The New Human Capital Strategy

I have an involuntary reaction to the phrase “human capital strategy.” I cringe.

So, when I got Bradley Hall’s The New Human Capital Strategy, I was prepared for more of the “people are your greatest asset” pablum. Not so. Not even close. This book rocks. It’s tight. It’s researched. And it’s chock full of important information about managing people.

Here’s a passage about the difference between programs and systems that every HR professional should commit to memory. (Repeat after me: Systems, not programs.)

Systems, Not Programs
The HR profession is very adept at program development. Success is most often defined as creating and/or adopting best-practice programs, and HR is organized and managed accordingly. HR consulting firms align their practices with the way their clients are organized: They deliver products and programs for HR subprofessions (such as training, staffing, and compensation). But the data is indisputable: Decades of new and better programs have not delivered great results. The reason is that “world-class programs” cannot deliver performance results. Only systems deliver results.

An automobile engine is a system that requires great parts. All parts must be fully integrated and aligned to the purpose of the engine, whether that be high performance or a fuel economy. A well-built engine uses just the right parts and no more. Likewise, succession planning, training, and appraisal can be viewed as parts. Just as throwing pistons and spark plugs into an engine compartment will not deliver a satisfactory engine, neither will “world-class” HR programs deliver acceptable customer results. More and better HR programs will deliver no better performance in the future than they have in the past. Performance results require a system.

I’m rereading The New Human Capital Strategy. I don’t normally do that (too many books to read each week). This one’s worth the time. This is an important book for those of you who want to understand the research behind HCM. And if you like to call consultants on their crap when they use the word “causation” when trying to sell you an HCM “program,” this one’s for you. (At 28 bucks, it’s a lot cheaper than the million-dollar price tag usually associated with HCM consulting.)

Author: Bradley W. Hall
Pub Date: 2007
Your Price: $27.95
ISBN: 081440927X

A Class With Drucker

I just finished William Cohen’s A Class With Drucker. Quick summary: Call me Peter.

Cohen was in the first cohort of doctoral students that management guru Peter Drucker taught at Claremont Graduate School. The book is a set of recollections about the classes and Drucker’s teaching style (bouncing somewhat between sweeping statements, long lectures, and the Socratic Method).

A Class With Drucker summarizes Drucker’s major teachings while giving insight into a professor who was very approachable to his students. He liked to be called by his first name, but he demanded respect. The book provides some good insight into the complexities of the man by one of his most successful students.

If you like to get an historical perspective on one of the great management thinkers of our time, coupled with clear Druckerian management lessons at the end of each chapter, this is your book. You could read a lot of Drucker books, or you could read this one. A Class With Drucker will save you a lot of time: It boils down all the lessons into one volume.

A Class With Drucker: The Lost Lessons of the World’s Greatest Management Teacher
Author: William A. Cohen
Pub Date: 2007
ISBN: 0814409199
AMA Bookstore: $24.95

Next Up: From Difficult to Disturbed: Understanding and Managing Dysfunctional Employees by Laurence Miller

One Foot Out the Door: Required Reading for HR Strategists

Short review: If you’re an HR strategist, buy One Foot Out the Door right away. Go ahead…I’ll wait.

Okay, You’re Back
You know how there are so many business books written that have a sorta-kinda clever phrase that they spend an entire book trying to pound into your head? Or when a good article gets stretched to make it book length? I hate wasting my time with that kind of stuff. So, when I read “Psychological Recession” on the cover of this book I was worried. Then I started reading. Worries allayed. Big time.

A Definition of Psychological Recession
Author Judith Bardwick outlines “Psychological Recession” this way:

Definition: A Psychological Recession is an emotional state in which people feel extremely vulnerable to economic hardship, leading to a dour view of the present and an even bleaker view of the future, which more often is not based on current reality. This gloomy mindset reinforces people’s perception of the world as a risky place in which they have little or no control. Anxiety, depression, and a sense of being powerless are a poisonous mix.

In an era when people are talking about employee engagement and commitment, Psychological Recession works to counter those ideas. Layoffs and the lack of job stability (we all know people who have been out of work) add up to a real problem.

Required Reading for HR Strategists
If you’re an HR strategist, you need to read this book. Dr. Bardwick, who was a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and is currently a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, did the workplace research for you and presents facts and figures from dozens of seminal employee motivation studies. You could pay a consulting firm a ton of money to compile this information, or you could just plop down 20 bucks and have it one convenient volume.

I don’t say this lightly, but if you’re in HR and don’t read this book you’re really missing out. (I’ve felt that way about Bob Sutton’s The No Asshole Rule and Penelope Trunk’s Brazen Careerist. They’re essential reading.)

Free Webinar on Oct. 24
AMA is offering a free webcast on Oct. 24, 2007 for One Foot Out the Door where Judith Bardwick will discuss her book. Click here to register.

One Foot Out the Door: How to Combat the Psychological Recession That’s Alienating Employees and Hurting American Business
Publisher: AMACOM
Pub. Date: October 2007
ISBN-13: 9780814480588
Amazon. B&N.

Mass Career Customization

I studied mass communication in grad school, which was right around the time that mass communication was declared dead. Enter the internet, 500 television channels, satellite radio, and video mashups and what do you have? Mass customization.

That’s what’s going in in careers, too, according to the authors of Mass Career Customization. Cathy Benko and Anne Weisberg, both principals at Deloitte, lay out what they call an “MCC” strategy. In effect, MCC is a structured way to look at a spectrum of a career, which may have its ups and downs along the way depending on where an employee is along his or her career lifespan.

The authors spend a lot of time up front beating the business case drum for MCC, and by Chapter 4 define it:

MCC is centered on a view that, increasingly, the career journey of may employees in the knowledge-driven organization of the twenty-first century will look similar to a sine wave of sorts, with climbing and falling phases. …[SNIP] The customized, undulating path requires and ongoing collaboration between the organization as a whole, the manager, and the employee.

Basically, MCC recognizes and puts a framework around a career reality: Priorities change over time. As people mature and their personal situations change, their priorities change.

MCC as a concept is interesting, and it’s been tested in a few organizations, namely the authors’ own company, Deloitte, along with SAS, Ogilvy & Mather, and law firm Arnold & Porter. It’s a structured framework to discuss career paths in what Benko and Weisberg call a “lattice organization” as opposed to a “ladder organization.”

The drawing at the right is the framework for MCC. It includes career dimensions of Pace, Workload, Location/Schedule, and Role. You can try out an interactive exercise for your own career trajectory by clicking here.

Mass Career Customization is thought-provoking read and offers a structured way for people in talent acquisition to discuss the totality of careers with both employees and managers. MCC works when managers and employees both understand the “rules.” Applied right, MCC could become the Balanced Scorecard of talent management.

Ordering Info:
Mass Career Customization: Aligning the Workplace with Today’s Nontraditional Workforce
Cathleen Benko and Anne Weisberg
Harvard Business School Press 2007
ISBN-13: 978-1-4221-1033-1

HBR, Amazon