These terms replaced “Personnel” and stuck. We describe great people, a great person, a great group of people, a people person, a talented person, a talented group or talented group of people. We don’t say they are a great human (human being sometimes), great humans, great group of humans, a human person, a talented human, talented humans or a talented group of humans.
There are over 6 Billion humans on this planet. To endow our people and teams with the collective “human” title, while technically accurate, is definitely not individualized, unique or warm. To me it describes a sheep view of people and those charged with their activity. This perception is also how many view the HR function, including many in top leadership positions. As Steve Jobs is quoted, “I’ve never met one of you who didn’t suck. I’ve never known an HR person who had anything but a mediocre mentality.”
Ouch!! However, Jobs was never one to sugar coat his thoughts. Whatever genius you ascribe to Steve Jobs, the Apple brand changed the personal communications world. His vision, focus, timing and user friendly products put Apple at the top of the heap. He drove Apple to become what it is today. Vision, artistry, focus, forced labor and relentless competitiveness and determination were the hallmarks of the Apple innovation.
Not many people’s vision has had such a profound impact on life in such a short period of time. It is no wonder his view of HR was so degrading. That was his personality. Since HR/People and Talent operations must deal with the ever growing maze of regulatory requirements and organizational issue, most daily routine functions must have paled in comparison to the Steve Job’s Apple product's vision.
However, Jobs found a Chief Talent Officer he approved of and hired….Daniel Walker, now CTO at JC Penney under CEO, Ron Johnson, although not for much longer I presume. He must have found someone who was the opposite of his stated HR views. Although Apple was/is at the leading edge of change (the fringe and not mainstream) in how Human Resources fundamentally works, how it is organized and how it impacts an organization…and profits, they are not alone, just not main stream.
Is being a part of main stream HR part of the problem?
Next: Can we change the perceived Human Resource Focus?
No comments:
Post a Comment