Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Why Do Top Leaders Need A Real HR Leadership Partner?

Your Corporate Strategy:  It Just Doesn’t Matter?     Part 26

The following are again from Jon Bell, former CEO Kraft, and others:

1. HR’s most important role is to influence the CEO on the corporate culture. This is especially important in “revolving door” environments….

2. An adept HR executive is the CEO’s window. HR can be an excellent radar screen for “reading the tea leaves” amongst the work force with regard to organizational health. The individual should be on top of changes to business plans and how they are being accepted. Key to success is the HR executive’s ability to instill trust at all levels. The “window” begins to close when HR becomes a bunch of cops. CEOs must watch for that.  They must be the early warning system within the organization.  Therefore they must also provide a “safe and neutral” for internal employment communication and problem solving. Without this perceived neutrality problems will go elsewhere and communication will stop.  This is the HR business environment employees deal with today and it elicits distrust vs. trust in the company.

3. HR ensures an effective system to pinpoint high-potential talent and probable successors. This brings me back to culture and this is why Procter & Gamble and Walmart are very good succession planners. By the time an executive rises to the top, he/she will have spent several years within the organization. The CEO [and all other key leaders and management] must be a “believer” in the culture that makes their company great.

4. On a personal level, a strategic HR team can be instrumental in helping the CEO realize a leader’s greatest sense of gratification—that gratification is encouraging, nurturing and allowing human beings to reach their full potential personally, professionally and economically.

Look at the perennially successful companies. Often, they have a “way”—a distinctive culture that works for them. The custodian of the “way” is the CEO and the CHRO. It is time to use the HR group strategically and bring their leader into the board room….. the only person who can do this is the CEO.”
Where does culture come from? It usually comes from the founders of the group. For whatever reason, they value certain things and behave in ways that seem to help the group succeed. Success is key, so it seeps into the group’s DNA.”

Creating a great employment culture and communicating it is all about the message, how it’s relayed, role modeled and its expectations.  This is not a tweet moment!   Far more time and effort must be spent on how that message is worded and received than on the message itself!  It takes far more damage control and effort to undue a poorly communicated plan or change than to do it right the first time. 

Great People Department Leaders must have exceptional people, sympathy, empathy, intuition, business, negotiation, employment and labor legal, organizational, management and management influential, financial and statistical, big picture HRIS/HRMS/ATS software integration, education and training, motivational, possibly Union Labor Relations, verbal and written communications skills and qualities plus patience.   These are hard and soft skills as unique to Talent and People Leadership as those required for CFOs, COOs, Legal and possibly CEOs, and most likely the only position having this unique blend of attributes and qualities in the organization.

Again, per part 24, "organizations with a Chief Human Resource Officer were 105% more profitable than their industry peers."  ‘nough  said.


Next: How to Misdirect a People Strategy! Part A 

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