The Human Asset Manifesto

The People Gap 2 – Leadership Might Be Sexy But How People Oriented Is It?

This is the second in a series of articles on the gap between what organisations say about the importance of people and what they actually do to reflect it.

Without a doubt, for better or for worse, leadership is the sexiest topic in management. There are probably more books on leadership than on all other business topics combined. It is the topic with the greatest buzz and the one that elicits the most interest.

What is behind this obsession with leadership?

From a social perspective, there has probably never been a time when people were more individualistic and intent on pursuing their own personal ambition. No other era in history has allowed so many people to think beyond an ordinary existence.

Thus, it would be entirely natural to consider leadership in terms of its appeal to the individual, the hero, that single person who can presumably make all the difference by changing the course of an organisation or even history itself. Throw in a few other human traits such as vanity, a quest for glory, and the desire to stand at the top, and suddenly the obsession with leadership looks like something that has been engineered into our DNA.

There is also a very practical perspective.

The number of knowledge workers and highly qualified staff has increased exponentially over the past twenty years. MBAs and advanced degrees are now the norm rather than the exception. What this means is that the path to leadership for the many who consider themselves suitably equipped is less well defined and certainly more difficult and competitive than ever.

As a consequence, irrespective of the way in which it is viewed, be it lightened or unenlightened, leadership is more often than not far more concerned with the leader than it is with the led and that particular approach is embedded in our subconscious.

This is indeed unfortunate.

Long before their companies collapsed in ruin, corporate titans such as Bernie Ebbers of World Com and Ken Lay of Enron were celebrated and regaled for their leadership qualities. In direct contrast to these shooting stars one could ask the question; “Does anyone know who the President of Switzerland is?”

The answer happens to be Micheline Calmy-Rey. I had to look it up. With the exception of the Swiss and perhaps a smattering of people over the border in Germany, Italy, and France, I would guess that very few people would have known that.

The Swiss actually have a collective leadership, a Federal Council, which consists of seven people. Each year, a member of that council is selected to act as its nominal head and de facto President of the country.

Switzerland is the world’s strongest and most participatory democracy. It holds regular referendums on all sorts of issues and its citizens can challenge the laws at anytime.

Swiss leadership is about the led and the result is a country that consistently ranks as one of the wealthiest (in terms of GDP per capita) and most competitive in the world.

Organisations should take note of the Swiss model. Leadership by definition should be about facilitating and enabling others to be the very best they can be. It is for this reason that the current obsession with leaders should change to an obsession with the led.

Until such a change is effected, the nature of the current focus on leadership will only serve to perpetuate the people gap.

The People Gap 1 – Is HR An Excuse For Managers To Outsource Their Primary Responsibility?

Ask any organisation what is their most important asset and they will say it is their people. Alternatively, ask any group of people whether or not they are treated by their organisation in a way that reflects their supposed importance and invariably the answer is no.

The evidence is everywhere – just about every employee survey indicates that people are less than happy with their jobs and places of employment. Putting it another way, how many shiny happy people do you see going to work in the morning?

The truth is that most organisations have a significant people gap – the difference between people talk and people walk. As such, human assets remain unappreciated and underutilised. This has huge implications for individual productivity and organisational performance.

What is really strange about all of this is that organisations have invested vast amounts of money on HR departments, training, recruitment, and an assortment of other employee related mechanisms and initiatives.

Yet, it would appear that despite all of this, not nearly enough has been achieved and much of that employee related effort and expenditure is missing the mark. As such, although managers continually talk about the importance of people, the considerable gap between talk and action remains.

Why is this so?

I suppose the first and most obvious reason is that irrespective of the amount of money spent on HR and HR related initiatives, by definition that alone cannot be enough. If organisations truly believe that people are their most important asset then it stands to reason that people and the development of people should be the primary focus and responsibility of every manager.

With few exceptions, such as Toyota, we know that this is clearly not the case.

Consequently, the only rational conclusion that one can draw from this is that HR is nothing more than an excuse for managers to outsource their primary responsibility to someone else. Until and unless that changes, the vast amounts of money spent on HR initiatives will continue to go to waste – and no amount of turning HR departments into HR partners is going to change that.

The simple truth is that as far managers are concerned, people are just not sexy. So what is?

This we will explore in a series of follow-up articles which will examine how an obsession with leadership, technology, knowledge management, outsourcing, and a host of fads, have all been used by managers to marginalise human assets. Once we have completed this examination the answer to the people gap, The Human Asset Organisation, will immediately become obvious.

Watch this space.

Is Work As We Know It Compatible With Liberal Democracy?

The idea that people must go to work to give up their freedoms and their ability to be creative, and accept a subordinate role to those who have invested money, is completely contrary to our social evolution and the very nature of humanity. The Human Asset Manifesto, Jonathan Ledwidge

Wal-Mart is one of the most successful and profitable organisations of its kind in the history of modern business. As such, stories in the media about the less than favourable experiences of Wal-Mart’s current and former employees do deserve our attention.

We talk of liberal democracy in terms of elections, a free media and an independent judiciary – and these are very important. However, the policies and actions of Wal-Mart and others like it challenge the very notion of liberal democracy and the social equality it supposedly engenders.

Yet, Wal-Mart is not the only guilty party. Day after day millions of workers trudge to work to engage in activities which for all intents and purposes require that they leave their brains at home. As it so happens, their rewards are more often than not commensurate with the lack of inspiration and creativity that their job demands.

If one is cynical, then one might be of the opinion that this equation is in perfect balance – an unfair day’s work for an unfair day’s pay. However, one might also want to consider that this also quite adequately illustrates why employee surveys routinely show that people are very rarely engaged or motivated by their work – which of course is a hindrance to innovation and productivity.

The long term consequences of the kinds of actions that produce such outcomes can be decidedly unpleasant. Wal-Mart is only now beginning to recognize this as a result of the class action lawsuit being filed against it by some 1.5 million current and former female employees.

In the book Maslow on Management, the author describes the term Enlightened Economics as; “the assumption that everyone prefers to be a prime mover rather than a passive helper, a tool, a cork tossed about on the waves”. Thus, an Enlightened Organization encapsulates the very essence of liberal democracy, by providing an environment where employees are willing to participate and enjoy the freedom to do so.

This ideal is emphatically supported by none other than Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the US Federal Reserve. In a statement to the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, Bernanke noted; “Equality of economic opportunity appeals to our sense of fairness, certainly, but it also strengthens our economy. If each person is free to develop and apply his or her talents to the greatest extent possible, then both the individual and the economy benefit.”

This brings us back to the Wal-Marts of this world, low paid minimum wage jobs, the working poor, and growing social inequality. Indeed, Bernanke further stated; “We also believe that no one should be allowed to slip too far down the economic ladder, especially for reasons beyond his or her control.”

This is as good a pretext as any for organizations to examine their role and impact on the social fabric of society, why leading social change is wholly compatible with success and ultimately even the preservation of liberal democracy.

History shows that the disadvantaged will not tolerate their condition indefinitely.

I came across a very fine example of an organization focusing on people and leading social change while reading about Rosenbluth Travel, a firm whose motto is; “put your employees first and watch them kick butt”.

Against what many would have deemed to be their better judgment, Rosenbluth opened a new office in a depressed area of rural America. The community was extremely grateful for the investment and the opportunity for regeneration – and Rosenbluth’s new employees did not hesitate to show their appreciation. That office quickly became one of the most efficient in the entire Rosenbluth network.

From a philosophical perspective, divorcing the world of work from the idea of people, people development, sustainable living, and our notion of liberal democracy, is a fool’s errand. In the long term, organizations can only hope to optimize people potential and investment returns by adopting a human and social model of their business and leading social change – meaning they will have to move beyond their nice CSR programs.