Executing in a Fast Changing Environment

This excerpt summary from Workforce Magazine (June 2010) caught my eye because of the ever changing environment HR people are in today. Not only is the business models changing but so is the economy and the drivers of competition.

Executives must be able to lead their companies to quickly adapt to new market forces in this unpredictable economic climate. Under these extreme conditions that face companies survival depends in part to sound strategy but even more so on effective strategy execution. HR executives or aspiring HR executives this is a key point for you in your HR execution.

Because execution plays such a critical role in success or failure, especially during a crisis, many companies are turning to new technology solutions to ensure they can deliver on strategies and emerge even stronger. Any company that fails to adapt quickly and efficiently to market changes can miss important opportunities ir risk their very survival.

With that prologue, here are some key barometers to attain or execute to going forward if you are not already doing this:

• A new strategy is not enough - executing under these extreme market conditions is not enough, meaning you need to make sure you touch every point of the strategy timeline and product offering.
• Align your workforce with what you want to accomplish - workforce alignment and performance is critical.
• Be prepared to change course or rethink your strategy monthly - it is difficult to get your strategy right the first time so review religiously. 
• Leverage performance and talent management solutions for business execution - this will help you attain the top and bottom line results. 

If you are an HR practitioner you need to make sure you are working directly with your CEO to accomplish these goals. If not then you better begin or you will be left out in the cold and people will question your value to the organization. 

Are You At the Table Yet?

Earlier this week I attended the HR Executive Roundtable Group meeting which I co-founded at ARRIS. The speaker was Joel Koblenz from the Koblenz Group in Atlanta who talked about what CEOs want from HR leaders and what they expect. Joel's discussion to the group was "a view from the top". The topic was timely and on target based on what we currently are seeing in the economy and industry. 


It reminded me of a post I put up last July so I thought I would repost it again since the points that Joel touched on were what I wrote about last year.  In addition, Joel mentioned 2 other key points that I failed to bring up in that previous post:

• meeting with your CEO weekly to calculate the HR strategy against the current business strategy
• making sure that you understand the business from the ground up, not just what you produce and who are your key competitors.

In addition, all successful corporations use HR strategically, not just to manage administration and other mundane HR tasks. CEOs are interested in growth, profits, innovation, and the ability to retain customers. HR is at a key position to help the CEO attain all of these objectives. To do this your time in the HR leadership role should consist of the following:

• discussing talent, retention, and talent development and pipeline candidates;
• compensation and competitive intersections of market and attaining the best talent;
• benefits, maintaining a competitive package and harnessing costs, especially health and 401K and pensions;
• identifying integration acquisitions quickly;
• anticipating critical business events and regulatory issues;
• guiding and maintaining a daily interaction with the CEO and key business leaders;
• understanding the dynamics of the economy and how they impact the business;
• and finally enabling growth drivers at the employee and business levels.

Are you doing these key functions on a daily basis? Let me know your thoughts.

Taking the Pulse

When was the last time you as the senior HR person in your organization held a meeting with the rank and file in your organization? Taking the pulse of your organization is extremely important to make sure your HR strategy is working within the rank and file. 

As a senior leader, I held meetings with employees, no more than six(6) at a time to discuss what was going right in the organization and what was going wrong or missing the mark. Why six you ask, well, I only had six seats in my office. I lead every meeting with the following statement, "this is your meeting to vent, commend, criticize, or otherwise and that it was a safe harbor for them". I also told them that the success of these meetings depended on the confidentiality they entrusted with me. I can tell you that there were a lot of good solid suggestions on how the business was run, what could be fixed, enhanced, etc. 

As you may recall these meetings were much like the Skip Level Meetings that GE ran throughout their businesses. The best ideas and direction comes from the employees. 

I am sure if you are in touch with the business that you are running such meetings and if not then you are missing the mark on what your overall responsibility is as an HR leader. Email me 

wgstevens2@gmail.com on what you have done or doing in our organization and I will post it on my blog. 

Finding Money for Innovation: Develop Those People Skills

Innovations typically involve trial, error and outright failure before turning into successful products or services. Thomas Edison, for example, conducted approximately 10,000 failed experiments before perfecting the incandescent light bulb. For decades, leading businesses have willingly shouldered the expense and the risk of innovating as the price of staying ahead of competitors.

But innovating has become a lot tougher lately, according to a panel of technology experts who recently spoke at the University of Pennsylvania's Executive Master's in Technology Management program. With R&D budgets shrinking and markets retrenching in a worldwide economic crisis, the panelists noted, technologists will need more than lab expertise to convince their employers to keep the research funding spigots open.

Indeed, the ability to communicate well and other "soft skills" are just as important as technological expertise when it comes to selling new ideas to investors or senior management, suggested several members of the panel, which was titled "Street-Smart Innovation to Align Emerging Technology and Business." In addition, future scientists, researchers and program managers should focus on aligning innovative projects with company goals. As panelist Nicholas D. Evans, vice president of the innovation division at Unisys, pointed out, it's much easier to justify budgets for speculative projects that show an obvious commercial benefit to the parent company.

That lesson became painfully obvious this past summer to employees of the storied Bell Labs research group, based in northern New Jersey. Alcatel-Lucent, owner of Bell Labs, all but gutted much of the non-commercial "basic research" performed by the lab. The product of a rocky 2006 merger, struggling Alcatel-Lucent sought to align Bell Labs' operations more closely with the parent's commercial interests in wireless, optics, networking and computer science.

So, how do organizational entrepreneurs keep innovation alive in companies looking to slash costs? And how do start-ups and growth companies attract investors when the rest of the economy is melting? That's another place where those soft skills come in handy. Several of the panelists suggested that while technical people are generally not known for soft skills, those individuals who desire funding to continue their work would do well to acquire them.

Anthony P. Green, a vice president with first-round funding group Ben Franklin Technology Partners, said he frequently sees entrepreneurs stumble because they lack such skills. All too often, entrepreneurs come across as rude, dismissive and disrespectful to audiences of potential investors, thereby "infuriating the investment community." Panelist Eric F. Bernstein, a laser surgeon, dermatologist and technology entrepreneur, echoed that point. "Business is all about relationships. They need to like your idea, but they also need to like you."

Suzanne Taylor, portfolio director of corporate operations for Unisys, pointed out that budget handlers are also more inclined to favor innovation if it can be shown to cut costs. Innovation department heads must become adept at "making the case for maximizing productivity and reducing waste," Taylor said. This requires excellent communication skills, she added, including the fine art of schmoozing. And the higher up the case is made, the better for the innovator, added Sanjoy Ray, director of global application engineering for pharmaceutical giant Merck. "Executive sponsorship is very powerful. It provides 'air cover.'"

Do you agree? Send me your comments and thoughts on this issue.