Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Thursday Dec 12, 2024
Thursday, 13 March 2014 00:01 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}
A: Organisations today compete not just by having financial, strategy and operational capabilities, but by building competitive organisation capabilities. These organisation capabilities come from talent, leadership and culture. Business leaders are ultimately responsible for managing these organisation capabilities and HR professionals should be thought partners to make this happen.
I will review the ideas and specific tools for building strong organisations as CEOs, business leaders and HR professionals.
Q: Sri Lanka is looking to create a knowledge hub to attract and retain the best and the brightest talent in the region and to attract FDI. Would you like share some experiences based on your recent work in Singapore?
A: A country wins in the global FDI marketplace by having a focus, or uniqueness, just like a company in the consumer marketplace, for example, Ireland focuses on manufacturing/operations; Dubai on tourism and financial services; Switzerland on pharmaceuticals; and Singapore on human capital insight. Singapore government, industry, academia, and labour pooled resources to create a human capital leadership institute that would provide knowledge about talent and leadership to the region.
Q: You have had exposure to M&A in the US; what are some of the business challenges surrounding M&As?
A: In the past most M&As failed because culture was not taken into account and 30 to 40% of M&As reached their expected cost of capital. When culture is taken into account before the M&A, success rates get into the 50% range. These cultural audits look at the cultures of each of the merged companies and try to reconcile them. But to get to the 60 to 70% range, leaders need a new definition of culture. Instead of looking at culture as values, norms, expectations inside a company; they should start the dialogue on culture from the outside in… what do we want the new firm (post M&A) to be known for by those who will use our services? This new culture based on the resources of the newly merged companies then endures because it is tied to and drives customer value.
Q: The HR profession for many years has focused on the internal customers rather than delivering value to the external customer. Has this changed?
A: HR roles and expectations are changing. In recent years, HR has connected with business strategy. Strategy was a mirror which reflected what HR professionals should know and do. But the mirror focused inside the company, not outside. Now, instead of a mirror, HR sees a window into the outside world and anticipates that world so that the organisation can respond. Instead of being an ‘employer of choice,’ HR needs to be an ‘employer of choice of employees and customers’. An external perspective means that HR understands both general business conditions (social, technological, political, economic, demographic trends) but also expectations of external stakeholders (customers, investors, communities, regulators). Turning these external expectations into internal actions brings sustained value to a company.
Q: Talking of talent, what are leading global companies doing to uncover distinctive talent contributions and deploy talent more effectively to create lasting value?
A: Instead of starting with key people, great companies are starting with requirements of key positions. Once position requirements are defined through an outside in perspective, key people can be matched through staffing, training, or development. In addition organisations are looking for people who are fully engaged, not just by their behaviours but by their hearts and minds. This work is in our book ‘The Why of Work’.
Q: How can organisational culture play a vital role in shaping talent and also to manage the identity of the organisation in the mind of their key stakeholders?
A: Culture has often been thought of as norms, values, expectations, and behaviours of employees inside an organisation. We like to think of defining culture (and leadership) through external expectations. What does a company want to be ‘known for’ by key customers, investors, and others? How does this external identity (or firm brand) become woven into the organisation? When this happens, the culture is not just a value set, but an incredible valuable value set because customers will pay a premium for it.
Q: What will the HR profession look like in five years and what are your key predictions regarding the future of HR in a Business?
A: A discussion of the future of HR does not start with the function of HR, but with the requirements of businesses. Increasingly, businesses succeed and/or fail based less on access to capital, unique strategies, or operational excellence, but on how to create organisation capabilities that enable these business outcomes to occur. HR becomes the architect and anthropologist to identify and create these organisation capabilities. This shifts HR from an administrative provider function to a thought partner function.
Q: Finally, what competencies should HR professionals harness to face the emerging business challenges and for the success of the HR profession?
A: We have studied HR competencies for 25 years and seen the evolution of the profession. In our most recent (2012) study, we found have data from over 20,000 HR professionals and line managers and found six competence domains:
