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Tag Archive for: Dave Ulrich

Talent VS Organisation

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By Professor Dave Ulrich

In today’s rapidly changing business world, the challenge of building the right organisation complements and supersedes the talent challenge.  For the past 15 to 20 years, leaders have been encouraged by remarkable work captured in the “war for talent.” Many have built systems for bringing people into the organisation (sourcing, having a value proposition), moving them through the organisation (development, performance management, engagement), and removing them from the organisation (outsourcing). The war for talent was a great battle, but we now need to turn to victory through organisation.

Talent is not enough. Individuals may be champions, but teams win championships.

Click HERE to read the full article.

Professor Dave Ulrich is an internationally acclaimed best selling author, speaker, researcher and consultant to business leaders and the HR Professeion. He is also ranked as the #1 management guru by Business Week, profiled by Fast Company as one of the world’s top 10 creative people in business, recognised as a top 5 coach in Forbes and recognised again (for 8 years) in the top 30 business Thinkers50 annual rankings.

What value am I creating for someone else?

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By Dave Ulrich.

 

Value is defined by the receiver more than the giver. This simple principle affects professional and personal relationships and impact.

In professional settings, we often judge ourselves by our intent, but others judge us by our behavior. We intend to be provocative, but we come across as snarky. We intend to challenge, but we come across as contrarian. We intend to be playful or funny, but we may come across as cynical or cryptic. We need to have our “head on a swivel” and think about how our actions and behaviors will create value for someone else. It is like being on a balcony watching our life’s performance.

When we focus on value we create for others, traditional management maxims change. Building on our strengths is not complete unless we build on our strengths that will strengthen others. Leadership authenticity (a highly desired leadership trait) is merely narcissism unless our authenticity helps someone else meet their goals. Some leaders brag about how wealthy they are, but real leaders create wealth for others. When the inevitable crisis occurs, value-based, other-centered leaders start with the impact of the crisis on others and how their response will benefit others; self-oriented leaders start by thinking about themselves and what they can and should do. Leaders with a value focus reflect on whom they serve each day and how their work will make others’ work better.

The sample principle applies in many settings. Good teaching is not what I know, but how what I know helps students better accomplish their goals. Professional training and development is more effective when we focus on learning solutions by helping those who attend better solve their problems rather than giving a stirring lecture or presenting an insightful case. Often training faculty are exceptional performers who present the same material as a lecture or case study over and over again. When focused on value creating, training starts with the challenges participants may have, then seeks solutions to those challenges. When I coach leaders, I teach them that listening is not that they understand, but that the other person feels understood. When I work to upgrade a company’s HR practices, we start with the value these practices will have to company success. HR analytics starts with the business and shows how HR work will show up on the business scorecard, not an HR scorecard. When we work on culture change, we start by defining culture through the eyes of the customer (or other key external stakeholder) and define the value of the values. When I write, I often think about the reader and how the ideas might provide insights with impact to them.

In personal relationships, when I start by thinking about what someone else values, I better relate to and serve them. When I start with what is meaningful to my wife, my gifts add more value to her. When I listen to my friends and children, I show that I care for them and their well being more than for my actions. When I celebrate others’ accomplishments, my success is magnified. Good parenting is not about what parents know and do, but about how parents help children discover their strengths and purposes. When someone might do something that frustrates me, I can pause and see how their behaviors may make sense from their point of view. This “seek first to understand” mantra helps build enduring relationship built on mutual respect.

 

Employee Engagement Gap

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Dr. Caren ScheepersEmployee Engagement

“Imagine a time when you were highly absorbed and engaged at work. What were the circumstances that caused this attentiveness and engagement? What did you feel at the time, what did you see, what did you hear and what did you smell? Make that experience vivid in your mind. Let your body actually experience the feeling now.” This is an exercise that I regularly start off with when I facilitate workshops on the topic “Employee Engagement”. As you read this article you are welcome to participate. You can even partake in the next exercise, by asking a colleague to work with you.

“Now choose a partner to work with and show your partner how you literally step into those circumstances and personal experience. What your partner then needs to do is to notice attentively what you look like, sound like, your body posture and your facial expression. The next step is to mimic it so that you can see clearly how your posture for instance changes when you are truly engaged or in the zone”. You have to take turns in this exercise, obviously. It has an added benefit of practice how to “tune in” to where other people are at by mimicking their non-verbal behaviour. Consequently, it allows us to become aware of how others feel and as a result build rapport with them. The question to discuss then is, “When last have you felt this invigorated at work?” and a follow up question, “How big is the gap between what you experience when you are fully engaged and your current work circumstances?”

Having observed numerous of these exercises, I realised that it is clear when employees are engaged and that it is actually quite contagious. Other observations were that the more upright body postures generally brought positive energy into the room and lasted long after the exercise. Neuropsychology explains this phenomenon by biochemical neurotransmitters in our brains that are activated by the imaginary incident, which also explains why we would feel fearful of circumstances that have not yet taken place (Scheepers & Jooste, 2012).

Tuning into our own awareness of being engaged or withdrawn as well as to others’ experiences, teaches us intuitively what engagement is about. Employee engagement is topical currently and mostly practitioners have been writing about this phenomenon. Lately, it luckily also grabbed the interest of academia that quite frankly wanted to find out whether employee engagement was only the latest “fad of the month”. Empirical studies followed that were published in top tier journals. For instance, the seminal work of Saks (2006) on the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement has academic rigour and provides scientific evidence for what we regularly experience intuitively in our daily work lives.

Nonetheless, mainly two exponents provided the theoretical foundation for employee engagement. Kahn (1990, p.694) defined it as ”employing themselves physically, cognitively, and emotionally…in varying degrees.” In turn, Maslach (2001) who conducted more than 30 years of research, contrasted engagement with burnout, another phenomenon that we often come across in our highly stressful modern work environments. Her research revealed that burnout was the opposite of being engaged and the face validity of her study is high when we consider that vigour and dedication constitute engagement, whereas exhaustion, cynicism and withdrawal illustrate the opposite. Later research of Schaufeli et al (2002) confirmed Maslach’s notion of engagement and burnout being antipodes.

You might ask whether engagement is similar to commitment. Robinson et al (2004) pointed out in this regard, that engagement is more than commitment and more than an attitude. It is rather the degree to which an employee is attentive and absorbed in their work. Saks’ (2006) research provided evidence that commitment is actually a consequence of engagement. Furthermore, we can differentiate between job and organisational engagement. As a result, this article will focus on these two aspects.

a)         Job engagement 

Some people are highly engaged with their organisations, whereas others are actually engaged with their discipline or type of work and do not care where they conduct this job. These employees find meaning in the content of their work. Interestingly, job engagement increases when people have more contact with the beneficiaries of their work (Grant, 2012). Consequently, organisations must make a concerted effort to get back-office employees in contact with external or internal customers who are impacted by the quality of their work or lack thereof.

For the last 7 years, I have been lecturing on the GIBS MBA Module: Organisational Development and Transformation and I regularly asked these students whether they experience quality of work life. Sadly, over the years few of the MBA’s could declare that they were experiencing quality of work life. We often discussed Hackman and Oldham’s (1980) recommendations of bringing more of themselves into their work or being more engaged by: ensuring jobs are challenging, having variety, conducting significant tasks, allowing for personal discretion and making an important contribution. These students reported that getting feedback on their performance also increased meaningfulness of their jobs.

An interesting theory that could be associated with job engagement is the Social Exchange Theory or (SET) that implies that employees, who are provided with challenging and enriched jobs, feel obliged to reciprocate by responding with higher levels of engagement (Saks, 2006). On the other hand, when employees do not feel supported by colleagues or they do not get appropriate recognition and rewards, it leads to the burnout syndrome (Maslach et al, 2001). Kahn’s (1990) research revealed that our careers could constitute a series of leaps of engagement and falls of disengagement as well as that the person-role dynamics are complex.

b)         Organisational engagement 

Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) found that engaged employees have a greater attachment to their organisation. As a result, they have a lower intention to quit. Furthermore, they are involved in extra-role behaviour or being good organisational citizens and contribute to the greater organisation and not only to their own department or division.

I found it disappointing that in contrast, numerous executives on Senior Management Programmes found it difficult to articulate the social value that their organisations were creating and rather focused on financial results, whereas without financial results the organisation would anyway not be able to sustain itself. Nonetheless, through firstly meeting human needs by producing products or delivering services, organisations are able to declare financial returns and sustain the business. To the contrary, luckily organisations in South Africa like Nedbank, Woolworths, Nampak and FNB utilize corporate social responsibility projects as team building exercises and to build pride in their organisation’s contribution to society and subsequently organisational engagement.

Perceived procedural justice or fairness with regards to distribution of resources also influences organisational engagement (Rhoades et al, 2001). Conversely, a lack of fairness can exacerbate burnout (Maslach et al, 2001). Another dimension to consider is the Psychological Contract (Rousseau, 2004) with the resultant two-way relationship where employees receive economic and socio-emotional resources from the organisation and they respond in kind and repay the organisation by being psychologically present or engaged. We found in a specific study around this psychological contract that the human resources practice that had the most important relationship with the relational contract was training and development (Scheepers & Shuping, 2011). Consequently, investing in employees’ development would result in them perceiving that they are important to the organisation and they would reciprocate with loyalty to the organisation.

In closing, it is important to note that in the USA the engagement gap or lost of productivity cost due to employees being disengaged is estimated at $300 billion per annum (Kowalski, 2003). We do not have South African statistics to report however, the engagement gap remains an important phenomenon to investigate and I invite more researchers to conduct qualitative and quantitative studies to provide scientific evidence of the antecedents and consequences of employee engagement.

Follow Dave Ulrich on twitter: @dave_ulrich

References: 

  • Grant, A. M. (2012). Leading with meaning: Beneficiary contact, prosocial impact, and the performance effects of transformational leadership, Academy of Management Journal, 55 (2), 458-476.
  • Hackman, J. R. & Oldham, G. R. (1980). Work Redesign, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.
  • Kahn, W. A. (1990). Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work, Academy of Management Journal, 33 (4), 692-724.
  • Kowalski, B. (2003). The Engagement Gap, Training, 40 (4), 62, as cited in Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21 (7), 600-619.
  • Maslach,C., Schaufelli, W. B. & Leiter, M. P. (2001). Job Burnout. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 397-422.
  • Rhoades, L., Eisenberger, R. & Armeli, S. (2001). Affective commitment to the organisation: the contribution of perceived organisational support, Journal of Applied Psychology, 86, 825-836.
  • Rousseau, D. M. (2004). Psychological contracts in the workplace: Understanding the ties that motivate, Academy of Management Executive, 18(1), 120-127.
  • Saks, A. M. (2006). Antecedents and consequences of employee engagement. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 21 (7), 600-619.
  • Schaufeli, W. B., Salanova, M., Gonzalez-Roma, V. & Bakker, A.B. (2002). The measurement of engagement and burnout: a two sample confirmatory factor analysis approach, Journal of Happiness Studies, 3 (3), 71-92.
  • Schaufeli, W. B & Baker, A. B. (2004). Job demands, job resources, and their relationship with burnout and engagement: a multi-sample study, Journal of Organisational Behaviour, 25, 293-315.
  • Scheepers, C. B. & Jooste, M. (2012). Neuroleadership informs internal business coaches on change, COMENSANews, Nov 30.
  • Scheepers, C. B. & Shuping, J. G. (2011). The effect of human resource practices on the psychological contract at an iron ore mining company in South Africa. South Africa Journal of Human Resources Management, 9(1), 1-19.

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.

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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.

Q & A with Professor Dave Ulrich

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January 2014

Nicola Tyler, CEO of Business Results Group, asks Dave Ulrich why HR transformation must become a C Suite priority for business leadership, why Gen X challenges must be taken seriously and his thoughts on Ricardo Semler’s business model previously presented at the Progress Conference in 2013.

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NT: Typically HR have sat outside of the C Suite. In your opinion why has this become a priority for change?

DU: Organizations win by creating a competitive advantage which is doing something unique that competitors can not easily copy and that customers value.  Traditional sources of uniqueness have been about cost (which leads to lower price), strategy (which leads to desired products and services), or technology (which leads to efficiency).  Today most competitors can copy product, product, and technology.  Competitiveness is not strategy statements, but the ability to deliver on the strategy.  The emerging competitive advantage comes from talent, culture, and leadership which allow an organization to have lower pricBes, better products, and improved processes.  HR professionals join the c-suite by bringing unique insights about talent, leadership, and culture that help organizations win.

NT: There has been a see-saw reaction to Generation X challenges. These waiver between reasonably wide acknowledgement that their expectations are a reality and denial which dismisses the change required to meet their demands. Why should companies rise up to the challenges of Gen X?

DU: There are two sides of the Gen X issue:  why people work and how they go about working.  On the “why” question, Gen X is much like other generations.  People want to do work that has meaning and impact.  Leaders can relate to Gen X employees by appreciating the next generation’s desire to find meaning from work.  On the “how” work is done question, Gen X employees are radically different.  They use technology, have shorter time frames, care about life before work, and value relationships.  Leaders who are sensitive to these “how” questions will help create more productive employees in all demographic groups.

NT: Recently we hosted Ricardo Semler at our 2nd Annual Progress Conference on Happiness@Work. A maverick in the true sense of the word. At the conference he spoke of his workplace democracy success which includes a large scale business with no HR department. Why do you think the SEMCO “HR” model is so effective?

DU: The reason the SEMCO model works is probably because at SEMCO HR is everyone’s business.

I have been advocating for some time now that the responsibility of talent management is not an HR responsibility but rather a line manager responsibility. People don’t leave organisations. They leave bosses.

In our WHY OF WORK studies we corroborate the importance of people’s personalised contributions. Too often employees feel emotionally disconnected from the work they do; their work may capture their talents and time, but not their heart and soul. At SEMCO, time is the least of their priorities and they have structured their organisation into small business units. This was predicated upon Ricardo’s belief that in large organisational units people feel tiny, nameless and incapable of exerting influence on the way work is done and their contribution to the outcome. We elaborate in Why of Work how great leaders personalise work conditions so that employees know how their work contributes to outcomes that matter to them. SEMCO get this and have done so for decades.

To start out, at SEMCO, they do not refer to workers or employees – they always refer to people. In particular, they make sure the people at SEMCO do the work they love. Ricardo does not believe on sending people on motivation courses; he finds them another job – one which gives them a personal sense of meaning & purpose. The other significant feature at SEMCO is their real understanding of their people’s needs inside and outside of the business.

Firstly, they believe that letting people participate in decisions that affect their lives is important to motivation and morale. He says, ‘There is no contest between the company that buys the grudging compliance of its workforce and the company that enjoys the enterprising participation of its employees.”

Secondly, they understand the needs of their people outside of the organisation. Their needs and desire to create meaning and purpose in their communities, families, church organisations and social groups. To go beyond merely understanding this they have created a work model that allows the people in their organisations to achieve their goals outside of the organisation. Their “retire-a little” programme affords them the opportunity to spend time when they still have the energy and “youthfulness” to enjoy their retirement and do personal stuff that matters. As Ricardo says, “Giving employees even the slightest LEEWAY – with respect to hours or where they work could give them a new life.” So yes, at SEMCO, they buy the hearts and minds of their people and not just their time.

NT: So would you suggest that businesses could do away with their HR department? Or alternatively what is your advice to HR professionals to ensure they survive extinction?

DU: HR does not start with HR issues, but business context. Business contexts requires understanding of the setting in which the business operates (e.g., social, political, and technical trends that shape a business’ opportunity set) and clear expectations of the key stakeholders (e.g., customers, investors, communities).   As HR professionals understand these business context issues, they get invited into the management discussions about strategy.

In the management discussions about strategy, each functional area brings unique insights:  finance brings insights on costs and profits; marketing offers customer insights; IT offers systems and process insights.  HR offers insights on three areas:  talent, culture, and leadership.

In the talent space, HR can ensure that employees are competent, committed, and contributing.  Competence means that employees have the knowledge and skills to do today and tomorrow’s jobs.  Commitment means that employees are willing to work hard and do their best.  Contribution means that employees find meaning from the work that they do.  HR professionals help leaders make informed talent choices so that the organization has the people who can deliver on strategic goals.  Organizations don’t think, people do; and getting the right people to think the right way helps organizations win.

In the culture space, HR professionals create an organization’s way of working and pattern of work that shapes how people think.   Organization’s don’t think, but they shape how people both inside and outside think and act. Collective work in teams and organizations outperforms individual work and talent.  HR professionals help define the culture in ways that deliver value to external customers and investors and then embed that culture among employees and throughout the organization’s systems.   HR professionals are organization architects who shape a culture.

In the leadership space, HR professionals ensure that leadership is a shared, not individual responsibility.  Individual leaders with charisma and charm are important, but collective leadership throughout an organization ensures that correct actions occur over time.   HR professionals help create a leadership brand where leaders action and behaviours make customer expectations real.

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. For further information visit www.theprogressconference.com.

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.