with others. Heart also governs corporate success, since a heart-oriented corporate culture will retain staff, clients and suppliers, especially during difficult times.

‘Mind’ governs concrete and abstract intelligence, technology, innovation, creativity etc. Since the human mind is capable of finding solutions to any problem of any complexity, it governs both individual and organisational success in today’s complex, competitive and turbulent environments. It cultivates critical thinking in employees’ minds, while enhancing their problem-solving abilities.

‘Passion’ is what drives ordinary people to achieve extraordinary results by aligning their hearts, minds, beliefs and efforts. It fuels both individual and corporate success by unleashing the mental and emotional energy needed by individuals and organisations to reach ambitious goals, even against heavy odds.

‘Focus’ is the convergence of beliefs, resources and effort that make individuals and organisations strive until they achieve goals despite setbacks. I have used focus in preference to willpower, since focus implies desire and willingness, whereas willpower implies doing something emotionally unappealing through force of will.

‘Health’ is the overarching foundation of the other four dimensions, since it can affect all of them positively or negatively. For individuals, stress-free health can be easily maintained by consuming food and beverages in their natural unprocessed state, combined with a holistic lifestyle for mind and body. For organisations, health symbolises sustainability determined by profitable growth, net asset value, liquidity, resilience, innovativeness, engaged workforce, etc.

These five dimensions provide a ‘future-proof’ empowering foundation for achieving and sustaining individual and organisational success, even under difficult conditions.

 Developing the five dimensions of success

Human energy science offers a powerful methodology for improving the physical, mental, emotional, attitudinal, behavioural and interpersonal attributes of every person, and endowing every individual with all Five Dimensions of Success.

In his pioneering work in human energy science guided by Himalayan spiritual masters, Master Del Pe has identified 10 power centres (chakras) in our body, which govern all our physical, mental, emotional and relational competencies.

Each power centre depicted in Figure 4 governs the specific human attributes and competencies summarised below:

Crown: Higher consciousness, spiritual intelligence, intuition, wisdom. Forehead: Memory, insightfulness, imaginativeness, greater awareness. Mid-brow: Abstract intelligence, mental willpower and stamina, focus, constancy. Throat: Concrete intelligence, objectivity, practicality, ability to convert plans to results. Heart: Emotional intelligence, charisma, love, compassion, joy, inner peace. Solar Plexus: Passion, desire, courage, happiness, commitment, determination. Spleen: Vitality, good health, purification by elimination of toxins. Navel: Vitality, internal power, stamina, courage, instincts, agility. Sex: Sexual vitality, personal magnetism, creativity, success. Base-of-Spine: Financial and material success, physical health, ability to materialise goals.

The level of development of these ten power centres governs the level of success of every individual. Since evolution has endowed all humans with similar physical and mental attributes, developing the 10 power centres will unleash all the competencies lying mostly dormant within every person.

This claim is corroborated by Malcolm Gladwell in his ‘10,000-Hour Rule’ where he asserts that the key to achieving the highest level of success in any field is, to a large extent, a matter of practicing that specific activity for a total of about 10,000 hours. However, activating the 10 power centres will develop all Five Dimensions of Success and greatly accelerate the achievement of any desired goal.

Master Del Pe has formulated eight simple exercises to activate all 10 power centres. Designed for busy people and requiring only about 10 minutes per day, these simple exercises combine gentle movements with synchronised breathing to purify, revitalise and balance the entire human energy system.

Other simple techniques that can be integrated into HRD programs to develop the Five Dimensions of Success include: whole brain integration exercises, martial arts such as Tai Chi Chuan based on internal energy, and Chi-Kung meditation techniques developed by Taoist monks for rejuvenation, health and longevity.

A new model for leadership development

Leadership is considered the magic formula for achieving and sustaining organisational success. However, there is no evidence to suggest that leadership is anything more than a fuzzy blend of disparate skills and abilities that enable individuals to guide others to higher levels of achievement, sometimes in uncharted territory.

Some constituent parts of leadership can be modelled and some can be taught. But, many appear to lie outside the scope of leadership development programs offered by management schools and training organisations, since such programs have failed to produce leaders of the calibre of Steve Jobs and Sir Richard Branson. The question is, can we really produce leaders, or only identify them after the fact?   

The Five Dimensions of Success offer a new model for leadership development by covering all the attributes and competencies that leaders are expected to possess, all of which can be developed using the HRD techniques summarised above.

The Five Dimensions of Success thus present a platform for 360-degree competency and leadership development, which in combination with the new HR model depicted in Figure 1, provides the foundation for the new HR paradigm for architecting winning organisations.

(Dr. Asoka Jinadasa is a Chartered Engineer with a PhD in Corporate Strategy. He has had decades of top-level management experience in Europe, USA and Sri Lanka. He was former Chairman of the Entrust Group of listed finance companies. His new breed of transformational training programs for enhancing individual, team and corporate performance is based on the innovative concepts presented in his research paper summarised above. To request his research paper with references, email him at: [email protected])