Using people to unlock organisational potential

1
Using people to unlock organisational potential

• Dr Phyl Johnson
• Strathclyde Business School
• in association with
• Martin Currie

2
Companies face these challenges

• Demographicaging and shrinking work force
• Talent War
• Work attitudes and values in new millennium
  culture pro a con
• About ¼ of U.S. workforce is simply showing up
  to collect a paycheck
• 40 of workers feel disconnected from their
  employers
• 2/3 do not identify with or feel motivated to
  drive their employers business goals and
  objectives
• Similarly bleak results from surveys in the U.K.
  and Canada

Taken from Jeffery Pfeffer Creating a High
performance Culture, speech OCT 2005, University
of Strathclyde.
3
The importance of human capital

• Organisational culture and the skill and
  motivation of people are more difficult to
  imitate than technology or other assets.
• The resource-based view of competitive strategy
  locates the source of sustained competitive
  success in organisational culture and people

4
Two parallel agendas Transforming organisations
using people

• The HRM system challenge

• The managerial development change

Adding value to the organisation
Locating the me in People Management
5
HR agenda from a leading Scottish plc
HR consulting mission to enable its customers to
shape their strategies and optimise the
contribution of their people, in order to achieve
business goals.

• To deliver a first class HR service
• To ensure efficient and effective transactional
  people processes
• To provide expert HR advice and guidance
• To understand the business drivers and provide a
  strategic partnering to the business stakeholders
• To frame and deliver work according to clear
  deadlines, milestones and benefits agreed upfront
  with the business

6
Learning from PWC awards

• Hygiene level of performance inc basic HR systems
• Added value in
• Talent management
• Employee engagement
• People development
• Leadership development

7
My own part in people development/management

• The senior managers in any business are the
  people management.
• It is not the role of the HR department
• Senior managers are the holders of the culture of
  the business and you are on stage whether you
  like it or not
• It is about managing your relationships with
  those who you are formally or informally related
  to
• Your behaviour either motivates or de-motivates
  the people around you, there is no middle ground
• You need to constantly challenge yourself to
  become more expert at people

8

• The fundamental message behind senior managers
  and CEOs becoming more expert at people is that
  human resource management is not about the
  activities of the HR department. Effective human
  resource management is manifested and witnessed
  in the thoughts words and deeds of the senior
  management of any firm. So the version of people
  management that people experience via your
  behaviour is already out there it exists in the
  memories people have of you, in the stories
  people tell of you and their beliefs about you
  that form the future possibilities for you and
  them. So, if this version of you as the carrier
  of the people management of the business is
  already out there, the first question you have to
  ask yourself is
• Do you have any idea of the version of you that
  is out-there ?
• You may be very well informed. You may have in
  the past or currently allocated a considerable
  amount of time and effort in order to become well
  informed. It would be less usual if you had. Most
  senior managers have a gradual dawning that they
  need to become more expert at people (most
  especially the people who they are) as they
  become more powerful.

9
Frequent perceptional transactions between
powerful people and their followers?

• There are some peculiar rationales behind
  behaviours directed toward powerful people
• Followers will have a hallucination of you
• Followers frequently attempt to entice their
  leaders into transference roles
• The very presence of power creates liars candour
  flees power.
• Followers need you to have the trappings of power
  that they can vicariously share
• However, the more trappings you have the emptier
  your leadership as you become a greater vessel of
  peoples hallucination
• Increasing power and increasing narcissism are
  inextricably linked have you got Shaka Zulu in
  the Attic?

10
Frequent self perceptions of powerful
peopleThe tragedies of success

• Impostor insecurity I am not the person people
  think I am, Ive relied on posturing and Ill
  eventually get found out and ever so politely
  get asked to leave the room
• Gate closing panic time is running out for me to
  really make it to the top and get as far as I
  thought I could
• Faustian regret Ive made it to the top and is
  this all there is, was it worth the wreckage?
• Loneliness of command You get to the top and
  theres no-one to share it with

11
How much time do you spend on yourself?

• Write down an estimate of the number of hours you
  spend on your own personal development.
• Do you want to write the same number next year?

12
Keep your development in balance
Role
Organisation
Task
Me