Abstract
Dave Ulrich, Jon Younger, Wayne Brockbank and Mike Ulrich, HR from the Outside In: Six Competencies for the Future of Human Resources. McGraw-Hill. 2012, 272 pp., Price: $19.33 (Hardcover). ISBN: 978-0071802666
Acclaim for the Book
‘This book is a crucial blueprint of what it takes to succeed. A must have for every HR professional.’ (Lynda Gratton, professor, London Business School)
What are the details of the Book?
If you want to acquire authentic knowledge about human resource (HR), read this book. If you want to acquire updated tools and techniques on HR and leadership, read this book. If you want to grow as an effective and everlasting leader, read this book. Dave Ulrich, Jon Younger, Wayne Brockbank and Mike Ulrich’s authored book HR from the Outside In: Six Competencies for the Future of Human Resources is divided into 11 chapters with appendix A, B, C and notes and index.
What is Inside?
Chapter 1 offers the context for HR. The authors define the history of HR work in waves and describe the next wave with the term ‘outside-in HR’. They propose that as HR professionals and departments recognize and respond to external trends and subsequent paradoxes, they will create value by connecting internal actions with outside expectations. Chapter 2 traces the evolution of the concept of competencies for HR professionals based on the authors’ 25 years of research. The chapter shares the methodology that distinguishes their research from other approaches by identifying the competencies that HR professionals need to have to influence their perceived performance effectiveness and the success of their businesses. Chapters 3 through 8 offer specific insights into the six domains of HR competency that currently define HR professional effectiveness and help them drive business success. For each of the six competency domains, the authors review their research findings and report case studies of those who currently demonstrate these competencies and offer tools to assess and improve each competency.
Chapter 3 reports on being a strategic positioner, the competency domain that describes how effective HR professionals turn insight on external demands and expectations into innovative and aligned HR practices that drive organizational capability development. Chapter 4 reviews the credible activist who builds trust with people through business results and strong, supportive relationships. Chapter 5 discusses the role of the capability builder, who defines, audits and invests in the organization’s capacity to do what it needs to do in its current environment. Chapter 6 covers the tools for initiating and sustaining change as a change champion. Chapter 7 lays out ways that the effective HR innovator and integrator converts HR initiatives into impactful, aligned and sustainable processes. Chapter 8 examines the competency of technology proponent, a new insight focusing on how strong HR professionals use information and new ways of compiling it to address both administrative and strategic requirements.
In Chapter 9, authors discuss ways to become a more effective HR professional and to support the development of HR professionalism, based on working with hundreds of organizations and thousands of HR professionals. Chapter 10 reports their findings on creating and managing an effective HR department. These findings highlight where HR leaders should focus their scarce resources and attention to make sure that their HR department delivers business value. Finally, in Chapter 11, they offer an overview of the implications of their findings for the HR field in both present and future.
The authors outline six core competencies that have been extrapolated from the research:
Strategic positioner: HR professionals must develop the skills to influence strategy formulation and position the organization for the ongoing success. Capability builder: HR professionals must be able to identify and build organizational capabilities. Innovator and integrator: HR professionals should innovate and integrate systems that align talent, leadership and organization practices to the goals of the organization. Technology proponent: Advice on how to use technology to connect talented employees and smooth out HR processes. Change champion: The authors give counsel on how to initiate and sustain change. Credible activist: HR professionals should continue to build personal credibility and points of view about the organizations for which they work.
The authors outline that the best HR academies have the following qualities:
Participants work on problems that the business considers as important and not HR projects. Participants work in teams. Team members keep one another engaged, and when they are brought together across functional areas or business units, they see the bigger picture or the organization. Programme administrators encourage line management participation. Executive participation provides a reinforcement of the importance of HR along with some perspective on what executives are thinking about and how they read the environment, assess the organization and define goals. Programme administrators also encourage customer and investor or analyst participation. There is a power in asking the key stakeholder to identify ways for the organization to improve the strength and competence of its human capital.
The book explains aggregate feedback, which is a lens through which leaders identify team or organizational competencies, strengths and weaknesses. This kind of feedback can become a source of organizational knowledge and a driver for team improvement in several ways:
Bring the team together to identify ‘early win’ opportunities for improvement. Direct individuals to identify actions that would benefit the overall team. Bring in a colleague from another area to a project on full-time basis to act as a guide or team leader for making change; for a technology proponent, a young IT high-potential colleague might provide useful perspective on how to improve HR technology proficiency and application. Use after-action reviews to assess the effectiveness of the organization’s approach to technology changes and developments in the past. Consider acquiring a young mentor from inside the organization to help you gain insight into how to use technology to go beyond automating transactional HR work and connect to people and information in new ways that have opened up. Adopt 720º feedback. Useful as 360º feedback is, we now encourage HR leaders to begin to look for feedback from the outside in. Many HR leaders are engaging customers, suppliers and partner organizations in indemnifying needs for development and improvement in HR.
Authors outline a few signs as to where HR is headed:
A larger role for HR. Greater integration with other functions. Shift in administrative responsibility. Global innovation. More impact of technology. A different organizational and demographic mix (more women in senior roles; managing the diversity gap will be a challenging journey; and greater appreciation for the business within HR and in the business for HR). Higher expectations and rewards. Roles and structures will continue to evolve.
The authors conclude the book with a message that they are highly optimistic about the future of HR. By their count, there are almost one million HR professionals around the world. A growing number of graduate programmes focus on HR. There is an increasingly attractive concentration for HR-MBA programmes, and we see how Google, Zappo, Baidu and other organizations are redefining and reinventing HR in exciting ways. In their programmes at RBL—with clients in more than 50 countries—and in their work with HR executives at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, they are inclined to believe that the golden age of HR is still climbing towards its zenith.
HR Takeaways
A successful self-improvement plan has five elements: recognition of the need for change; a specific goal, time frame and plan of action for change; support before, during and after taking action; rigorous monitoring of progress; and help from a spotter or an admired individual who reinforces and supports change motivation and commitment.
Effective strategies focus attention on these sources of competitive uniqueness, as well as on any others that may be identified. Once strategic choices are made, plans can become more specific about actions, talent and budgets. Through strategic choices, leaders invest time and money that make it possible to differentiate their company from competitors in the minds of the targeted stakeholders.
The basic criteria for performance management are accountability (tie individual and team behaviour to clear goals), transparency (financial and nonfinancial rewards for contributions that are understood and made public), completeness (performance management practices cover the full range of behaviours and goals required for overall business success) and equity (reward levels should match with contribution levels).
HR is not about an isolated activity (training, communication, staffing or compensation programme) but about processes that generate sustainable and integrated solutions.
Earning trust through results has three elements: set clear expectations; meet commitments; and display integrity. Earning trust through results means ‘doing the right thing in the right way at the right time with the right people’. However, probed deeper, integrity–ethics becomes a critical dimension.
A leadership brand has two key elements. The first is leadership competence in the fundamentals of being in change—what we called the ‘leadership code’. The second consists of the differentiators—the things that make a leader reflect and exemplify the character of a specific firm.
Very often, HR professionals have been seen as the cobbler’s barefoot children, showing no signs of benefiting from the work practices they recommend and thus providing little incentives for other groups to try them.
Many line managers tell, ‘I like my HR person, but I don’t like HR’. This is because the HR department has more potential for business impact than any individual HR professional.
What is the Recommendation?
This book outlines the importance of HR and how it adds value to organizations. It is a trendsetter in HR. HR leaders are often treated as kingmakers, not kings. However, this book elevates the roles of HR leaders to real kings and queens. The authors are experts in leadership and authorities in HR. The book contains case studies, examples and illustrations. It shares striking stories that arouse interest to read until the end. The ideas and insights in this book are well punched; it hits the bull’s eye. This is a well-researched book authored with many years of experience in HR. Hence, the readers can expect the best out it. This is a highly inspiring book with HR nuggets. It is a bible on HR. A must read for all HR scholars, practitioners and professionals to hone their art and craft. Strongly recommended for reading!
A must read for any HR executive. This research-based competency model is particularly compelling because it is informed by the perspective of non-HR executives and stakeholders. (Sue Meisinger, distinguished speaker and author, former CEO of SHRM)