Viewpoint

HR and the Execution Imperative

"I am convinced that nothing we do is more important than hiring and developing people. At the end of the day you bet on people, not strategies."

Larry Bossidy, Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

In theory, business is simple. You have an idea, create a strategy to exploit the idea, execute the strategy, and then get results. Many things, of course, can go wrong in this process: the idea might not have a large enough market, the strategy could be wrong, and the execution of the strategy could be highly flawed. Most expert opinion on underperformance these days points not to bad ideas or faulty strategies but to the dismal execution of strategies.

HR, of course, is critical to the execution of strategy because execution is what the majority of people in the organisation should be working on. But are they? It often surprises me how many people in business organisations have no idea what their company's strategy is, and this includes many middle managers It's true that some companies don't seem to have a strategy. Other companies appear to want to keep their strategy a secret from their employees. In many others, ignorance of the strategy is often a result of extremely bad communication. But if many people don't know what the strategy is, what are they working so furiously on, and to what end? No wonder bad execution is cited so often.

HR needs to do at least three things to help remedy the situation:

1. Energetically seek to fulfill its crucial role as a strategic business partner. HR's strategy must be in total alignment with the overall strategic objectives of the business. To do this effectively, HR must be a participant throughout the strategy formulation process. Adding on a HR strategy after the fact is sub-optimal. It is like designing a car and then thinking about the people who will be driving the vehicle. The car might look very impressive (as do many strategies), but be totally un-drivable by the average motorist.
2. During the strategy formulation process, HR must help other managers focus on not just the grand ideas, but also on the company's execution capability - now and in the medium and long-term. Do the execution capabilities currently exist in the business? If not, how will they be acquired? It is too easy for many executives to lose themselves in the intellectual stimulation of strategy design and neglect implementation. To a large degree, the execution capabilities of a company will be people-based aided by various technologies. HR - through employer branding - must attract not just the smartest people in the global talent pool, but those who are results- and not just activity-driven. So-called smart people don't always make the best executors.
3. Work to ensure that the key elements of the strategy are communicated down the organisation. HR is in a great position to facilitate the cascading of the strategy through the ranks.

To strengthen execution capabilities in a business, HR needs to promote, develop, and reinforce key competency clusters among managers. What are they?

Shifts in business strategy will typically necessitate change in an organisation. Successful change initiatives require dynamic, hands-on leaders at all levels of a business who are able to collaborate well in face-to-face and virtual teams. The context in which these leaders drive to execute strategies is increasingly diverse. Never before in the history of the human race have so many culturally-diverse people come into contact with one another. And cultural difference is, of course, just one dimension of human diversity.

From this perspective, there are four key competency clusters:

• Change: Being highly responsive to strategy shifts by creating and implementing relevant change initiatives faster and more effectively.
• Leadership: Taking responsibility - with or without a position of authority - for influencing, enabling, and motivating others to contribute fully their energy, knowledge, and skills to achieving a defined purpose.
• Teamwork: Leveraging the collective intelligence of people across the business.
• Diversity: Utilising the talents of every individual to create opportunities and value. In a world where sources of competitive advantage can often be replicated and improved upon very quickly, talent is the resource that can continue to make the difference.

Combined with technical know-how and organisational savvy, these four competency clusters enable managers to do what most urgently needs to be done: execute business strategies to generate outstanding results.

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