On what good looks like : HR policies and processes

This post is an attempt to come back to a topic that we had explored here 7 years ago. The topic is the implications of the unstated assumptions that organizations and individuals have on 'what good looks like'. 

In the the previous post (See 'On what good looks like') we had explored this mainly from the point of view of selection decisions and 'person-organization fit'. In this post, let's look at it from the point of view of the different options for running the HR function, especially from the point of view of HR policies and processes.  

Now, if you were to ask me what is the significance of 7 years, I can only say that the number 7 is considered to be a 'perfect number' in many cultures and that some even associate mystical qualities to it!

When it comes to the underlying (unstated) definition of 'what good looks like' we had identified two themes that can be conceptualized as two ends of a continuum. They were 'absence of variation'  and 'presence of value' . Let's see what this means from the point of HR policies and processes.

In 'absence of variation' kind of organizations (where the definition of quality is similar to the 'Six Sigma' definition of quality), consistency of implementation of HR processes/policies is of paramount importance. This ensures ‘procedural justice’. This is also largely in line with HR models that emphasize process stability and maturity. This would mean very few or no exceptions! The essential message to the employees in this way of working is something like  "If you are eligible for something you don't have to ask for it (because you will get it without asking). If you are not eligible for something, then also you don't have to ask for it (because you won't get it even if you ask)."

In 'presence of value' kind if organizations(where the definition of quality is more like 'fitness for purpose'), the emphasis is on what makes most sense (adds most value) in a particular situation. This approach leads to a lot of flexibility in running HR (subject to some broad principles/HR philosophy and the laws of the land, of course). But it also can lead to a lot of exceptions. This, in turn, can lead to perceived inconsistency unless the HR and Business leaders have deeply understood the broad principles/HR philosophy and also have extensively communicated the same to the employees. 

Most of the companies find their equilibrium point somewhere in the continuum between the two polar opposites. The state of evolution of the company, the state of evolution of the HR function in the company, the industry in which the company operates, the culture of the company and the personal preferences of the leaders are often the factors that impact the choice of the equilibrium point. 

It can be argued that when the size a company becomes very large, it tends to gravitate towards the 'absence of variation' kind of underlying definition of quality (See 'Paradox of HR systems' for a related discussion). 

It can also be said that in those contexts where 'the owner and the manager are the same person' (e.g. in the case of partnership firms and proprietor-driven companies) there is often an affinity towards the 'fitness for purpose' kind of underlying definition of quality (See 'HRM in partnership firms' and 'Of owning and belonging' for more details)

Again, it can be argued that as the HR function in a company evolves, the underlying definition of 'what good looks like' often follows a U-curve kind of pattern - starting with 'fitness of purpose' kind of definition (as HR policies and processes are yet to take root). moving towards the 'absence of variation kind of definition' (when there are very detailed policies and procedures in place) and then coming back to 'presence of value'  kind of definition (when the policies and procedures are perceived to be too restrictive/bureaucratic). This is especially significant in companies that are operating in rapidly changing industries, and hence requiring more agility in terms of people management also. By the way, this 'U-curve' is a concept is found in many of the social sciences (See 'U-curve and Simplicity @  the other side of Complexity' for more details). A similar argument can be made in the case of some of the key enablers in HR, like behavioral competency frameworks, that assume that 'there is one right way of doing things' and hence comes very close to the 'absence of variation' kind of underlying definition (See 'Competency frameworks : An intermediate stage?' for more details).  

It is also possible to create some sort of a ‘synthesis’ of these two definitions of 'what good looks like' ('absence of variation' and 'presence of value') that act like the 'thesis' and the  'antithesis'. One pragmatic option could be to define the policies/procedures very clearly/in detail, and also define an exception process that is very tough!

Any comments/ideas? 

A linguistic expedition to the core of HR!?

It is said that the importance of a particular thing for a group is often reflected in the number of words they have for it. For example, Eskimos have many words for 'snow' (the number of words for snow  ranges from about 12 to 52, depending on which Anthropologist you want to listen to) to bring out the finer nuances in various types of snow.

I was wondering if we can adopt a similar approach to ‘reverse-engineer’ that is really important in the field of Human Resources (HR). So, let’s see what we can infer by looking at the various areas in HR and examining how many terms are there to describe each of them.

To avoid, ‘false positives’, let’s consider only the ‘technical terms’('jargon', if you prefer) that are widely used in HR and not just synonyms in English! Yes, this classification is not a very precise one as some of these terms have significantly different connotations (though they are related to the same concept) and as these terms go in and out of fashion! Of course, the 'core of HR' is also not static and it keeps on shifting and evolving!

These are the areas and the terms to describe them that come to mind immediately.

• The work that the employees are supposed to do : Job, Role, Responsibilities, KRAs/Key Result Areas, Tasks, Objectives, Goals, Deliverables, Targets, OKRs/Objectives & Key Results (10)
• The employees’ state of mind : Employee Engagement, Employees Satisfaction, Employee commitment, Employee motivation, Employee Happiness, Employee morale, Employee Experience, Employee mindsets, Employees attitudes, Employee perceptions (10)
• What is in it for the employees : Compensation, Salary, Benefits, Rewards, Recognition, Total Rewards (6)
• Building capability : Training, Learning, Competency development, Capability building, Learning & Development, Accelerated Learning (6)
• Getting employees into the organization : Recruitment, Selection, Hiring, Talent Acquisition, Fulfillment (5)
• Getting employees out of the organization : Termination, Retrenchment, Staff reduction, Staff optimization (4)
• Patterns of behavior : Culture, Climate, Values, Norms (4) 
• Managing unionized staff : Industrial Relations, Industrial Discipline, Employee Relations, Employment Relations (4)
• Partnering with business leaders : HR Business partners, HR Relationship Managers, Business HR Managers (3)
• The 'first line of defense' : HR Help-desk, HR Services, HR Operations
• Managing performance : Performance Management, Performance Enablement, Performance Acceleration (3)
• Employees getting out of the organization : Exit, Attrition, Turnover (3)
• Managing careers : Career Planning, Career development, Mass Career Customization (3)
• Career trajectory : Career paths, career ladders, career lattices (3)
• The 'analytical' part : HR Analytics, Workforce Analytics, HRIS Reports (3)
• The 'mystical' part : Organization Development, Organization Effectiveness, Organization Transformation (3) 

So, prima facie it appears that ‘what the employees are supposed to do’ and ‘what is there in the minds of the employees’ seem to be the key preoccupations in HR! While the first one is obvious (else, why do we need employees) the second one could be because of its ‘mysterious nature’ and because of the foundations of HR in psychology!

What do you think? Also, please let me know if you can add any more areas in HR (that has a large number of terms associated with them) and/or more terms related to an area that has already been listed!

Of Rewards, OD and passing the buck

“Compensation decisions are based entirely on the market and business situations. Our objective is to achieve the right balance between ‘need to pay’ which is based on the market scenario and the ‘ability to pay’ which is based on the company scenario”, said the Rewards Manager. “Wouldn’t that make the Rewards function very transactional? Shouldn’t you look at the ‘want to pay’ aspect which is based on the overall people management philosophy of the organization, in addition to the ‘need to pay’ and ‘ability to pay’ aspects that you have mentioned?”, asked the Organization Development(OD) Manager. “We can’t create competitive advantage through compensation strategy as it can easily be copied. Hence, the compensation function has to be transactional and business oriented.While I agree that 'Total Rewards' is our approach, I am only the 'Rewards Manager'. Executing parts of the Total Rewards framework that are not related to compensation and benefits should be the job of the OD function as it is the mandate of the OD function to build a deeper engagement with the employees.”, replied the Rewards Manager. “OD function is also business aligned – it is not about charity and feel good initiatives. Creating deeper engagement with the organization requires a multi-pronged approach and that includes Rewards related dimensions also. Rewards is a very important tool to shape employee behavior. If our Rewards strategy is only about ‘paying the employees the lowest compensation that we can get away with’, we are not only not leveraging the full potential of Rewards, but also creating irreparable damage to the psychological contract between the employee and the employer. Managing the psychological contract is key to building deeper engagement with the employees”, said the OD Manager.

During the first few years of my career, I did a lot of HR consulting work related to Rewards – benchmarking, policies, benefits, compensation structuring, variable pay schemes, employee stock option plans, voluntary retirement schemes, job evaluation etc. Apart from developing functional expertise in the Rewards domain, I also developed an affinity/feel for compensation related numbers. When I look at a data sheet with a lot of compensation related information it (say the compensation data from various companies/units), the figures 'talk to me' (i.e. the patterns in the data and the actionable inferences based on the same automatically pop up in my mind). Later in my career, I gravitated towards OD, though I did get involved in Reward related matters when I have handled HR Business Partner roles. Anyway, Rewards has remained close to my heart though I have been making a living mostly out of OD for the last ten years. Of late, I have been making an attempt to stand at the intersection of Rewards and OD (Please see the six posts in the series on 'Salary negotiations and Psychological contract' for details). Also, I don’t miss any opportunity to interact with fellow Rewards and OD Managers. The conversation at the beginning of this post is derived from those interactions.

My opinion is that both the Rewards and OD Managers here are 'correct' - from the point of view of their respective sub-functions. They are just articulating the mandates given to them. However, while being 'technically correct' they are also missing the essential point here! Please note that one can be 'completely correct' and 'completely irrelevant' at the same time!

During the last 15 years, in the context of organizations that I am familiar with, I have seen ‘Compensation & Benefits’ evolving into ‘Rewards’ and then into ‘Total Rewards’. Similarly, I have seen OD evolving from ‘Process OD’, to ‘Process and Structural OD’ and then to ‘Organization Effectiveness’. That is where the 'trouble' begins. You see, when Reward Managers were just looking after compensation and benefits (providing 'money and goodies') and OD Managers were just doing OD interventions (the kind where you get people into a room and facilitate collaboration, better decision making or creation of a shared vision) these domains did not have much in common and they required very different skill sets. Now if we look at the ‘Total Reward Frameworks’ of many of the organizations, they will have dimensions like culture, learning opportunities, career development, empowerment, work environment etc. Similarly, Organization Effectiveness (OE) is essentially about enabling the organization to achieve its goals by ensuring alignment between the various dimensions/components of the organization and by facilitating positive change. This makes OE/OD more business aligned. This also calls for structural interventions (interventions at the structure, norms, policy & work process levels) in addition to interventions at the human process level. This creates an overlap between the Reward and OD domains, especially when it comes to policies and reinforcement mechanisms to encourage and institutionalize particular actions/behaviors/changes.

When there is an overlap, there are three basic possibilities. The first is that the parties find a way to work together effectively and help each other in the areas of overlap. Obviously, this leads to the best possible outcome. The second possibility is that there is a war over territory and the winning party captures some or all of the overlapping area. While this is often a wasteful process, things usually get done (i.e. they don’t fall through the cracks). The third possibility is that none of the parties take ownership for the overlapping area (and things fall through the cracks). Unfortunately, when it comes to the overlap between Rewards and OD, the third possibility is the one that often actualizes! May be, Rewards and OD Managers are basically ‘nice’ people who don’t want to step on the toes of others! So this creates a situation where the overlapping areas exist in the ‘Frameworks’ and Power Point Presentations of both the parties but nothing much gets done!!! This is what leads to the ‘passing the buck’ phenomenon that this post talks about.

So, what should be done? The important thing here (apart from seeing to it that things don’t fall through the cracks) is to ensure that there is alignment between what Rewards is driving and what OD is driving.

For example, if OD is working on creating an emotional connect between the employer and the employee (that goes beyond rational commitment) and the Rewards approach is that ‘compensation is purely a matter of supply and demand’, then it will send conflicting signals to the employees and also create a violation of the ‘psychological contract’.

Let us look at this in a bit more detail. The situation here can be traced back to fundamentals of the compensation philosophy of the organization – does the organization pay the employees based on what they deserve (within the constraints of what the organization can afford) or does the organization pay the employees as little as it can get away with? This comes into play in a situation where there is an industry downturn (making it difficult for the employees to change jobs) but the particular organization is doing well (growing reasonably fast with healthy profits). In such a scenario, the organization can afford to give the employees good salary hikes. But it can choose not to do so (or choose to give a very low salary hike) because even without the salary hike it can retain the employees. This certainly provides short term gains. It can also be explained away in terms of salaries being market benchmarked. However, this will violate the psychological contract and will lead to a situation in which the employees (especially very valuable employees) leave the organization as soon as the job market improves (Going by the same logic that the organization had used, the employees should leave the organization when the market will pay more!!). A similar situation occurs in the case of hiring also. When the company hires a person (internal or external hire) into a job what salary will be offered? Will the company offer the lowest salary that the candidate will accept or will it offer the salary corresponding to the worth of the job in the company? These are the situations where the 'want to pay' aspect comes in. If the company drives a hard bargain because the employee was not in position to negotiate at that time, no amount of talk later about ‘employees being the biggest asset’ and ‘building a great organization together’ will undo the damage that happened earlier because of the  loss of trust. Some of the IT organizations in India have learned this lesson the hard way!

At the core, people management (of which Rewards and OD are parts) is about understanding, predicting and influencing human behavior. Now, 'human motivation' is a complex phenomenon (See 'The power of carrot and stick' for a detailed discussion). Complex phenomena are usually 'over determined' - that is they have multiple (interrelated) causal/input factors. Some of these factors are in the OD domain and some of the factors are in the Rewards domain. Hence an integrated approach combining Rewards and OD is required. For example, the recent research findings in behavioral economics have created serious doubts on whether many of the performance linked pay schemes have any positive impact on performance. Hence, a combined effort from Rewards and OD is required to ensure a positive return on investment (in monetary and non-monetary terms) from such schemes. Otherwise, such schemes will just be 'tools to match the payout with the ability to pay' - without any useful impact on performance levels. In a way, our problem (Rewards and OD working in silos) has similarities with ‘Multiple Personality Disorder’ (see ‘HR Professionals and Multiple Personality Disorder’ for details). The most important thing in such a scenario is to get the two parts of the personality (Rewards and OD in this case) to talk to each other. This is not something that can be accomplished in one big meeting. This involves a different way of looking at things and joint exploration and solution design.

One approach to make this happen is to get the Rewards and OD teams to work together in crystallizing, articulating and delivering (in terms of specific HR processes and initiatives) the ‘Employee Value Proposition’ (EVP) of the organization. EVPs (that specifies the total employee deal offered by the organization) usually have both Rewards and OD related components and the EVP should inform both the OD and Rewards strategy of the organization. Also, jointly thinking through the implementation details of the various initiatives to deliver the EVP will help professionals in the Rewards and OD sub-functions to develop a better appreciation of challenges the other sub-function is facing. For example, it is very easy for OD managers to talk about 'correcting the salaries' or about 'standardizing benefits'. Similarly, it is very easy for Rewards managers to talk about 'changing the culture' or about 'creating intrinsic motivation by providing employees opportunities for self-actualization'. However, to make these happen in a reasonably short time period within the constraints of the organization is incredibly difficult.

May be, it would also be a good idea to integrate Rewards and OD domains more tightly in terms of the structure of the HR function.

There is also a larger issue here. As I had mentioned in ‘Paradox of business orientation of HR’, while there is no doubt that the HR function (and hence the Rewards and OD sub-functions) exists to support the business, the exact nature of the ‘business orientation’ that is required to support the business most effectively is a complex one. This becomes especially important, if HRM has to mean something more than ‘making people do more work without paying them too much and without risking disruptions to the business operations’. Please note that this problem is not confined to the Rewards domain. For example, if the OD/OE function goes about actively deskilling the jobs so as to manage the process risk and to reduce skill requirement (and hence the time and investment required in hiring/training and of course the salaries that need to be paid), it would take away from the richness and hence the motivation and learning potential of the jobs. In the specialist functions like Rewards and OD we should also be careful to ensure that in our obsession with tools and techniques (see 'Daydreams of an OD mechanic') we don’t miss the broader picture – that is alignment with the core values and the basic people management philosophy (see ‘Towards a philosophy of HR') of the organization.

Any comments/thoughts?

Truth and Beauty: Motivations and Elegance in HR

“I am an old man. I don’t have time for these kinds of HR interventions now”, said the senior consultant.

We had requested this gentleman to come to our office for an exploratory meeting – to identify possible HR initiatives to improve organizational effectiveness. He came for the meeting ‘unarmed’ - he did not bring any of the typical consultant weapons like brochures and presentations. He did not even have a laptop with him!

He listened to us for a long time while we were giving him a detailed account of the organization context & the challenges we were facing. Then he asked a few questions and we had a discussion on the same. Then he went to the whiteboard and in a simple diagram he captured his understanding of our situation and the levels at which interventions can be done and the basic details of those interventions. After that he asked us what we wanted to do and we gave our opinion. That was when he made the above statement.

The way he said it shook me. He was not just saying that he was busy. He meant that he no longer had the time to do these kinds of work (interventions at ‘not- so- deep’ levels) regardless of how much value the organization saw in them, how good he was in that kind of work, or even how much he will be paid. At that stage in his life, he wanted to work only on those projects that he found to be personally meaningful. Of course, this does not mean that other types of interventions do not add value. It was just that he did not want to get involved!

I recall this encounter quite often. Apart from making me think about the kind of work I really want to do, it also prompts me to think about the 'basic motivations' for HR professionals.

It does not make sense to do ‘HR for HR function’ (taking up initiatives to make the HR function look good) or to do ‘HR for HR professionals’ ("I want to do some HR interventions and I will somehow convince the business for it").  HR exists to support the business and hence HR has to be aligned to business. But the issue of business alignment of HR is a complex one (See 'Paradox of Business Orientation of HR'). After all, most of us want HR to mean something more than ‘making people do more work without paying them too much and without risking disruptions to the business operations’!!!

One way to think about ‘what motivates HR professionals’ is to take the approach that HR professionals are human beings first and hence what motivates them can be understood in terms of theories of human motivation – as they play out in the context of the roles in HR/careers of HR professionals.

For example, if we assume some sort of need fulfillment (say based on a hierarchy of needs like Maslow’s hierarchy of needs/'Existence-Relatedness-Growth' needs in Alderfer's ERG framework) is the basic driver for motivation, we can easily explain the behavior of the senior consultant featured at the beginning of this post by saying that as his lower order needs had been fulfilled and hence what motivated his behavior in that situation was the urge to find opportunities for fulfilling his higher order needs (growth/self-actualization needs). While this looks like a very neat explanation, it might be a rather simplistic one (see ‘The power of carrot and stick’). Similarly we can look at the motivations of HR professionals in terms of other frameworks like personality profiles/types (e.g. OPQ, MBTI etc.), Talents/Strengths, Career Anchors etc.

Another set of motivations can result from the alignment to (or belief in) a particular 'philosophy of HR' (See ‘Towards a philosophy of HR’). Of course, individual vision, mission and values of the HR professional can also be sources of very strong motivations. Since these can be very individual specific, we can get a wide range of dimensions here (see 'Daydreams of an OD Mechanic' for a personal example). Finding meaning in their work (see 'Do we need a new defining myth for HR?') is important for all professionals - including HR professionals! Actually, I would go one step beyond and suggest that considering the role of HR managers as 'architects of meaning' (See 'Architects of meaning : From CHRO to CMO'), this becomes even more relevant for HR professionals from a professional integrity (in the sense of achieving integration/alignment between one's thoughts/feelings, speech and action) point of view. Also, talking about food (including 'food for the soul' that can be called 'meaning') often makes one more aware of one's own hunger - unless this 'talking about food/meaning' is more of a 'displacement activity'!!!Again, as I have said earlier, 'hanging around in HR for too long' without a compelling reason, can be a risky business - especially for personal happiness!

HR professionals who have taken their behavior science education seriously (see ‘HR professionals and Multiple Personality Disorder’) might suffer from some of the ‘motivational complications’ that social scientists suffer. For example, many social scientists suffer some sort of ‘physics envy’ and this along with other things might create a compulsion for them to work on those initiatives that are research based. However, as I have said earlier (See 'Research and a three-year old' &  'Truths stretched too far' for the details), this might not be possible in HR the way it is feasible in physics. We can still derive a lot of value from these research findings (and behavior science principles/theories), if we look at them mainly as a source of ideas (and not as absolute objective truth)!

Going back to our discussion on business alignment of HR, it has to be noted that there exist significant differences across organizations when it comes to the ‘picture of success’ (See ‘On what good looks like’). Hence it makes sense for an individual (HR professional) to work for organizations where there will be a good degree of agreement between the definitions of the organization and that of the individual (on what is required/what good looks like).

This leads to an interesting situation. If the choice of the HR interventions can’t be made in an algorithmic manner (or based on conclusive evidence), then the choice will be governed by ‘some sort of judgment’ made by the HR professional. Often, the choice becomes a matter of aesthetics (and that is where beauty and elegance comes in). The beauty we are talking about is a special kind of beauty – that manifests in terms of fit (with the context) and coherence (internal consistency among the various dimensions of the intervention), parsimony of unproven assumptions (Occam's razor), parsimony of effort (understanding and using 'leverage points' - where the application of a small input can lead to a high output) and of course 'Simplicity on the other side of Complexity' (See 'U-curve and simplicity at the other side of complexity').

While the biological evolution has given us the natural ability to make high quality judgments about aspects in the natural environment, some sort of a professional evolution  of the HR professional (based on years of struggle with the paradoxes in the HR domain)is required to make the type of high quality judgments that we are talking about here (See ‘Wisdom-level consulting’). Yes, often ‘less is more’ and sometimes, the best HR intervention might be to do nothing for the time being (remember - 'first do no harm')! One of the useful 'side effects' of the 'struggle with the paradoxes in the HR domain' mentioned above is that the HR professional develops a better appreciation of  'what won't work' in a given situation and this can be a great help in dealing with the common temptation for HR managers 'to try too many things' !!!

So, my fellow HR professionals – What are the factors that motivate you?!! What role does elegance/beauty play in your HR related decision-making?!!!

Note: It can be argued that the title of the post itself is a case of physics envy as it is similar to the title of a book by S Chandrasekhar (the famous physicist). While I do admit that Physics was my first love, I am quite sure that I had grown out of it when I realized years ago that, at advanced levels, the exploration of physical reality becomes a highly mathematical exercise. Hence I would like to think of it more as a case of ‘inspired by Physics’ and not that of ‘Physics envy’!!!

Do we need a new ‘defining myth’ for HR?

This post is an attempt to explore the intersection of two of the key themes of this blog - the nature of the HR function (see 'Philosophy of HR') and creating meaning as HR professionals (see 'Architects of Meaning - From CHRO to CMO').
 

Meaning (finding meaning in work) is becoming an increasingly critical issue at the workplace. Hence, 'facilitating creation of meaning' becomes an important opportunity and challenge for HR professionals. While 'Architects of Meaning' touched upon HR interventions to enable leaders and employees to create meaning at the workplace, it did not focus specifically on enabling HR professionals to find meaning in their roles.  This is where a ‘defining myth’ becomes relevant.

A myth is a story that embodies a powerful truth. We create stories about our experiences to give meaning to them. Once we internalize a myth (created by others) it helps us to find (create) meaning in our experiences and in our roles. So myths are useful for HR professionals to find meaning in their roles.

In any domain of human endeavor that encompasses a wide range of experiences and dilemmas, multiple myths are required (to facilitate the meaning creation/sense-making process). However, there is usually a 'central myth' or 'defining myth' that lies at the core of the meaning creation process. This defining myth provides the essence of meaning and the other myths add to this meaning (in terms of details and finer nuances in various contexts).  In this post, we will look at a couple of candidates for being the 'defining myth' for HR.   

The nature of the tasks carried out by most of the HR professionals most of the time makes 'finding meaning' a difficult endeavor (Please see 'HR Professionals and Multiple Personality Disorder' and 'In praise of HR Generalists'). This vacuum in meaning prompts HR professionals to ask ‘existential questions’ about their roles (What am I doing? Does it make sense? Does it add value? etc.). To answer these questions multiple myths have been developed regarding the mandate of the HR function, the roles in HR and the significance(value) of these roles. Often, these come in the form of 'new models of the HR function' and/or ‘new set of roles for HR professionals’.

Let us digress a little. Many years ago, when I was exploring thought leadership in HR (see 'Thought leadership in HR in India'); I could not find any consensus (among the group of senior HR professionals that I had surveyed) on the names of the thought leaders in HR in India.  But the moment I expanded the scope of my question to cover ‘thought leaders in HR anywhere in the world’, almost all the people came up with the name of Dave Ulrich - that too as the first choice. I have often wondered why Dave Ulrich's ideas became so popular among HR professionals. Now I feel that it is partly because he created (through his ideas on roles for HR professionals) narratives/stories (myths!) about roles in HR - myths that enabled HR professionals to find meaning in their roles and in their careers. I feel that Dave Ulrich created some sort of a ‘professional mythology’ for HR – tapping into the deep-rooted desires and fears of HR professionals  - and through that he redefined the HR domain -  in a way that the HR professionals found meaningful and hence acceptable!!!  

Now let us come back to the myths in HR. While there are many of these myths, the one that has come closest to being a 'defining myth' is that of the 'HR Business Partner'. Usually a myth consists of a story and a truth/meaning embedded in the story (some sort of a 'moral of the story'). Here the story was about the heroic HR professional who evolved from doing mainly low skilled administrative activities that were  not core to the business  to become a strategic partner to the business, creating a huge impact on the business,  gaining respect from the CEO and the function heads and earning the much desired 'seat at the table'. The truth/moral was that HR professionals could  evolve from their earthly  administrative activities and fly in the exalted realm of true business partners - almost like the human beings realizing their divine potential from their earthly nature as outlined in the myth of a dragon (see ‘Too true to be real’)

This was a very valuable myth. It enabled many HR professionals to feel better about the HR domain and the opportunities for themselves in the domain. Also some people actually become business partners - at least to some extent. However, I feel that this myth (or the truth implied by the myth) has many practical difficulties in many organization contexts. Please see ‘In the wonderland of HR Business Partners’, ‘Nature abhors vacuum’ and 'Paradox of business orientation of HR' for more details. More importantly, as the context changes, new meanings are required – just like we need a new map when the terrain changes. This would mean that we need myths held together by a new defining myth. Of course this does not mean that the previous ‘defining myth’ becomes irrelevant. It can continue as one of the supporting myths. It is just that it is no longer the central theme (‘defining myth’).

In a new terrain (organization context) characterized by rapid/disruptive changes, complex challenges and paradoxes, being ‘Architects of meaning' might be more appropriate as the defining myth for HR professionals. Of course, the myth of the ‘HR Business Partner’ needs to continue as one of the supporting myths. But it will no longer be the central theme (‘defining myth’) as some of the basic underlying assumptions about ‘the nature of the business’ and the ‘nature of the partnership between  business leaders and HR professionals’  will get revisited.   The story that contains the new myth can be about the wise HR professional  who helped the business leaders and employees to examine their sense-making process  in the organization context and hence  enabled them to create meaning (and sometimes ‘new meanings’) for themselves and the people they lead in the face of gut-wrenching changes.  Also, the truth embedded in this story takes HR closer to its behavior science foundations. Behavior science was supposed to be about understanding, predicting and influencing behavior (and the underlying sense-making processes!)  

What do you think?

Renewable resources for thought leadership in HR

About 3 years ago, I wrote a post in this blog on “Thought leadership in HR in India” – based on an informal survey that I had conducted at that time. While the post mentioned that there does not seem to be consensus on the names of thought leaders in HR in India, it ended with a rather positive inference (especially for the people who want be thought leaders) that “There are a wide range of definitions of thought leadership. It seems that there is room for many types of 'thought leadership' and for many types of thought leaders in HR! This gives many of us a chance to become some sort of 'thought leaders' (or at least to 'call ourselves thought leaders’!) in some HR related domain, in some industry, at some point in our careers”. That post also raised an important ‘philosophical’ question - “Can leadership (including thought leadership) exist without followers?”

The objective of this post is to outline how my thoughts on some of the aspects covered in the previous post have evolved during the last three years. I hope that my thinking on this topic will continue to evolve (and that I will be writing another post 3 years from now).

At this point, what interests me more is the ‘nature of thought leadership’ in HR as opposed to the names of thought leaders in HR. Obviously, these two are not unrelated. A particular interpretation of the nature of thought leadership in HR will result in a particular list of thought leaders and vice versa.

Let us start by taking a closer look at the ‘philosophical’ question that was mentioned above - “Can leadership (including thought leadership) exist without followers?” This will depend on the definition of leadership. My preference these days is to think about leadership as an emergent phenomenon that takes place in the context of a relationship (or in the context of a set of interactions – face to face and/or virtual – including indirect interactions). Going by this definition, leadership can’t exist without followers*. So the focus of this post is on thought leadership in HR that others (e.g. fellow HR professionals, Business Managers etc.) find useful.

From this perspective, thought leadership in HR has to deal with key challenges and opportunities related to people management. It also has to focus on those aspects where others (potential followers) feel the need for such thought leadership. Hence ‘core’ ‘messy’ areas in HR – where standard/algorithmic solutions are not feasible - are good candidates as domains for thought leadership. Often, this path can lead to the key ‘Paradoxes in HR’ that we have discussed often in this blog (see here, here, here, here and here for some examples).

Attempting ‘thought leadership’ in these areas related to Paradoxes in HR has interesting implications for the nature of thought leadership. As mentioned above, it won’t be feasible to prescribe effective standard/algorithmic solutions (that can apply to a wide range of contexts) in these areas. The kind of thought leadership that is likely to be useful here will be more in terms of providing a new perspective, deepening the richness & understanding of the paradox, providing an experience that provides company (‘provide a feeling of being understood’/ demonstrate compassion) hope and amusement to the people grappling with the paradox etc. It can also be inferred that this kind of thought leadership need not necessarily involve providing any sort of 'answers' - it can exist purely in the form of providing questions - questions that would help others to see the problem/paradox in a new way - which in turn could enhance their understanding and trigger solutions in their mind. Thus, the purpose of thought leadership in these cases will be to trigger solutions in the mind of people dealing with the paradoxes as opposed to prescribing solutions directly. Since these questions are about the essential nature of the issues involved, they might sound like riddles (or even like koans in Zen) that can be solved only by struggling with the same for an extended period of time to reach a level of understanding/awareness where the solution presents itself.

Obviously, this creates difficulties in terms of mass-production and marketing. But there is also an advantage here. The basic paradoxes in HR (and hence the pains/problems created by them) are unlikely to be ‘resolved’ (in terms of having a final and permanent solution). With effective thought and action (possibly aided by thought leadership!) they can be ‘managed’ (if we use the term 'manage' to mean ‘to cope with’) and even celebrated. But these paradoxes/problems/ needs won’t go away. Thus, these are the ‘renewable resources for thought leadership in HR’ – where solutions to problems will create new problems to solve -that will continue to provide opportunities for thought leadership – that will sustain an entire ecosystem of ‘HR Managers, Consultants and Thought Leaders’ - for a long time!**

Now over to you for your comments/thoughts/ideas!

* Note 1: Technically speaking, this does not preclude the possibility of ‘self-leadership’ as ‘interactions with self’ can also be interpreted as interactions. Moreover, the question “Will I follow my own advice if it came from someone else?” can serve as a useful reality check – to guard against some types of ‘delusion’ that can affect some of the thought leaders.

**Note 2: I feel that these paradoxes/problems won’t go away in the foreseeable future as these arise directly from the very nature of people management as it is practiced today. Hence, unless there is a fundamental change in the nature and philosophy of people management, they will continue to exist.

Paradox of 'business orientation of HR'

This post allows me to come back to one of the key themes for this blog – exploring the paradoxes in the Human Resources (HR) domain. Based on more than a decade of experience in HR, I can confidently say that HR is a field that is rich in paradoxes (Please see 'Paradox of HR systems' , 'Paradox of potential assessment', 'Career planning and the myth of Sisyphus', 'Paradox of hiring good people and letting them decide' and 'Crazy HR for crazy times' - for some examples).

A paradox occurs when there are multiple perspectives/opinions (doxa) that exist alongside (para)- each of which is true - but they appear to contradict/to be in conflict with one another. Going by that definition, ‘business orientation of HR’ qualifies as a paradox.

There is no conflict of opinion on whether HR should be business oriented. HR exists to support the business and hence it should be aligned to the business needs/goals/strategy. ‘HR for HR’ (‘I want to do some HR interventions and I will get the business to agree’) is definitely not a good idea. The paradox occurs when we look at how exactly should HR demonstrate this 'business orientation'.

There are multiple possibilities here - each with its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, HR can agree to whatever the business leaders say on people related issues ('after all, we get paid to support the business'). HR can take this approach to the next level by trying to ‘guess’ what the business leaders will be comfortable with and advocating that ('business leaders are our primary customers and we should be anticipating customer needs'). HR can also avoid surfacing issues (or suggesting solutions) that they think the business leaders will not be comfortable with ('business leaders are already stretched to the limits fighting for the survival of the company, how can we risk annoying them at this point').

This approach might help in reducing the number/intensity of possible arguments/conflicts between HR and business leaders on these issues and the associated investment of time and emotional energy, leading to faster decision making and smoother relationships. In this case, business leaders will ‘like’ HR and hence they will be more likely to cooperate in the roll out of basic HR processes and less likely to come down heavily on HR when HR makes a mistake. Hence conflicts are avoided - making life easier for both the parties involved. However, this can also lead to sub-optimal decisions (see 'Training the victim' for an example).

The other option is to develop and articulate an independent point of view – based on the HR philosophy of the organization (see ‘Towards a philosophy of HR’ for more details), HR functional expertise and an assessment of the context/situation.

This might turn out to be different from what the business leaders have in mind/are comfortable with and hence this can create conflicts and lengthy discussions/arguments and possibly delays in decision making. The business leaders might feel that ‘HR does not understand the problems that the business is facing’, ‘HR is becoming a pain in the neck’ or that ‘HR is being too idealistic’. This might lead to a situation where business leaders become very demanding – questioning the rationale behind each of the initiatives that HR comes up with. Thus this option can make life more difficult for both the parties involved. But if the conflict (of opinions between HR and business leaders) can be managed constructively, this option can lead to superior decisions and also to the development of mutual respect and trust. However, there is no guarantee that this can be achieved in all the situations.

So, which is the ‘better’ option?

It is possible that the business leaders were more open than what the HR professional had guessed. May be, they wanted HR to make an independent recommendation. Again, it is possible that the HR professional’s ‘independent assessment’ of the business needs/constraints was totally off the mark, making his/her point of view completely unrealistic. May be, the context is such that the conflict of opinion can’t be resolved successfully quickly enough for the matter at hand. Thus there are many possibilities here.

It can be said that if we take a long term perspective, if both the parties are competent and sincere and if the conflict can be managed constructively and quickly enough, the second option might give better results. But that is too many ‘ifs’ (3 in the last sentence!). It can also be argued that the two options mentioned above are just two extremes and that reality lies somewhere in between. For example, a particular HR leader might adopt option 1 in the case of some issues and option 2 in the case of other issues – depending on the context/nature of the issues. After all, ‘picking and choosing one’s battles’ is supposed to be a key requirement for survival in the corporate world!

An important factor here is the nature of the relationship between HR and business leaders. Often, HR does not pay sufficient attention to the relationship management aspect (positioning of the HR function appropriately, establishing the relationship, managing/shaping expectations, building capability and consistently meeting commitments/delivering value, enhancing the levels of mutual respect and trust etc.). See 'Nature abhors vacuum' for an example. This can be problematic as effectively managing the relationships with the business leaders can turn out to be the most significant enabler for demonstrating and sustaining 'business orientation'.

Of course, in this discussion about 'business orientation' we should not forget the other customers of HR- like the employees and first-line managers. There is an increasing tendency on the part of HR to give less emphasis to the ‘employee champion’ role because of the increasing importance given to the ‘strategic business partner role’ (see 'In praise of HR generalists' , 'Of specialists and business-alignment', and 'In the wonderland of HR Business Partners'). This can easily lead to situations where there is not enough focus on ‘employee engagement’ (other than the cosmetic efforts/peripheral initiatives – see 'Employee engagement and the story of the Sky maiden’ for details). As it is widely known, employee engagement is a good predictor/lead indicator of business results. Thus, if this 'business orientation' (and being the 'strategic business partner') is achieved at the expense of 'employee' engagement, the result might be 'strategic (long-term) harm' to the business.

It is also interesting to model this situation using the concepts of 'static' and 'dynamic' equilibrium (A chair has static equilibrium. A bicycle in motion has dynamic equilibrium. In a state of static equilibrium there is balance, but no change or movement - that exists in the case of dynamic equilibrium). A 'live and let live' kind of arrangement between HR and business leaders (that avoids conflict) is similar to 'static equilibrium'. But a scenario in which HR and business leaders openly & clearly state their independent opinions, followed by constructive debate/conflict leading to decisions that both the parties are comfortable with is similar to 'dynamic equilibrium'. This does not mean that the parties can't be passionate about their points of view/express 'strong' opinions. The requirement is just that they should not get too much attached to their opinions (see 'Passion for work and anasakti' for a related discussion).

I feel that, in general, dynamic equilibrium provides richer possibilities (sitting on a bicycle allows you to do things that you can't do sitting on a chair). But, establishing dynamic equilibrium might not be required or feasible in all the cases. It requires more time, effort and skill (as the equilibrium needs to be constantly reestablished) . It is also more risky (you are more likely to have a fall from a bicycle as compared to that from a chair - especially when you are learning to ride - which can be compared to the 'establishing the relationship' part/phase of the 'relationship management' that we had discussed earlier!).

Any comments/ideas?