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HR the Architects to Build Their Organisation’s Collective Leadership Brand

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Architectural advice from Professor Dave Ulrich for HR professionals to build their organisation’s collective leadership brand and inspire investor confidence.

LEADERSHIP VS LEAD-A-SHIP 

Leadership is not about one single charismatic individual leading an organisation. That could be called “lead-a-ship”. A mighty “tug boat” can, single-handedly, indeed lead an organisation, in the same way that a tug boat manoeuvres a large ship by towing and pushing it along, but collective leadership inspires more investor confidence with less reliance on a single individual.

BUILDING BLOCKS FOR COLLECTIVE LEADERSHIP BRANDING

  1. Organisations with strong and effective leadership at all levels achieve superior business results.
  2. Organisations with inconsistent leadership achieve inferior business results.
  3. Leadership Brand represents the identity and reputation of leaders throughout the company.
  4. Leaders demonstrate a brand when they think and act in ways that are congruent with the desired product or brand promise.
  5. Leadership Brand results are determined by how customers and investors perceive the value delivery.
  6. Leadership rhetoric is not about fuzzy terms such as transformation, vision or aspiration; it is about quantifiable business terms of customer share and market value. Leadership ROI show up in a firm’s stock price.
  7. A Leadership Brand pushes leaders to move from generic leadership to targeted leadership.
  8. Brands are reinforced by sustained choices in design and delivery. Leadership Brand is no different; it is reinforced by dozens of decisions about relationships, resources, strategy etc..; Leaders are branded when the array of decisions they make on a daily basis reinforce and support a clear identity.
  9. Leaders who do not reflect the firm’s leadership brand must be identified and upgraded or removed.
  10. Leadership Brand must not be tied to one person, no matter how charismatic or talented. It must be embedded throughout the organisation.
  11. Leadership Brand efficacy occurs when employees, customers and investors believe and see that promises made, at any level, are promises that are kept.
  12. Leadership Brand is about an organisation’s capacity to develop future leaders.
  13. Leadership Brand final advice. Leaders need to make sure that where they are saying they going is achieved. This is how they build trust with employees, investors and customers.

Source: Leadership as a Brand – Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood.

In 2014, BRG & GIBs will present Dave Ulrich – Live and in Person: The 13 Milestones for HR to transcend the way they deliver measurable value to their organisations. Become architects of talent, culture and leadership for 21st Century Organisations. … both in the Private and Public Sector.

Professor Dave Ulrich has consulted and done research with over half of the Fortune 200. His honours exude a consistent track record of global influence and authority in human resources and business management.  His research is based on collective feedback from over 60 000 line managers and HR professionals on the competencies required to improved business performance.

An accomplished and celebrated educator Dave is sought after the world over to present his findings and educate businesses. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 25 books which he has co-authored with numerous fellow thought leaders.

Follow Dave Ulrich on twitter: @dave_ulrich

HR are the Architects of Intangible Value

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If an investment analyst sat in on your HR meeting or learning intervention – what would they decide? Buy, Sell or Hold?

In Professor Dave Ulrich’s, most current, soon to be published work, he proposes that leadership is the key underlying value factor in organisations and is about being able to keep promises, set clear and compelling strategies, align core competencies and build organisational capabilities. He suggests, that, when leaders at all levels of a firm guide these four domains, they create sustainable intangible value which is becoming a major influence for investors and investment analysts.

INVESTORS ASSESS LEADERSHIP ABILITY TO VALUE THE FUTURE INTANGIBLE VALUE OF THE FIRM

His latest research centres primarily on the impact of leadership on both equity and debt investors who want to accurately value the intangible assets of a company and in particular how they assess the leaders and leadership who make the intangibles happen. He further emphasises that leadership is not about the one charismatic CEO in the organisation, but rather about the collective leadership capability and succession planning throughout the organisation.

He asks this, “Does your organisations’ intangible value trade at a premium or discount to your industry?”

Two firms in the same industry with the same financial results may have dramatically different market valuation. This differentiated market valuation is often attributed to intangibles. Intangibles show up in business by boosting – or undercutting investor’s confidence. Baruch Lev has shown that the importance of intangibles as indicated through the market-to-book value [the ratio of capital market value of companies compared to their net asset value] of the S & P 500, has risen from 1 to over 6 in the last 25 years – suggesting that for every $6 of market value, only $1 occurs on the balance sheet. This shows that the value of many firms comes as much from perceived value as from hard assets.

HR professionals who design and deliver leadership improvement efforts could well be served by facilitating conversations from “Outside-In” with their shareholders and investment analysts. At a recent conference, with senior HR professionals in attendance, Dave Ulrich asked the group to consider what their investors would like to know about their quality of leadership? Almost none of the people present had considered this question. At the same conference one of the world’s leading investors shared their desired list of leadership attributes.

Almost no-one was taking notes. This is why Dave believes that HR have the number 1 opportunity to create value in their organisations. Becoming the architects of culture, capability and competence can vastly improve investor and shareholder confidence, beyond the tangibles. “Spend time with your investors and establishing what leadership traits they look for and you will ensure your leadership investment, architecture and efforts are aligned and stimulate confidence beyond the traditional tangibles.”

Still not convinced. In a recent Deloitte survey with 445 analysts from investment banks, private equity firms and hedge funds in 6 countries, 52% factored corporate leadership into their assessment, second only to financial results and ahead of 7 other criteria. This is what they call “The Leadership Premium”. Leadership is more important to them than competitor analysis, historical performance or event debt/equity ratios.

In 2014, BRG & GIBs will present Dave Ulrich – Live and in Person: The 13 Milestones for HR to transcend the way they deliver measurable value to their organisations. Become architects of talent, culture and leadership for 21st Century Organisations.

Professor Dave Ulrich has consulted and done research with over half of the Fortune 200. His honours exude a consistent track record of global influence and authority in human resources and business management.  His research is based on collective feedback from over 60 000 line managers and HR professionals on the competencies required to improved business performance.

An accomplished and celebrated educator Dave is sought after the world over to present his findings and educate businesses. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 25 books which he has co-authored with numerous fellow thought leaders.

Follow Dave Ulrich on twitter: @dave_ulrich

7 Dimensions to Build an Employee Value Proposition for Gen X & Gen Y Talent

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THE 7 DIMENSIONS TO BUILD AN EMPLOYEE VALUE PROPOSITION FOR GEN X & GEN Y TALENT ACCORDING TO PROFESSOR DAVE ULRICH and DR THEO VELDSMAN

Both Dr Theo Veldsman and Professor Dave Ulrich concur on Gen X and Gen Y talent.

Dr Veldsman says, “People engaging with the world of work, the players employed, or to be employed by organisations, have changed. These employees have become more demanding in terms of what they expect from their employers. The question they ask is, “What’s in it for me?”- putting themselves at the centre of their self-constructed world of work.”

These are some of the things they look for.   SOURCE: PEOPLE MANAGEMENT IN THE NEW ORDER Part 1 – Prof  Theo Veldsman

  • Reputable, high profile organisations.
  • Credible, “influencable” leadership.
  • Work settings that are challenging, stimulating and meaningful.
  • Organisations that offer them ongoing learning and development opportunities.
  • Their work is built around their needs and aspirations relative to their personal career life cycle.
  • Work settings that allow them to actualise their potential and apply their knowledge, fully, and in innovative ways.
  • Greater work/life integration because the boundaries between life and work have dissipated because of virtual connectivity.
  • Being measured by what they contribute and the results they produce and not by the hours they spend at work.

Professor Dave Ulrich puts it this way. There are two sides to the Gen X and Gen Y issue.

    1. Why people work?
    2. How they go about working?

“Why they work’ is about finding meaning, and “how they work” is radically different from the traditional 20th century management model. They use technology, have different time frames, care about life before work and value relationships.

If your current and future talent is important to you and you want to ensure you access their discretionary energy, you probably need to reconsider your employee value proposition.

Here is Professor Dave Ulrich’s 7 dimensions to build an employee value proposition that will ensure commitment to your objectives.

    1. Vision – Give your people a sense of direction or purpose
    2. Opportunity – Enable an ability to grow develop and learn.
    3. Incentives – Offer a fair wage or salary for work done.
    4. Impact – Create ways for them to see the outcome of effect of their work done.
    5. Community – Encourage relationships with peers, bosses and leaders who build a sense of community.
    6. Communication – Ensure they know what is going on and why.
    7. Entrepreneurship/flexibility – Offer them choice about terms and conditions of work.

How people go about working? I am not convinced that organisations are paying attention. One only has to look at the early morning and late afternoon traffic congestion to see that the 20th Century “9 – 5” business model still prevails.

In 2014, BRG & GIBs will present Dave Ulrich – Live and in Person: The 13 Milestones for HR to transcend the way they deliver measurable value to their organisations. Become architects of talent, culture and leadership for 21st Century Organisations.

Professor Dave Ulrich has consulted and done research with over half of the Fortune 200. His honours exude a consistent track record of global influence and authority in human resources and business management.  His research is based on collective feedback from over 60 000 line managers and HR professionals on the competencies required to improved business performance.

An accomplished and celebrated educator Dave is sought after the world over to present his findings and educate businesses. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 25 books which he has co-authored with numerous fellow thought leaders.

Follow Dave Ulrich on twitter: @dave_ulrich

“Shopper Insights” Techniques for HR Professionals

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“Shopper Insights” techniques for HR professionals | 50 Customer Centric questions for HR to do good HR work Outside – In.

If you agree with what Dave Ulrich advocates in his latest book Outside In, then building relationships with your customers is key to achieving previously untapped HR Value.

Although he has been advocating this for a few years now, when he asks HR professionals “How many of you have spent time with your customers?” Typically the response is none.

March 2014 |Posted: www.theprogressconference.com 

So what we know is that typically HR do not spend time with customers. We also know the HR profession have their very own set of vocabulary which can get lost in translation with non HR people. So unless your customers are HR people, you need to translate your key HR priorities into their language which is relevant to their experience. This is how you will find out how your good HR work will create value for customers.

This is what he had to say recently, “Rather than becoming an employer of choice, that employees choose– become an employer of employees, your customers choose.”

So what do your customers look for in your HR work?

“HR SPEAK

Do you think our employee wellbeing programme is effective?

CUSTOMER SPEAK

Do our people display energy and alertness?

HR SPEAK

Are our employees functionally competent? This is where you can unpack specific learning and development interventions. By example if you have recently invested in business writing skills training. You could ask,

CUSTOMER SPEAK

How do you rate the quality of written communication from people in our organisation?

Do our people demonstrate good technical knowledge of the products or services they are offering you?

HR SPEAK

Do you think our customer excellence training programme was effective?

CUSTOMER SPEAK

Do our people deliver excellence in all of their dealings with you?

HR SPEAK

Is our leadership programme effective?

CUSTOMER SPEAK

Do our employees demonstrate our companies Vision, Mission & Values? You may want to unpack these for them and rate them accordingly.

HR SPEAK

Is our cultural sensitivity programme effective?

CUSTOMER SPEAK

Do our people exhibit respect towards you and their colleagues despite race, gender or age?”

So here we go: 37 Customer Centric Questions for HR Professionals who hang out with their customers.

You can create a rating system.                         1 being least like this and 5 being most like this

  1. Our people demonstrate punctuality at all times.
  2. Our people always show up looking presentable.
  3. What image do our employees convey about the company by the way they are dressed?
  4. Our company exhibits a good balance in terms of gender diversity.
  5. Our company exhibits a good balance in terms of racial diversity.
  6. Your experience with our people reflects our brand value proposition.
  7. Our people demonstrate kindness.
  8. Our people demonstrate technical knowledge about our products and services
  9. Our people can communicate effectively about our products or services.
  10. Our people demonstrate knowledge about many different offerings in the market
  11. Our people are responsive.
  12. Our people are willing to take on challenges.
  13. Our people are able to cope well in difficult situations without becoming emotional. Our people love their job.
  14. Our line managers support the people who report to them.
  15. Our collective leadership serves you well.
  16. Our people’s decisions create value for you.
  17. Our people always look healthy and well.
  18. We hire the very best people in our industry.
  19. We retain our best people well.
  20. Our people demonstrate a high level of integrity and ethics in all of their dealings with you.
  21. Our people/company show a strong sense of corporate social responsibility in what we do.
  22. Our products/services meet your required quality standards.
  23. Our people do not complain about their pay.
  24. Our people seem appropriately rewarded for the value they create.
  25. Our people are not stressed.
  26. Our people do not show signs of burn out.
  27. Our people are effective within their teams.
  28. Our people are committed brand ambassadors for our organisation.
  29. Our people take a pride in their work.
  30. We respond well to change in trading conditions.
  31. We show you that we value / respect and appreciate you as a customer.
  32. We demonstrate good governance and compliance in our dealings with you.
  33. Our people are passionate about their work.
  34. Our people demonstrate innovative thinking in all of their dealings.
  35. Our people are willing to go the extra mile.

And then….

What made you decide to become one of our customers? Or, as in the case of an ex customer, what made you decide to leave us?

If you could re-hire, train or develop anyone in our organisation what would you do differently?

Some more tips and ideas:

Why not spend time with customers who you have recently lost? Better still, if this is of significant importance to you, hire the services of a Shopper Insights Company to conduct a survey on your behalf. But as Martin Lindstrom and Dave Ulrich strongly advise you should still spend time and hang out with your customers.

Professor Dave Ulrich has consulted and done research with over half of the Fortune 200. His honours exude a consistent track record of global influence and authority in human resources and business management.  His research is based on collective feedback from over 60 000 line managers and HR professionals on the competencies required to improved business performance.

An accomplished and celebrated educator Dave is sought after the world over to present his findings and educate businesses. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 25 books which he has co-authored with numerous fellow thought leaders.

Follow Dave Ulrich on twitter: @dave_ulrich

Investors Assess Leadership Ability to Value the Future Intangible Value of the Firm

/in , ,

In Professor Dave Ulrich’s, soon to be published work, he proposes that leadership is the key underlying value factor in organisations. His latest research centres primarily on the impact of leadership on both equity and debt investors who want to accurately value the intangible assets of a company, and in particular how they assess the leaders and leadership who make the intangibles happen.

He asks this, “Does your organisations’ intangible value trade at a premium or discount to your industry?”

Two firms in the same industry with the same financial results may have dramatically different market valuation. This differentiated market valuation is often attributed to intangibles. Intangibles show up in business by boosting – or undercutting investor’s confidence. Baruch Lev has shown that the importance of intangibles as indicated through the market-to-book value [the ratio of capital market value of companies compared to their net asset value] of the S & P 500, has risen from 1 to over 6 in the last 25 years – suggesting that for every $6 of market value, only $1 occurs on the balance sheet. This shows that the value of many firms comes as much from perceived value as from hard assets.

HR professionals who design and deliver leadership improvement efforts should be facilitating conversations from “Outside-In” with their shareholders and investment analysts. At a recent conference, with senior HR professionals, Dave asked the group to consider what their investors would like to know about their quality of leadership? Almost none present had considered this question. At the same conference one of the world’s leading investors shared their desired list of leadership attributes. Almost no-one was taking notes. This is why Dave believes that HR have the number 1 opportunity to create value in their organisations. Becoming the architects of culture, capability and competence can vastly improve investor confidence, beyond the tangibles. “Spend time with your investors and establish what leadership traits they look for and you will ensure your leadership investment, architecture and efforts are aligned and stimulate confidence beyond the traditional tangibles”, he says.

Still not convinced. In a recent Deloitte survey with 445 analysts from investment banks, private equity firms and hedge funds in 6 countries, 52% factored corporate leadership into their assessment, second only to financial results and ahead of 7 other criteria. This is what they call “The Leadership Premium”. Leadership is more important to them than competitor anlaysis, historical performance or even debt/equity ratios.

In 2014, BRG & GIBs will present Dave Ulrich – Live and in Person : The 13 Milestones for HR to transcend the way they deliver measurable value to their organisations. Become architects of talent, culture and leadership for 21st Century Organisations.

“Follow Dave Ulrich on Twitter: @dave_ulrich”

Dave Ulrich’s Investor Literacy Test for HR Professionals

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Dave Ulrich asks this, “If an investment analyst was a “fly on the wall” in any of your HR meetings would their decision to invest in your company be, BUY, SELL or HOLD? “ At these times HR has the number one opportunity to build investor confidence in their organisations.

__________________________________________________________________________________

Research by accounting professors shows that the regression between earnings and shareholders value has traditionally between 75 and 90.7 %. This means that in the past 75 – 90% of the market value of an organisation could be predicted by the financial performance of the firm. However since then, this percentage has dropped to about 50% in both up and down markets. So if their predictions are not so clearly tied to present earnings, how else do investors predict the market value of your organisation?  They are tied to what the financial community call intangibles or the value of the organisation not directly derived from physical assets. They are about the choices leaders make about what happens inside their firm and how investors value those decisions. Intangibles do include R & D, technology and brand decisions but organisation and people are what give investor’s confidence in future earnings.

Investors admire Apple for great product design, Disney for great service and Google for innovation but are patently aware that this success all hinges on the people.

For HR Professionals to deliver value to investors, they must first become fluent in the language their own particular investors speak and fully research the reasons why they invest in their organisation. If value is defined by the receiver more than the giver Dave Ulrich suggests you consistently and deliberately engage with your investors.

Dave Ulrich’s Investor Literacy Test for HR Professionals assesses your base of knowledge to link your good HR work to investor priorities.

1.       Who are your 5 major shareholders?

2.      What percentage do each of them own?

3.      Why do they own you? What are their investing criteria?

a.      Dividend stock

b.      Growth market

c.      Etc.

4.      What is your tangible value?

5.      What is your intangible value?

6.     What is your P/E ratio for the last decade?

7.      Who are the top analysts who follow your industry?

8.      How do they view your company vs your competitors?

9.     How are you including key investors and analysts in the design and delivery of your HR practices?     [Succession planning, leadership development, reward & recognition]

10.     How well does your board govern itself – not just on institutional shareholder service criteria but on the process for good board governance?

More investors are assessing the path between HR investment and business performance. They expect it to be clear and believe that good HR architecture in staffing, training & development, leadership development, communication, compensation and governance lead to positive business outputs. The alignment of a business’s strategy and HR practices is pivotal to investors. Employee commitment is also a lead indicator of customer commitment which is a lead indicator of profitability. At a time where financial performance is in many organisations not quite what it used to be, HR have the number one opportunity to build investor confidence.

Business Results Group and GIBS will be bringing Dave to South Africa to present his 13 milestones for HR to transcend the way the deliver measurable value to their organisations. In JHB on 27 May and Cape Town on 28 May.

Professor Dave Ulrich

Dave has consulted and done research with over half of the Fortune 200. His honours exude a consistent track record of global influence and authority in human resources and business management.  His research is based on collective feedback from over 60 000 line managers and HR professionals on the competencies required to improved business performance.

An accomplished and celebrated educator Dave is sought after the world over to present his findings and educate businesses. He has published over 200 articles and book chapters and over 25 books which he has co-authored with numerous fellow thought leaders.