Contemporary organizations are in a state of
continuous unrest. Competitive conditions are no longer the only pressure for
survival or superiority. Disruptive conditions make even the most recent
strategic scripts obsolete. Governments and regulators assume an increasingly
activist role in support of their constituencies or in pursuit of their
mandates. When Chinese manufacturers offer smartphones, telecommunication gear,
bulk drugs, power plants and bullet trains at amazingly lower costs relative to
suppliers in the developed and developing world, competitive conditions turn
into disruptive conditions for such vendors. Within India, low entry barriers
and fragmented industries have been disruptive to orderly development and
growth. Organizations, therefore, are in a state of perpetual unrest as they
retool their available skills and retool with new skills. That, however, is
hardly the answer because the changed competitive conditions tend to become
real and ravaging well ahead of anticipated occurrences, and worse still in a
completely unanticipated manner. Neither subdued organizational fatalism nor
excited organizational unrest is hardly the answer to meet such surprises.
‘Anytime organizational readiness’ as a concept requires the adoption of REST
model as it is the only way for organizations to be in a state of perpetual
readiness.
Automotive analogy
It is well known that the drive train that
comprises the engine and transmission is the key enabler of automotive
efficiency. The nature of the engine, whether it is gasoline or diesel, and the
type of the transmission, whether it is manual or automatic, together determine
the onroad power, torque, performance and economy of the automobile. The
matching of the engine and transmission as an integrated system of drive train
on one hand and the matching of the drive train to the driving conditions on
the other are essential for optimal performance of an automobile in different
countries. The automotive designers, therefore, commit considerable innovation
and effort to optimize the drive train to internal and external conditions.
While there exist several other design factors that impact automotive
performance such as the profile and weight of the automobile, for a given set
of non-drive train factors, it is the efficiency and economy of the drive train
that determines the internal and external performance efficiency and driving compatibility
of an automobile.
This blog post proposes that two essential
components of the human resources function in an organization, namely
recruitment engine and skill transmission constitute the drive train of an
organization and impact the overall performance of an organization in the
competitive traffic of business competition. As with organizational design
there exist several other factors of organization design that impact
organizational performance. These are, for example, the profile and size of the
organization (akin to the profile and size of an automobile). Be that as may,
the way the recruitment engine and skill transmission in an organization are
designed and tuned determines organizational performance, other factors
remaining constant. This blog post proposes an optimized model of Recruitment Engine
and Skill Development, with the acronym of REST that can provide a meaningful
conceptual and analytical framework for driving human resources efficiency and
effectiveness in an organization. The drive train needs to be continuously
optimized as driving conditions and preferences evolve; so does the
organizational drive train need to be continuously optimized as business
conditions and strategies evolve.
Recruitment engine
The automotive engine is characterized by three
fundamental characteristics, the power, torque and specific fuel consumption
(SFC). The power curve provides the ability to accelerate the automobile and
carry the load while the torque curve provides the ability to start the vehicle
with loads and in upward gradients and the SFC curve reflects the ability to
run economically at different power and torque levels. The recruitment engine
in an organization provides a similar function set; an ability to take the
business challenges against adversity (the torque), an ability to cruise
competitively on the business pathway ahead of others (the power) and an
ability to use resources judiciously and economically while meeting the other
two traction needs (the fuel economy).
Just as these three characteristics are integral and integrated part of
an engine design (despite being three separate performance curves), the three
characteristics of resilience, competitiveness and economy must be the
integrated and integral part of recruitment engine design and delivery.
Different engines are designed for different
purposes in classic automotive design. Similarly, different recruitment engines
are required for different business purposes. Startup phase requires high
resilience of the human resource base (high torque talent). The growth phase
requires an ability to accelerate and stay ahead (high power talent). The
maturity phase requires the skill to be cost competitive and achieve long term
sustenance (high economy talent). Firms that desire to stay in the game as long
as possible in the maturity phase or extend the product life cycle through a
fresh startup and growth phase require all the three characteristics in varying
measures. Just as a unitary engine design is today being re-tuned to meet
different characteristics (for example, Tata Revatron engine which is
controlled by microprocessor technology to meet three different driving needs
of city, sport and economy), the organizational recruitment engine must also be
capable being one in constitution but multiple in recruitment characteristics.
This requires extreme sensitivity (akin to microprocessors) on the part of the
recruitment engine to varying internal and external needs.
Skill transmission
The automotive gear box plays an extremely
important role in enabling the basic performance of the engine to be matched
and amplified based on the driving gradients. The gearbox technology has moved
from manual four speed gearboxes to automatic and continuously variable
transmissions capable of matching the engine performance to road requirements
at different engine speeds. In organizational settings too systems of skill
transmission can play a great role in ensuring that the available skills
brought in by the recruitment engine are amplified and conditioned to meet
unanticipated and challenging business requirements. One is habituated to
expect skill transformation to accomplish such arduous transportation on
business highway to future. Skill transmission, however, is an altogether
different concept. It is the ability of the team managers and corporate leaders
ensure that the available skills are matched or enhanced to levels that are
required. Managers and leaders are habituated to assume themselves to be the steering
wheels of an automobile in a classic automobile analogy but they actually need
to play a less visible and more appropriate role of a transmission that is
consistent with their accumulated knowledge, experience and intuition.
Managers would need move from coordinating
and controlling roles to progressive roles that excel in imparting their skills
to reshape or augment their team members’ skills and, in some cases, let their
own skills work directly with their team members’. Leaders would need to
transform themselves from oversight and judgmental roles to judging business
gradients and competitive conditions. Over time, the behaviors of managers and
leaders tend to be predictable, from their periodic exhortations to quarterly
expectations. Over time, in organizations, innovation and creativity of executives tend
to be subservient to the directions and boundaries set by the managers and
leaders. As the competitive intensity increases managers and leaders become
skill demanders rather than skill enhancers. Their expectations lie around
transformation of the skills of their team members (which is a required long
term fix) rather than devising ways by which available skills can be redeployed
to maximal efficacy. Managers and leaders need to recognize that they are an
integrated part of the human resources drive train and the converter between
the raw power, torque and economy of their teams and the rough conditions of
their businesses.
From unrest to REST
Organizations cannot afford to ever rest in
the task of organization building and talent development. New entrants must see
their entry as only the first step to develop skills that are industry-specific
and application oriented. Managers and leaders cannot afford to consider the
journey of competitiveness as a steady state cruise. Disruption, whether by
competition, regulation or globalization, is the order of the day. If unrest in
organizational performance and infrastructure is a way of life, REST as a model
of organizational competencies is the elixir of organizational life. Recruitment
engine in a growth oriented high performance organization never gets switched
off; it remains in perpetual throttle to balance the skills at a basal level
and rev up as required. Skill transmission enjoins the leadership to be in a
continuously variable application mode to deliver maximum value by combining
the executive, managerial and leadership skills that are already resident in
the organization.
Like the best automotive drive train that
remains invisible under the hood but purrs to perfect performance, REST, the
human drive train, is the invisible force that remains in perpetual throttle
with an automatic transmission of combined human capabilities of the
organization to meet variable business requirements. This, however, requires a
major shift in the mindset of managers and leaders (and organizational
expectations) from visible direction-setting and judgmental oversight to invisible
skill amplification and augmentation of their teams and organizations. This
also requires a shift in the mindset of team and organizational members (and
manager, leader expectations) from compliant direction taking and performance
excellence to active knowledge seeking and competitive collaboration with their
managers and leaders.
Posted by Dr CB Rao on September 21, 2014
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