The HR profession has lost its way in the world of business, argues Nutricia’s John Carlisle. But an understanding of the psychology of high performance will help the profession get back on track
The HR profession has lost its way in the world of business, argues Nutricia’s John Carlisle. But an understanding of the psychology of high performance will help the profession get back on track
If HR professionals are to add real value to their business, they need to go back to the future by again becoming experts in the psychology of individual and organisational performance. Rather than whinging about the barriers that HR people face, such as not sitting at the board table or being a true business partner, HR professionals will gain real credibility and add real value if they forget about attempting to become just another general manager with a HR title. The real value they will add and the real credibility they will gain will be achieved through their skill in helping businesses understand how to effectively redesign customer and employee experiences.
People gain credibility in a group by providing added value and complementary competence which helps the group survive more effectively. For HR professionals, their actual value to the group should be their depth of expertise in three areas: the psychology of individual effectiveness, the psychology underpinning effective human cooperation (which includes customer interaction) and the psychology and dynamics driving organisational change.
The profession has today lost many of its roots, and what worries me today is that the profession has lost its depth. Too often we see HR people implementing programs and initiatives without any underpinning theory or psychological understanding of what they are really trying to achieve.
Take my first point regarding the psychology of individual effectiveness. How often do we see people development programs that are totally ineffectual? How many of these programs are based on completely outdated behaviourist concepts? The typical approach seems to revolve around conducting some form of annual performance appraisal, providing some type of feedback which highlights an individual’s good and bad points, identifies the gaps they have and what training they need to close these gaps and a final shopping list of objectives, which will be reinforced by an annual bonus.
Look at the level of involvement that HR people typically have in designing or redesigning workflows, such as the actual conversion processes and work environments in our businesses. When the CEO is looking to improve the engagement of customers, who do they turn to? More importantly, when the business wants to redesign its supply chain to execute a turn-key response for customers, to what extent does HR become involved in this?
The fundamental problem is twofold. Firstly, most line managers have a good business understanding, so why do they want yet another person interfering in their redesign efforts, when all they can contribute is a watered down version of this understanding combined with a knowledge of the current HR fads. What they are seeking is someone who is highly credible and willing to gain an appreciation of their business drivers, but who can complement their expertise with another field of expertise.
Sure, there are many critical issues to be addressed in the HR field: the war for talent, the depth of leadership bench-strength, and so on. But seriously, what is the point of internal HR professionals working tirelessly on these peripheral programs when they do not have a unique competitive advantage in this area compared with the large external talent management groups. Besides, what company is seriously going to be able to attract and retain talent when the actual work experience is not a motivating one. And aren’t line managers going to be the ones best placed to nurture and position talent, with an administrative support?
The second problem is that HR professionals have no clarity about their focus, identity or their unique brand. This needs to be in an area where you can become highly credible and actually get to a situation where your work is ‘worth paying for on the open market’.
In regards to the psychology behind individual effectiveness, we need to have HR people working on a model which is different from the behaviourist ‘tell’philosophy. This is not a soft approach. It is an approach that works. Essentially we need to emulate the natural learning process used by children when learning to walk and talk. We need this view-learning approach because it means we are being driven by our natural survival instinct. Learned behaviours are actually survival strategies which become a pattern of grooves that develop in the brain and become unconscious over time. The implications that this view of the learning process has on designing work and effective coaching is enormous. However, if we do not apply this insight we will continue to waste millions of dollars on totally useless training and talent management practices.
When it comes to the psychology underpinning effective group cooperation, HR professionals need to be able to help line managers see that essentially all businesses are social and technical systems that require the effective cooperation of people, and some form of technology to deliver products, services or experiences of value to customers and make a profit. At this level all businesses are the same.
Importantly, though, HR professionals need to be able to show that this challenge has existed since hunter gatherers roamed the planet and that the dominant models that we use today – the command and control, hierarchy or military model is but one model that can be used to achieve this cooperation. As we have evolved through slavery and craftwork to hierarchy we know that there are strengths and weaknesses relating to each model depending on the environment. HR professionals need to be able to show line managers alternate models and also be able to explain the underlying psychological dynamics that inhibit and facilitate effective human cooperation. Flow theory, for example, provides a great insight into what drives highly effective groups. In addition HR professionals need a toolkit of redesign techniques to assist line managers in their efforts to provide unique, engaging and memorable experiences for customers and employees.
We think the concept of a customer-employee experience cycle is very powerful. We also think that tools which allow people to map their workflows and social networks and which build the business literacy of employees are invaluable in this process. These two tools broaden the HR role into one that deals with customer engagement as well as employee engagement – after all is there any difference? – and positions the HR team as a value adding contributor rather than a policing, bureaucratic or administrative function.
Finally, HR professionals need to become absolute experts in the field of change management. The speed of external change has created a need for a more sophisticated understanding of this dynamic. Only by reclaiming a serious understanding of the psychology behind high performing individuals, groups and effective change, will HR professionals be able to get into the meat of the business and actually add a new perspective and new value to their team. This will be their complementary skill. It’s a little bit like the Tom Peters model, so ask yourself these questions:
1. If this HR department was now ME.INC, how would things work differently?
2. What would be our unique brand; what would we be known for in our business?
3. What type of work would we do? I bet that 90 per cent of your current workload would disappear.
4. What type of people would be in my company? I bet it would be high calibre people with real expertise in the psychology of performance.
5. All in all you have turned your HR department into a sought after Professional Services Firm (PSF).
John Carlisle is director of Flow Consulting group and head of HR for Nutricia Australia & New Zealand. Comments? Suggestions? Email [email protected]
