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JWI 522 Strategic Partnering with the C-Suite

Week One Lecture Notes

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A SEAT AT THE TABLE

What It Means If the human resources and talent development functions in organizations are going to live up to their potential, they must become full-fledged members of the C-Suite. To have these roles operating as "order takers" rather than as strategic leaders misses out on the greatest opportunity that companies have to leverage their most valuable asset – their people. But HR must earn its seat at the table. HR leaders need to understand why most companies have not recognized the importance of their role, and then they must take action to correct this mission- critical shortcoming. Why It Matters

• The deep knowledge of talent development principles that HR professionals possess is critical for organizations to reach their true potential.

• No other team is better positioned to build connections across business units and functional teams.

• The CEO and C-Suite need the vision and guidance of a strong CHRO who understands the people forces at work in the organization.

“Elevate HR to a position of power and primacy in the organization, and make sure HR people have the special qualities to help managers

build leaders and careers.”

Jack Welch

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INTRODUCTION Welcome to the course. Over the next 10 weeks, we will explore a variety of topics in Human Resource leadership, with a particular focus on why HR needs to establish a stronger and more effective partnership at the senior- most levels of the organization. We hope that throughout the course, you get a sense of the passion we feel for talent development. This passion is grounded in the conviction that people are the most important part of any organization. We recognize it’s easy to pay lip service to such statements, and you’ll be forgiven if you’ve come to view this as a cliché that sounds good, but doesn’t mean much in the real world. But we take it very seriously. Perhaps, in part, this is because our founder, Jack Welch, takes it so seriously and has proven that a “people first” agenda is the only way to create a sustainable competitive advantage. But our own research on the matter, including the dozens of interviews we have conducted with HR and business leaders around the world, has proven it to be true as well. As we embark on this journey together, let’s lay out a few starting points:

• This is not a course about self-promotion. It’s not a how-to guide on climbing the corporate ladder, or getting a fatter paycheck and a more impressive title. There’s nothing wrong with any of this, of course, and we hope (and expect) that you aspire to grow in your career. We also hope your employer recognizes your increased contribution to the success of the organization with an increased deposit in your bank account. But these are the natural outcomes of doing the right thing, not goals to be pursued for their own sake.

• It is a course about making your organization the place to be, and, for those who leave to pursue opportunities elsewhere, the place to be from. We all want to work in organizations where we are treated fairly, get to collaborate with people who inspire and support us, and are compensated fairly for the value we deliver. A well-run HR team, whose leader has the trust and confidence of the CEO, can be critical in developing a culture grounded in truth and trust.

• Most of us have found our way into this field because we genuinely like helping people grow and find roles that are good matches for their talents and interests. But we also recognize there are difficult personnel decisions that have to be made in every organization. Our goal in this course is to help you assess and apply those decisions in ways that are humane and fair to both employee and employer.

• Finally, we are advocating that HR have a seat at the table because it’s just good business. No other team has as much opportunity to connect across every single function in the organization and help leaders tap the potential of their most important competitive asset – their people.

The good news is that we believe you can accomplish all of the above through elevating the HR function and earning a seat at the table. You can help build a stronger organization that demonstrates the values of putting people first on a daily basis. You can develop a winning team by practicing these principles, and if you always focus on doing the right thing, you can advance your career.

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THE CHALLENGE OF GETTING A SEAT AT THE TABLE

If we are correct in our conviction that talent development is the most important element of any organization, then why is HR so often relegated to a service role rather than as a strategic driver of success? This question is addressed in our readings this week, but some of the biggest reasons include:

• Many leaders don’t fully appreciate that talent development is an expertise in its own right. The best managers have developed a high level of expertise around the products they sell, the demands of their customers, and the competitive forces in the marketplace. This, of course, is exactly what we expect of them. It’s not that they’re not great with people, or aren’t concerned about creating strong, well-connected teams. But they just don’t see HR as being central to what they do in running their businesses.

• HR is viewed as a cost center, not a profit driver. Most HR people are career professionals, and like any professionals, we tend to develop a bit of myopia. We have worked hard to master the tools of our trade in areas like benefits, compliance, onboarding, training, and termination, but we tend to think and speak in certain ways, using the lingo and frameworks we are familiar with. We often simply don’t do a good job of articulating the value of what we do.

• Many HR leaders lack business experience. If we’re being honest, many HR professionals don’t understand the business as well as they should. Most haven’t spent time in the trenches of daily operations, nor are they sufficiently well-versed in how the company actually makes money. Because of this, the initiatives they drive are often seen as time-wasters rather than as strategic drivers of success.

In The Real-Life MBA, Jack and Suzy Welch present their view of the problem:

We understand why HR gets a bad rap. It gets a bad rap because most organizations lump administrative HR and real HR together. That has got to end…. [I]n a perfect world…this part of HR would not be part of HR at all; it would be subsumed or otherwise owned by the finance department. Such an arrangement would liberate HR to do what it is meant to do. In such a construct, HR directly reports to the leader, and is composed of a healthy mix of seasoned HR professionals and savvy, people-oriented managers drawn from all functional areas. HR has to be filled with street cred. Rather than being speed bumps, they’re welcome partners with their front-line managers and peers, using their ability and insight to challenge management to identify star performers in the top 20% and promising ones in the middle 70%, and designing training opportunities and challenging assignments to keep them engaged and growing. They also work with the bottom 10%, easing their transition to other employment; simultaneously making sure the bench is always full, so that any important role can be filled from within the ranks quickly and successfully. In sum, HR has nothing to do with administration. It’s about people, pure and simple – finding, training, motivating, and retaining great talent.

The Real-Life MBA, P.154

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WHAT REALLY MATTERS TO THE C-SUITE In order to earn a seat at the table, HR professionals must understand the role of C-Suite leaders in managing the organization and the metrics that matter most to them. HR leaders must speak the language of the C-Suite and must direct both their communications and their talent management efforts in ways that are squarely aligned to what matters to the CEO. Patty McCord, the former head of HR at Netflix, stresses that this extends to everyone in the organization:

“People need to see the view from the C-Suite in order to feel truly connected to the problem solving that must be done at all levels and on all teams, so the company is spotting issues and opportunities in every corner of the business and effectively acting on them.”

Powerful, P.18

Making a lot of noise about “people first” and the value of talent management, without connecting it to the drivers of the business, is not going to get you very far. The more that HR speaks its own language and concerns itself with its own metrics, the greater the risk that we will be marginalized. In many ways, the communication and alignment challenges for HR are no different than most business functions. Sit in on any cross-departmental meeting, and you’ll hear the engineers say the finance people don’t give them enough funding for R&D, or the sales team blaming marketing for not getting the right messaging out, or the customer service team mumbling that product managers don’t understand what the customer really needs. HR has a unique opportunity to break down these silos – the opportunity to reach out across functions and be a strategic partner that brings teams together around the central focus of building the strongest possible workforce. But we can only do this if we understand what really matters to the CEO.

WHAT MUST HR DO TO DRIVE CHANGE?

Some HR leaders and experts feel that HR cannot drive change ourselves. They argue that change will only occur when CEOs are enlightened and empower HR to make the change. Conaty and Charan address this head-on when they write:

HR function will only be as strong as the CEO wants it to be, and if the CEO doesn’t have high expectations for it, HR will remain second tier. Just as the CFO is the trustee of the financial system, the chief human resources officer is the trustee of the people system.

The Talent Masters, P. 20

There’s no denying the element of truth to this. The CEO must have the vision, but does that mean we should hold back and be wallflowers until we are asked to dance? Our answer is a resounding NO!

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While we agree with Conaty and Charan that an “enlightened” CEO is important in elevating the function of HR, we have to accept responsibility for the roles that we, as HR leaders, must play in changing our own practices and in helping the CEO see the light of what effective enterprise-wide talent development practices can do to take the organization forward. As such, the 10 weeks of our course are organized around concrete actions that HR leaders can take to make a difference and earn that seat at the table. Specifically, we must:

1. Be honest about why HR has not had a seat at the table, and why it should.

2. Align our efforts with the mission and values of the organization.

3. Be seen as true experts in talent management, and be able to speak with data.

4. Maximize the impact of talent management strategies on the success of the business.

5. Develop and manage a long-term people strategy.

6. Improve our relationship with business-unit leaders to create a real partnership.

7. Be trusted advisors to the CEO and other C-Suite members.

8. Be pastors and parents, providing both support and a nudge when needed.

9. Communicate well and demonstrate strong Executive Presence.

10. Never be content with “good enough” but constantly strive to deliver more.

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SUCCEEDING BEYOND THE COURSE Throughout this course, we will explore tools and examples of HR in action – companies that got it right, and companies that got it wrong. As you read and discuss these, you should always be looking for inspiration around you. You never know when you are going to encounter a great idea used by another organization that could apply to your business. And don’t just look to competitors in your space. Look anywhere and everywhere for great ideas. Your most powerful tool in developing a winning people strategy may be the simple question: “What if…?” As you read the materials and participate in class activities, stay focused on the key learning outcomes for the week:

• Explore the challenges that HR leaders face in getting a seat at the table Be honest and be gracious as you dig into the forces that have shaped the role of HR in your organization and in the industry as a whole. It’s easy to blame others for a lack of vision, or to assume that C-Suite leaders don’t care as much as they should about the human element of the organization. Focus your energies first on understanding how we’ve gotten to where we are. Knowing this history is going to be critical to forging a path forward.

• Understand the key metrics that matter most to C-Suite leaders The more you understand what makes the C-Suite tick, the better you’ll be at directing your efforts and messaging on what really matters to the people at the top of the organization. If you focus only on what matters to you and your HR colleagues – even if you’re right – you undermine the likelihood of being heard and achieving your goals. CEOs are busy people. You may not get a second chance to influence the change you seek if you don’t grab their attention, and keep the discussion focused on what they care about most.

• Identify the capabilities that HR leaders must demonstrate to forge strong C-Suite partnerships Be honest about what needs to be done to change the image of HR, and be honest about what you need to change in your own behaviors. Take time every week to reflect on what is being covered in the course, and how this impacts you and could be applied in your workplace to makes things better. You don’t have to agree with everything, of course, but you must be willing to take a look in the mirror and assess whether you need to do more than you’re doing now.