The New Human Capital Strategy: Improving the Value of Your Most Important Investment--Year After Year

by Bradley W. HALL

Overview

A roadmap for delivering measurable business results by systematically improving the performance of those in roles most important to customers and shareholders.

It is often said that the only true source of sustained competitive advantage is people. But what does that mean and how can this be measured and managed? How many organizations know whether their human capital outperforms their competitors, or even whether it improves year-over-year? And what is the strategy for continually improving that performance?

Proposing a radical shift in the way organizations measure and manage their people, The New Human Capital Strategy asserts that competitive advantage is a function of four areas of strength:

• effective executive teams
• leaders who deliver results
• outperforming competitors in key positions
• workforce performance

Using examples, research, and metrics, this essential guide provides you with a system for ensuring that your people are more valuable this year than the last.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814420034
Publisher:	AMACOM
Publication date:	01/09/2008
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Bradley W. Hall, Ph.D. (Brookfield, CT) has been a senior HR executive for several top companies, including ABN AMRO Bank in Amsterdam, IBM, and AT&T Global Services. He is now head of the consulting firm Hall & Company, Inc. and teaches in Duke University's corporate education program.

Table of Contents

Contents

Foreword by Clayton M. Christensen ix

Introduction: A Systematic Approach to Growing

Your Human Capital 1

Time for a New Approach 3

Today’s Approach to Human Capital Management 6

Shifting to a New Approach 8

Why This Book Was Written 11

PART 1: DESIGNING THE BLUEPRINT

Chapter 1: A New Source of Competitive Advantage 17

Maintaining Competitive Advantage 18

Competing on Human Capital: What’s It Worth? 20

The Need for a New Paradigm 23

Human Capital Management 24

Executing the Human Capital Strategy 31

The Outcomes of HCS 36

Conclusion 37

Chapter 2: The New Human Capital Strategy 39

The Current State of HR Strategies 40

Building a Human Capital Blueprint 44

The Human Capital Theory 47

The Human Capital Vision 49

Setting the Human Capital Vision 50

Strategic Human Capital Components 51

Plans That Deliver Business Results 55

Determining the Optimal Blueprint for

Your Organization 59

Conclusion 63

Chapter 3: Creating Capabilities to Execute the Blueprint 65

Today’s Human Resources Function 67

Today’s Performance Gap 70

Aligning the HR Structure 76

Fixing HR Systems 85

Shifting Values from the Internal to the External 89

Using HR Skills to Provide Change Leadership 94

Conclusion 99

PART 2: BUILDING THE SYSTEM

Chapter 4: Effective Executive Teams 105

Why Are Executive Teams Important? 107

Building the Executive Team 107

Executive Team Design 108

Improving Executive Team Performance: A Roadmap 119

Conclusion 127

Chapter 5: Leaders Who Deliver Results 128

Leadership Development: The Current State 130

Building Leadership Excellence: A Roadmap 136

Conclusion 157

Chapter 6: Key Position Excellence 160

Key Position Performance: The Current State 162

Key Position Excellence: The Roadmap 172

Conclusion 187

Chapter 7: Improving Workforce Performance 189

Performance Improvement: The Current State 192

Building a High-Performance Organization:

The Roadmap 200

Conclusion 215

Chapter 8: Putting It All Together 219

Step 1: Create Capabilities to Drive Change 220

Step 2: Define Success 226

Step 3: Create an Integrated Improvement Process 229

Conclusion 235

Index 237

Editorial Reviews

..". provides a well-researched, pragmatic approach to developing human talent with a business setting...Recommended." -- Choice magazine

"The statement 'People are our greatest source of competitive advantage' is hackneyed at best, but still it is true. Author Bradley Hall thinks the main problem is that the leadership in companies doesn't know if their employees are 'better'

than their competitor peers and whether they continue to improve annually. He proposes a radical new way of identifying and measuring precisely which activities are most and least responsible for sustained growth, and determining, much the way financial analysis does, which human capital investments will pay dividends over and over. The book maps out a way for HR departments to deliver true business results, and tie human capital initiatives directly and consistently to bottom-line results...The book enables both general managers and HR professionals to create a blueprint of human capital success and a strategy and system for achieving it. In so doing, it calls for 'blowing up' today's HR paradigm and questions many of its assumptions."

IHRIM JOURNAL MAGAZINE

.".. provides a well-researched, pragmatic approach to developing human talent with a business setting...Recommended." -- Choice magazine

From the Publisher