The HR Value Proposition, by Dave ULRICH and Wayne BROCKBANK

This book is a recommendation from Bryan JACKSON, who told me it is one of his favorite. Bryan is a senior HR professional based in Indiana and the cofounder of a web agency called East44 (www.east44.com). You can find more about Bryan on bjackson.east44.com/about-2/

In this book, HR superstar Dave ULRICH and his associate Wayne BROCKBANK tell us how to build an HR strategy aimed at creating real value for the complete range of an organization’s stakeholders: internal and external.

Broadening the impact of HR

While a traditional approach to human resources would focus on what HR can bring to employees and line managers, the first think the authors do here is to broaden the scope. They invite HR pros to scan external business realities like technology, economic and regulatory issues, demographics and globalization and they tell us how HR should play an active role in relation to:

• Investors. An organization’s market value is the addition of tangibles and intangibles. Intangibles are qualitative, immaterial characteristics of a firm that have a positive influence on its stock value: quality of top management, ability to change quickly, customer orientation, internal collaboration are only a few examples. HR professionals should be investor-literate and understand how to reinforce this type of capabilities.

• Customers. We HR pros should understand what is valuable to our organization’s most important external clients. We should put ourselves in the customer’s shoes and ask what kind of an impact our decisions can have on their experience. When hiring new employees or designing a performance system, for example, we should keep the customer’s in mind.

• Line managers. Their role is to implement the firm’s strategy and to achieve its goals. How do we contribute? By building trust with these managers and by helping our organization acquire or develop relevant capabilities, like talent, a shared mindset, accountability, innovation, customer connection, etc.

• Employees. Employees will bring value if they think they will get value in return. We should build an Employee Value Proposition that specifies what they will get from the firm. We should also ensure employees have the relevant abilities to implement the organization’s strategy.

How to adapt HR strategies, processes, organization and competencies to this new perspective?

To build an HR strategy that adds value, we should first analyze the impact that global external trends have on our business and reach good internal business literacy, with a perfect understanding of the organization’s strategy. Then we should focus on culture: which traits of our organization (its capabilities) and our people (their abilities) do best fit the strategy? Now, which HR practices will contribute to developing these traits? And what HR competencies do we need to have to implement these practices?

Dave ULRICH has famously analyzed the different roles of HR managers:

• Employee advocate
• Human capital developer
• Strategic partner
• Functional expert
• HR leader

In this book, he explains how each of these roles adds value to stakeholders.

ULRICH, BROCKBANK and others also conducted a vast study about HR competencies. In the book, they show which competencies add more value.

How is this book useful to HR practitioners?

As an HR pro, you want to read this book if:

• You need to define your department’s strategy and organization;
• You want to gain credibility and impact among the top leadership team;
• You want yourself and your HR colleagues to develop the right competencies to add maximum value to the organization.

This very serious and visionary book provides the theoretical insight and some useful practical tools to reach these objectives.

References

• The HR Value Proposition
• By Dave ULRICH and Wayne BROCKBANK
• Harvard Business Press
• 281 pages
• Available on Amazon.com:

"Leadership - Enhancing the Lessons of Experience" by Hugues, Ginnett and Curphy

Joseph FLERON, owner of Dimension Consultance, is a top-level speaker, coach and consultant focusing on personal development, leadership, and team dynamics. Joseph recommended me this book, describing it as “rather academic, very serious but offering a really good synthesis on the theme of leadership”.

Indeed, this 700-page manual was created for an audience of university students. Nevertheless, I find it extremely useful for any leadership practitioner, because it offers a perspective on leadership that is wide, practical and rigorously scientific at the same time. 

A wide perspective on leadership

Hugues, Ginnett and Curphy define leadership as “the process of influencing an organized group toward accomplishing its goals”. This process involves an interaction between:

•   the leader,
•   the followers and
•   the situation.

The book addresses these three dimensions in very much detail. Here are some of the many subjects developed in this manual:

• Leadership versus Management
• The role of education and experience in leadership development
• Assessing leadership
• Influence tactics
• Leadership and values
• Leadership and personality traits
• Leadership and intelligence
• Emotional intelligence
• Follower motivation, satisfaction and performance
• Effective teams
• Contingency theories of leadership such as the Normative Decision Model, the Situational Leadership ® Model, the Contingency Model and the Path-Goal Model
• Different approaches of change management: the rational approach and the theory of transformational and transactional leadership
•  …

Practical advice for leadership practitioners

The manual is packed with real-life leadership stories, covering various sectors such as big corporations, rural communities, SME’s, health care or the military. It is illustrated by many short, inspiring leader profiles.

It also provides recommendations about the following leadership skills:

• Learning from experience
• Communication and Listening
• Assertiveness
• Stress management
• Building technical competence
• Building effective relationships with superiors and with peers
• Building credibility
• Providing constructive feedback
• Punishment
• Delegating
• Team building for work teams
• Development planning
• Coaching
• Empowerment
• Setting goals
• Conducting meetings
• Managing conflict
• Negotiation
• Problem solving
• Improving creativity
• Diagnosing performance problems
• Team building at the top

Hum… it seems to me that I still have a lot of work before mastering just a tiny part of these skills. But reading this advice is a good start!

Scientific Validity

Hugues, Ginnett and Curphy’s views are based on a critical analysis of scientific research about leadership. There are 1.385 end-of-chapter notes, pointing to many more books than I will read in my entire life.

The authors deconstruct some myths about leadership. Each time they explain a leadership theory, they tell us whether it was validated on the ground or in the labs by independent scientific researchers. They show us the usefulness but also the limitations of many popular concepts and tools, such as emotional intelligence or the MBTI.

  

How Is This Book Useful to a Human Resource Practitioner?

We could use the lessons of Hugues, Ginnett and Curphy’s manual when exercising different HR roles:

• As recruiters: to select the best leaders or leaders-to-be
• As Human Capital Developers and Coaches: to help the leaders in our organization develop their skills
• As Strategic Partners: to implement a leadership talent management system in line with the strategy of our organization
• As Change Agents, because the book provides some good advice about change management
• And perhaps even as Employee Advocates, when we need to explain to some leaders the do’s and don’ts of employee motivation.

Because of its focus on scientific validity, HR pros can also use this book to secure their decisions when they need to make a choice about the use of certain HR or leadership tools. For example: would it make sense to use the MBTI in the situation I am facing at the moment?

The book can also be a negotiation resource when you need to convince some partners (your colleagues, your board…) about the usefulness and validity of an HR project you would like to implement. An example might be if you need to convince your board that investing in assessment centers when recruiting leaders will have a positive impact on the bottom line.

References

• Leadership. Enhancing the Lessons of Experience (sixth edition).
• By Richard L. HUGUES, Robert C. GINNETT and Gordon J. CURPHY
• Mc Graw-Hill International Edition
• 704 pages
• Available on Amazon.com

 

“Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy” and “Games People Play” by Eric BERNE

Anne BURNIAUX, HR Consultant and Owner of Sensink, advised me to read “Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy”.

As you may have guessed by reading its title, this book does not exactly focus on management or human resources. And let's admit it: maybe it's not the book you want to read on the beach next summer! Nevertheless, it is so insightful that every manager should read it, even if it requires a certain amount of effort and concentration. 

Eric BERNE, an American psychiatrist (1910-1970), tells us some clinical cases and explains his theory, called structural analysis and transactional analysis.

To state it very simply (my apologies to any rigorous specialist who might read this), BERNE thinks that the way we think and act depends on which “ego state” we find ourselves currently in:

• The Child reproduces emotions and behaviors that we really experienced during our childhood. It makes us act “instinctively” and with charm, be creative, and seek pleasure.
• The Parent focuses on morality, telling us whats is good or wrong like our father and mother did.
• The Adult is rational and exerts social control.

So for example, if you see an enormous cake, your Child might tell you to eat it all, your Parent might make you feel ashamed and your Adult might tell you to eat just one piece so you don't get sick.

BERNE thinks that in our relationships, we spend most of the time using “Pastimes” and playing “Games”. A typical Pastime is talking about the weather: it's a way to avoid entering a meaningful relationship with someone. A Pastime becomes a Game when the transactions cease to be straightforward, when there is dissimulation. A Script is a little bit like a Game, but it is more complex and influences the way we live our life on the long term.

BERNE used to teach these basic concepts to his patients. Using individual interviews but also therapeutic groups, he tried to help their Adult understand their pathology and take control of the situation.

I found it so interesting that I decided to read another famous book by the same author: “Games People Play – The Psychology of Human Relationships”. The two are quite complementary, as the first draws the general theory and the second illustrates it, by offering a thesaurus a common “games”.

BERNE describes various types of games: life games, marital games, party games, sexual games, underworld games, consulting room games and good games.

How Are These Books Useful to an HR Professional?

Such books should definitely be used with caution. Reading a few hundred pages about psychotherapy won't make you a psychiatrist. Mastering transactional analysis theories and techniques requires proper education and experience.

Nevertheless, as an HR professional I am glad to have become familiar with Berne’s concepts, mainly for two reasons:

1. Transactional Analysis is used by many coaches and HR consultants. If I get to work with one of them, I want to know what they are talking about.
2. It provides a conceptual framework that helps me understand some situations. A colleague of mine has been adopting a behavior that made me feel bad and seemed irrational. I have now understood that when she does that, it is her Child that is in control and that she is playing a game. It has helped me handle the situation and avoid being manipulated.

More generally, BERNE provides us a framework to understand human relationships, which are the fundamental elements of our discipline.

References

• Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy
• By Eric BERNE
• Snowball Publishing (or Condor Books)
• 270 pages
• Available on Amazon: Transactional Analysis in Psychotherapy (Condor Books)
  

• Games People Play – The Psychology of Human Relationships
• By Eric BERNE
• Penguin Books
• 173 pages
• Available on Amazon: Games People Play: The Basic Handbook of Transactional Analysis.
  
  

To learn more about Eric BERNE and watch two nice videos in which he talks about games and transactional analysis, you can visit http://www.ericberne.com/

The 4-Hour Workweek, by Timothy FERRIS

François TOMAS, Senior HR Consultant at Hudson, told me this book is useful to HR professionals because it shows us, in a quite radical manner, how the Y generation considers works, life and mobility.

So I bought the book and read, on top of its cover, a quote of Stewart FRIEDMAN, of whom I am a big fan, saying « This is a whole new ball game. Highly recommended ». Like FRIEDMAN's Total Leadership (commented in a previous post), this « 4-Hour Workweek » has the potential to transform the way you manage yourself.

Their style is different, though: while FRIEDMAN is a very wise professional, an accomplished scientist, I would rather call FERRIS a smart guy.

Very smart indeed, as he tells the readers all the tricks he has used to work less (much less), earn more (much more) and live his dreams. How do you make money while sipping a cocktail on a Brazilian beach?

Tim FERRIS calls his field "lifestyle design" and his method “DEAL”, as in:

• Define: identify your ideal lifestyle, your most important dreams, and the revenue you need to generate to accomplish them.

• Eliminate: PARETO's law says that 20% of your efforts yield 80% of your results. So if you are clever enough to identify the right 20%, maybe you can afford working five times less and still keep 80% of your revenue. Virtually eliminating meetings, reducing email processing to a few hours a week, delegating administrative tasks to a cheap Indian virtual assistant are other tricks to save a lot of time.

• Automate: FERRIS shows how to set up a business process that requires a very minimal level of intervention from its owner: set it up, check once a week the indicators and answer a few questions by your subcontractors, then let the money flow.

• Liberate: FERRIS tells you, among many other things, how to have your boss authorize you to work from home, even when, eventually, your home gets to be at the other end of the globe because you have always dreamed of learning tango in Buenos Aires or martial arts in Korea.

How Is This Book Useful to an HR Professional?

I see three ways an HR Manager could use this book:

1. As François told me, it helps you understand some fascinating trends about the Y-generation and the future of work: mobility, independence (even boldness), a sense of meaningful purpose, etc.
   
   
2. You can become a more productive professional by using some of FERRIS' tricks and tools about time management, process-design, or e-marketing. You'll find other tricks useful for your private live, especially those about traveling.
   
   
3. You can take the book on the first degree and really try to design your lifestyle so to work less and live like a millionaire.

Personally, I chose option 1 first and I am currently contemplating options 2 and 3... Don't tell my boss! ;-)

References

• The 4-Hour Workweek (2009 expanded and updated edition)
• By Timothy FERRIS
• Crown Publishers
• 376 pages
• Available on Amazon: The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.
• Tim Ferris also runs the 4-hour blog
  
  

EGOnomics, by David MARCUM and Steven SMITH

This book was recommended to me by Suzanne LUCAS, the great HR blogger also known as The Evil HR Lady. You can follow Suzanne on http://evilhrlady.blogspot.com/


The Power, and Danger, of Ego

For MARCUM and SMITH, ego affects the bottom line of any organization, because it is both an asset and a liability: it gives us confidence to use our strengths, but also turns them into weaknesses.

Four early warning signs help us notice when ego starts to have a negative impact:

1. Being comparative: when we can't stop comparing ourselves to competitors, giving up our potential in the name of becoming better than someone else.
   
2. Being defensive: when, instead of openly debating to cover every angle of a debate before we make a decision, we defend our positions as if we're defending who we are.
   
3. Showcasing brilliance: when we try to make our talent the center of attention, instead of using collective intelligence, which is much more powerful.
   
4. Seeking acceptance: when we become oversensitive to what people think of us, which keeps us from being true to ourselves.

To keep ego working like an asset rather than a liability, one should follow three basic principles:

1) Humility

Humility makes us see collective interests before our own individual ones: it is 'we, then me'. It makes us aware that nothing is perfect, so there is always one more thing we can do: that state of mind is called constructive discontent and is the key to greatness. It also makes us acknowledge that we can be knowledgeable and at the same time ignorant, strong and weak, capable and incomplete.

Humility can help us manage the level of intensity in a debate: vigorous debates require a heavy investment of humility to keep intensity productive. It keeps vigor from becoming violence, and also keeps us from being lulled into courteous but meaningless exchange.

2) Curiosity

Curiosity can be a state or a trait. The few people blessed with that trait have a rare blend of order and openness. Whatever innovation process we use and no matter what we design, the level of curiosity has a profound impact on the brilliance of the outcome. When trying to innovate or testing an idea, we can ask four questions to spark curiosity:

• What do we mean? (clarity)
• What are we seeing? (context)
• What are we assuming? (assumptions)
• What does that lead to? (consequence)

3) Veracity

Veracity is defined as the habitual pursuit of, and adherence to, truth.

Most people believe truth telling is risky. This is partly due to a common belief that dissent is disloyalty, which makes us close our mind when in fact, more often than not, there's positive intent behind a negative comment.

If we want those "above" us to hear what we have to say, we need to speak with humility. The three steps we should follow are 1) establish permission 2) make our intentions clear and 3) be candid.


How Is This Book Useful to an HR Professional?

I think we can use the insights and tools provided by MARCUM and SMITH for a variety of HR-related purposes, such as:

• Managing change and innovation
• Handling conflicts
• Making meetings and debates more productive
• Managing 'difficult' employees

References

• EGOnomics. What makes ego our greatest asset (or most expensive liability)
• By David Marcum & Steven Smith
• Pocket Books (also published by Fireside)
• 250 pages
• Available on Amazon: egonomics: What Makes Ego Our Greatest Asset (or Most Expensive Liability)
  

The Wall Street Journal Essential Guide to Management, by Alan Murray

This book was recommended to me by Sam Wilkins, Director of South Carolina's Office of Human Resources, an organization that delivers HR expertise to that state's agencies and Assembly.

Here is what Mr Wilkins wrote to me :

"The most recent book I read is 'The Wall Street Journal Essential Guide to Management' by Alan Murray.  While this book targets all managers, I think it is particularly relevant to human resources managers who are helping their agencies find the 'new normal' after the Great Recession."



A short overview of contemporary management thought

Alan Murray, Deputy Managing Editor of The Wall Street Journal, finds himself in contact with a lot of CEOs. He asked them what management books have had the strongest influence on them. Their answers included Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma", Cialdini's "Influence", "Blue Ocean Strategy", by Kim and Mauborgne, "Good to Great" by Collins, "The Black Swan", by Taleb, and many, many others.

Murray's guide offers a short overview of all that management knowledge. It offers simple explanations and useful tips about twelve subjects:

• Management
• Leadership
• Motivation
• People
• Strategy
• Execution
• Teams
• Change
• Financial Literacy
• Going Global
• Ethics
• Managing Yourself

How is it useful to an HR practitioner?

Several of theses subjects, like People, Motivation, or Teams, are directly relevant to HR managers. Others, like Strategy, Financial Literacy, or Going Global, help us developing our general management knowledge and skills.

If you have read this book, please share your comments!

References

• The Wall Street Journal. Essential Guide to Management
• By Alan Murray
• HarperCollins Publishers
• 207 pages
• Available on Amazon: The Wall Street Journal Essential Guide to Management: Lasting Lessons from the Best Leadership Minds of Our Time

"Power", by Jeffrey Pfeffer

I am an INFP. If you are familiar with the Myers Briggs Type Indicator, you may know that this stands for 'idealist'.

So this book was sort of a cure to me, a great lesson of pragmatism.

Some of the advices Pfeffer gives us might seem somewhat cynical. For example:

• As long as you keep your bosses happy, performance doesn't matter that much.
• Established rules play in favor of those who already have the power. If you are in a high position, you should play by the rules and invite others to do so. If you aren't, you best interest might be to break them.
• Likability is overrated.
• The secret of leadership is the ability to play a role, to pretend, to be skilled in the theatrical arts.

I am not a person who likes this kind of ideas, but Pfeffer shows with great talent how true they are.A Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford, Pfeffer knows a lot about how people reach power, or lose it. This book is Machiavelli 2.0.

Building on scientific studies and empirical evidence, he shows that we have no choice but recognizing the necessity of organizational politics and tells us how to act strategically to reach a position of power.

This brilliant book is a must-read if your ambition is to become a CEO... or just to keep your job!

From an HR point of view, this book is also very useful, as it helps us identify the personal characteristics that will allow someone to become a real leader: ambition, energy, focus, self-knowledge, confidence, empathy, capacity to tolerate conflict.

References

• Power
• By Jeffrey Pfeffer (Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford)
• HarperCollins Publishers
• 288 pages
• Available on Amazon: Power: Why Some People Have It and Others Don't