Archer Mathieson HR Forum: How does your role as senior HR professional increase leadership capability and improve business performance?
2nd June 2011
Archer Mathieson’s HR Forum came together on 19th May at Great Fosters, Egham, with Full Potential Group’s Carole Gaskell and John Blakey who chaired a debate focusing on the following questions:
Q1. So why focus on leadership capability now when we all have 101 other priorities and challenges?
Three recent industry reports concentrate on the rapidly changing business climate we face as we move from recession to economic recovery and growth, and all confirm that leadership capability is a growing concern for HR Professionals.
The last two years have seen many organisations suspend or cut back on their talent management initiatives and we are now seeing an increasing demand to re-focus on the ‘people agenda’. Many of our own clients are taking the opportunity to refresh and re-invent their talent management programmes to reflect new business drivers, new media and the shifting expectations of participants and sponsors. It is an exciting time to create new ways of thinking in this field.
Participants in our round table highlighted three particular trends in this area:
Succession planning – the need to focus on commercial priorities in economically difficult times can result in succession planning being overlooked and businesses are being placed at ‘risk’ in the face of unexpected changes at Board and senior levels. It is critical, now more than ever, for any organisation to provide focused development to senior individuals and to be clear on the ‘core competencies’ required to keep the business on track. The senior team needs to have the ability to run a business and, if necessary, perform effectively without the Leader. A strong CEO is important but to perform well needs an aligned team at Board level, operating collaboratively, with an HR Director providing cohesion and strategic support.
The need to lead in a new ‘bold’ way – in this post recessionary period, Board level leaders can no longer rely on their technical ability and expertise alone and it is essential that HR Directors ensure senior leaders have the advanced communication and people skills necessary to promote employee engagement and create the cultural shift their organisation needs to excel. The financial cutbacks of the recession have left employees feeling vulnerable to organisational changes beyond their control (mergers, restructures, redundancies) and a new style of leadership based on ethical governance, values, creative innovation and sustainability is fundamental to business performance.
Developing talent in emerging markets – global organisations face the increasing challenge of developing talent using a consistent global framework yet adapting this to meet local cultural expectations and norms. The implementation of organisational structures on a global level can create huge complications when working with very different international regions, further exacerbating the difficulties in introducing talent development initiatives. What works in the UK and the US is not necessarily what works in China, India and the Philippines.
It is clear that the skills, behaviours and mindset of talented people are going to be fundamental to business recovery and high performance. HR leaders have the opportunity to be seen as the catalysts necessary to shape and direct the organisation’s future, creating the cultural framework necessary for a business to excel while anticipating the trends that these discussions reveal.
Q2. How does your role as an HR Leader and business coach affect individual and business performance?
At our round table, senior HR professionals acknowledged that they are in a privileged position sitting on the top table and representing the ‘talent agenda’. The challenge is how best to leverage these Board relationships, acting as a genuine ‘business coach’ to the leadership team. Now is the time for HR professionals to have the courage to step into this role more fully and to ‘role-model’ the organisational change they want to achieve. The challenge for us all is to create leaders who catalyse the growth potential of the business, combining a softer ‘values based’ approach with a harder commercial edge.
A catalytic leader provides the ‘provocative’ influence a business needs to excel in a rapid period of change, accepting the challenge to lead rather than resort to simply focusing on the tasks at hand. The biggest danger is allowing complacency to take hold and leaders need to drive their teams to the next level of performance. HR leaders can hold a unique position on the Board, using catalytic coaching skills to provide provocative, truthful and potentially challenging feedback to address business blockers and ignite new levels of performance and potential. Adopting this catalytic coaching role can be a huge challenge and was described by some as ‘a leap of faith.’ The challenge is not to be seen as a maverick but a source of pragmatic, inspiring and challenging support, offered at the right level from both a practical and political perspective. We should all acknowledge and draw confidence from the quantum physics ‘Butterfly Effect’ principle which identifies the fact that ‘a small change at one place in a complex system can have large effects elsewhere.’
This conversation then led to an acknowledgement that succession planning and building the talent pipeline is key to ensuring that a new generation of leaders emerge at the right time, and with the right skills, to cope with 21st century expectations of business leadership. We live in a world where delivering financial results alone is not a sufficient measure of success – how these results are delivered in terms of leadership behaviour, environmental impact and stakeholder management will be just as critical to the sustainability of individual and organisational performance.
‘This was the best event I’ve been to in years’ Ben Bengougam, European HR Director, Hilton Hotels
This event was the latest in a series of regular Archer Mathieson HR Forums. Our Forums are intended to be small events where everyone attending has an opportunity to contribute. By facilitating these events we also create a like-minded professional community who are able maintain contact with each other; sharing opinions, experiences, supplier information etc via our web based forum. If you would like any more information on the above or would like to become involved, please contact Emma Webb on 01753 754333 or emma.webb@archermathieson.com
Attendees:
John Arnott, HR Director, Vaultex UK Ltd
Ben Bengougam, European HR Director, Hilton Hotels
Richard Carr, Career Interim
Sheila Coyle, HR Integration Director, International Power
Helen Lancaster, Career Interim
Chris Mills, ex European HR Director, Interactive Data
Tina Oakley, HR Director, Gatwick Airport
Anne Pritchard, UK HR Director, BT Global Services
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It was great to see everyone there – we certainly seemed to have a lively and incisive debate. If you have had any further thoughts or just have a comment to make, please do so here. It will be interesting to see what more we can learn from each other as the Forum develops.
Thanks
James