BOOK SUMMARY 328 Fearless HR
·
Summary written by: Justin Gasbarre
“This is a business book about HR, not an HR
book about business.”
- Fearless HR, page 3
Fearless HR by
David Forman is about how HR is a valuable asset to driving business results
within organizations today. The author is a prominent HR educator, mentor,
consultant and author. Drawing from his own experiences, and combined with
today’s leading insights, Fearless HR takes a holistic look at
HR, and its purpose and identity going forward.
In Part one, Forman begins by addressing the common
perceptions of HR departments and HR professionals. He explores at what those
perceptions are and why they exist. He then shares some industry insights and
actionable tools that are helpful in overcoming them.
Part two takes a hard look at the opportunities for HR
today and into the future. Forman specifically addresses four key areas that HR
must excel at to drive business results. He makes the case that it is all about
the HR person being a business leader, not a department head or a passive
participant.
The book is an easy, engaging read from start to finish,
and is a great resource for business leaders to come back to over and over
again.
The Golden Egg
The Shift to Intangible Value
"There is an increasing recognition that the soft
stuff (Intangibles) is actually the hard stuff that creates value."-
Fearless HR, page 19
The first common perception Forman address is the notion
that “HR does not add value to the business.” However, Forman argues that: “the
HR value proposition stems from creating a workplace and workforce that
strengthens business outcomes, enhances productivity and fosters innovation” . Forman cites great work done by the likes of McKinsey, Jim Collins,
Baruch Lev and others in saying that what some might view as the soft,
intangible things that HR is responsible for actually has significant impact on
the value and success of the business as a whole.
Work done by Baruch Lev, who is a professor, researcher
and author, discusses the topic of intangible value—value that cannot
necessarily be seen or touched. “Today, most people would suggest that
intangibles account for 50 to 65% of a company’s market valuation. But focusing
on the percentage differences between the two misses the point; the intangible
number is still very large and it is malleable, controllable and can be
improved” (19). The data is significant, and it shows that people are in fact
an organization’s most important asset. They should be treated as such!
Gem #1
Aligning Business Strategy to Talent Management
"The purpose of talent practices is to achieve
business results; it is not about the talent practices themselves but the
results and impacts they produce."- Fearless HR, page 69
In gaining a clearer understanding of the value
intangible assets produce for an organization, we begin to ask the question,
how do we build that? Having a clearly defined talent development strategy, at
all levels of the organization, is a critical component to building top level
talent within the organization.
There is a caveat to this however, which Forman
discuss—the organizational strategy is the driver of the talent practices you
put into place. These practices need to complement and help to drive the
strategy towards the results that you’re after, or there will be a big miss in
terms of attaining results in the short term, and building the necessary skills
to achieve results over time.
Once we have that strategy defined and the talent
practices set—it then becomes all about executing the play. Forman provides
number of tangible tools and models to leverage which you can find in the book,
but the overarching framework is an emphasis on aligning talent development
with organizational objectives. If your organization is treating HR as separate
from the business strategy, it’s time to adopt a new approach.
Explicit Knowledge and Tacit Knowledge
"“Excellence in engineering leads to strong
products… Excellence in finance leads to strong financial capabilities….
Excellence in HR leads to a great company.” "- Fearless HR, page 242
Few would argue against the importance of a strong
professional network, and Forman re-iterates this from an HR perspective. What
I found very interesting was his discussion of explicit knowledge vs. tacit
knowledge. Each are defined as :
·
Explicit knowledge – knowledge that can be written down and easily
transferred. Most often this includes data, information, documents, records,
and files.
·
Tacit knowledge – resides within each person or team and is not
easily codified. This includes such knowledge types as experience, intuition,
lessons learned, rules of thumb, insights, wisdom, and know how.
As HR professionals, having a strong professional network
to gain tacit knowledge from will help to drive their value as a strategic
partner to the business. Here is where you get an inside track of what’s
working elsewhere and learn about different ideas that you might have otherwise
not thought of.
I would encourage each of us to be aware of the
difference between explicit and tacit knowledge, and be clear on the value that
tacit knowledge provides, which is often derived from your professional
network.
Fearless HR is
a must read resource for HR teams and professionals. Not only are great
insights shared from some of today’s leading organizations and thought leaders,
it contains an amazing array of tools which one can come back to over and
over again. If you are not yet a fearless, strategic, HR leader for your business, Fearless
HR can help you get there!
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