40 minute read
Will technology replace HR?
The past two years have not just demonstrated but actively accelerated the critical need for HR to have technological acumen By Clinton Wingrove
Back in 2020, I wrote about the challenges that HR faced in keeping pace with technology. I had restated my long-held belief that contemporary HR must have five skill sets not formerly associated with their function.
Business acumen
Understanding how each and every HR process impacts the organisation’s bottom-line (financial or social responsibility etc) so that they can prioritise strategic initiatives, including digitisation projects.
Technological acumen
Understanding the power of contemporary technology so that they can lead digitisation initiatives and not have them driven by IT or Procurement. Analytical acumen
Understanding how to ensure the collection and availability of quality HR data (comprehensive, valid, reliable, differentiating, useful, and defensible).
Courage
Demonstrating the courage to challenge the status quo, resist flawed requests, fight for what will work and what is right, call-out and standup to bias.
Personal effectiveness
Demonstrating the ability to command airtime, influence key stakeholders, and build personal credibility.
The critical need for technological acumen
The past 2 years have demonstrated, accelerated, and highlighted the critical need for HR to have technological acumen.
HR technology is often referred to as though it is a single offering and many vendors want us to believe that, arguing that best-of-breed applications are inferior to their ERP applications. However, contemporary HR technology offers numerous forms of power that we can deploy and easily integrate, including but not limited to: 1. Transaction or process management e.g., improving the efficiency and effectiveness of recruiting, payroll, on-boarding, filing and retrieval, etc.; 2. Communications e.g., video conferencing, teamworking, collaborating, networking, ticketing;
3. Behaviour engineering e.g., performance management, employee recognition, employee feedback, stress management; 4. Productivity optimisation e.g., ToDo lists, project management, ticketing; 5. Compliance and monitoring e.g., entry/exit security, remote-staff monitoring and activity tracking, whistle blowing; 6. Analytics e.g., data validation, data management, data aggregation and integration, analytics, interpretation, prediction, and visualisation.
We continue to see the dominance of a small number of software vendors/implementers embedding themselves in large corporates and pushing hard their single-platform solutions. At the other end of the scale, we see a proliferation of start-ups creating innovative solutions to very specific challenges, and then deploying the power of social proof to market them effectively.
HR needs to be directly involved in assessing the effectiveness, efficiency, and long-term consequences of both types of technology deployment. It is not necessary to be experts in all of these areas, but we do need to know enough, or to engage with those who do, to be able to make sound decisions about HR technologies, many of which (especially AI applications) are progressively becoming fraught with data privacy, security, and legal issues.
As a simple example, during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen a dramatic increase in the use of virtual meeting platforms. Clearly, the use of these has saved many organisations by enabling their employees to work remotely. But, their use has come at a cost which we are only just experiencing but which was largely predictable. Numerous studies indicate that the number of meetings has doubled with around 75% of those failing to achieve their objectives if they had any! Face-to-face conversations have decreased and, with that, there has been a corresponding drop in the levels of empathy, trust and loyalty, and an increase in anxiety, loneliness, and cynicism. Conscious attention levels in virtual meetings have been measured at little over 33% leading to low quality decisions.
For many in HR, the focus of attention is still on how
technology can be used to replace routine operations. We see this increasingly in administration, manufacturing, and logistics. But far more wide-reaching developments are now within reach of even medium-sized organisations. Let’s consider three areas of potential interest.
1. Humanoids
Robotics have advanced to the point where we can consider robots that operate, process data, and even look like and act like humans. They can be on-site, work almost 24x7, and need little if any supervision.
This opens up a huge potential wherever interpersonal interactions are required. What about interviewing candidates? What about interacting with customers – serving or even handling complaints? What about negotiating with vendors? What about providing training services … or even great presentations?
2. Artificial Intelligence
HR was always the function that lacked quality data. Over the past two decades, many organisations have addressed this – one of the benefits of ERP applications. But the potential uses to which that data can be put are vast and currently largely untapped. Frankly, even standard statistical tools such as SPSS and Statistica offer the ability to draw intelligence from such data. AI takes us a stage further.
For example, even as far back as the late ’90s, by combining data about each employee’s arrival time (from security swipe cards), login times (to network and applications), speed of response to notifications such as emails and application prompts, etc, it was possible to detect patterns that could predict attrition by individual and by department.
With the data that we now have, AI can compute personality profiles, predict functional and dysfunctional employee groupings, identify causal connections between demographic data and performance, detect in realtime potential lies in what others are saying, flag up a warning that how we are communicating is having an adverse effect on others, and probably identify early indicators of potential anxiety, stress, and imminent performance degradation. The opportunities are huge.
3. Virtual Reality
We have all become aware of the power of gamification as a behaviour engineering tool – the use of reminders, triggers, and responses to influence how individuals think, feel, and act. These are now widely deployed in effective performance management and project management tools. But, virtual reality tools take this to a new level.
We are now faced with the opportunity for employees to live and work in a truly realistic virtual world. This is already being widely deployed in training and pre-sales situations. But, imagine for a moment that, rather than being on a webcam, your employees worked with virtual reality headsets, interacting with each other as though all in the same physical space.
These are exciting times and we are only just scratching the surface of what can be done. What can you do to increase your technological acumen – to ensure that technology does not replace you?
Clinton WingrovE is the Principal Consultant, Clinton HR Ltd www.clintonhr.com
DR M MuNeeR
Tackle hi-tech talent development differently
Everyone is fretting over tech talent today. But it's not just the engineers who are in demand, especially in advanced product fields. We take a look at how to develop sales talent for the hi-tech sector
Whether the Great Resignation crossed over to India or not, it has always been a challenge for enterprises to recruit, develop and retain talent in the hi-tech area. According to our research, most HR heads admit that on a scale of 1 to 7, tech talent recruitment has become a highly difficult task (at 6 on the scale). The issue is compounded by an acute shortage of quality talent, and Indian recruiters have made it a norm to issue two appointment letters for the same open position!
The pace at which the technology space has been developing is breathtaking. Funding to tech startups continue to flow unhindered and the number of unicorns is ever on the rise. The frantic rush to digitisation by large enterprises has also contributed to the talent supply constraints. The problem lies mostly in too many companies chasing too less quality talent. Instead, some of them could have actually focused on developing the next level talent to suit their needs.
This realisation is slowly dawning on many companies today and they know that every rupee spent on training and development is a rupee well spent. Take the case of developing hi-tech sales talent. Of all the talent development initiatives, the investment in sales training is on the rise these days because revenue growth is replete with all types of hurdles. Every basic training initiative planned for hi-tech sales executives should aim at delivering the following: Information on the company, information on the products or services, information on the customer segments, strategic accounts and the competition, how to make effective sales pitch, and detailed information on field sales procedures and accountability.
How can enterprises equip a sales person to sell high technology products and services better? Fundamentals of industrial selling apart, as the market for high technology items changes, sales people are
being asked to sell newer tech products aggressively – but they don’t understand how these products work or how the customers benefit. Too much re-engineering is becoming overkill in tech space and customers pay a higher price for features they hardly use or need.
The current sales team may be competent enough to sell existing products of your company owing to previous training. They are probably in their comfort zones by now despite the economic downturn, they know inside out how the products work, how to handle every conceivable sales objection, and how to solve the hitches of installation or use. New additions to the sales force may require training, but that could be adequately delivered by the experienced staff internally.
Hi-tech sales: a different ball game
As most training and development professionals agree, marketing and selling new hi-tech products require a different approach. Sales folks typically get apprehensive about how the customers would react to new tech and whether they might just dislike it. The average sales executive hates to face new sales objections from existing key accounts. These new modifications or technology drive them out of their comfort zones and into
uncharted waters.
Of course, there are always the bright stars who love to take challenges head on. These top performers individually might achieve their targets, but to meet the overall organisational sales goals, it is still the average sales performers who need to be brought up to speed on the new products. And that will need a hybrid of product training (what it is, how it works, and so on) and sales process training (how to qualify leads, understand customer pain points, and so on).
Remember that any talent development programme for hi-tech sales folks must include the following two goals: excite and motivate, and educate and equip to sell. Here are seven steps to accomplish this:
1. No quick-fix solu-
tions. Do not let your product expert address a class of experienced sales executives and drone through a voluminous, boring PowerPoint presentation. It may be quick and easy to do, but it will not address the two goals. A leading consumer durables client, when they were launching their version of energy-saving, internet-ready air conditioners, conducted branch and district level sessions to train sales people at all levels on the unique features of the model. Sadly, it was a quickfix technical session that did
not add value to the sales team, and they eventually went back to doing a proper programme, with role-play and other tested methods, to increase effectiveness and to motivate the team.
Recall the story of a man who asked a watchmaker what time it was. The sales folks want to know what time it is but not how to make the watch. They need to know how to sell the product, not to make it.
2. Analyse the audience
you want to train. Understand the level of technical competence and sales skills they have currently and take stock of their proficiency in each area. What are their qualifications and training? Determine the level of proficiency needed for effective technical selling.
3. Decide on overall
objectives. Does your objective include making the sales folks find the leads on their own, or do they work on the leads provided by marketing team? Do you want them to qualify prospects, make the sales pitch, sell, provide customisation, and install too? Or do they just qualify prospects and turn them over to technical specialists for one-on-one modifications?
4. Use the right media tools to deliver the train-
ing. Auditorium training is relatively inexpensive to conduct, but it can be cumbersome to implement when there are a large number of delegates with multiple skill levels and language barriers. Zoom or Webex works for short modules. The future is of course Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality where the training when done right will be an absolutely breathtaking experience. Another option is to separate the knowledge portion of the training from the skills training. The knowledge part can be completed through self-paced training using workbooks, videos, podcasts, or mobile platform. Star performers may opt out of the basic level training and move to advanced levels. At the end of such adaptive training, participants must take a test to certify their proficiency for the skills, which can be included in the course module – whether in-person or automated.
5. Develop course structure, agenda, content and
proficiency tests. Multiple levels of people should be deployed to get all the areas covered appropriately and the trainers should be well versed with the role-playing segments and games if any.
6. Build a project plan.
This is to ensure that the trainers have access to the right resources, adhere to timelines, and meet the overall goals of the skilling agenda. Get the necessary management support, and get product experts and top sales folks to attend the pre-planning sessions. Other elements to be included in the plan are the process to track the learning impact and certify their proficiency levels, and follow up tracks.
7. Where is the follow-
up plan? Skill and talent development programmes should not be just an isolated event when it comes to the hi-tech industry. Send product updates and market learning including new feedback from customers as updates to the attendees. Set up learning groups informally in WhatsApp or Telegram to help them stay connected and share best practices in the field.
Once these seven steps are done, your hi-tech sales teams will be more prepared to break their comfort zones and they will sell better on a regular basis. As they succeed and upskill themselves regularly to meet their targets, they are likely to remain more loyal to the company.
Where is the follow-up plan? Skill and talent development programmes should not be just an isolated event
about the author
As the chief evangelist at the non-profit Medici Institute, MunEEr drives social change through diversity and innovation. Twitter @MuneerMuh
Ben Whitter's secrets for growth and delivering exceptional results
If you're delivering a great business on the back of a broken workforce, it's not going to work well in the long term,” says Ben Whitter, the renowned employee experience expert, bestselling author, and CEO
By Rachel Ranosa
This was taken about a year ago," Ben Whitter flashed a photo on the screen. The image captured a poignant lesson from the pandemic for the man regarded by many as a leader in employee experience.
In that photo, the bestselling author isn't in a corporate setting. Rather, he is seen standing in the great outdoors of Snowdonia in Wales – a land symbolic of his own personal journey. "We've been planting trees and regenerating this land," he said of his team's conservation project from 2021. "We've been working with our clients ever since to create a stronger connection between people and the planet."
Ben's photo has become his "reference point" for how much life has changed for him, his team and the organisations they help grow, in the face of a global crisis. "If it weren't for the pandemic, I never would have had the time to really explore my own human experience, my own values; what's massively important to me in that deep, profound way," Ben recalled.
What may be considered a time of slowdown for many was for him a time of growth.
It was also during this period of reflection that Ben released Human Experience at Work, his latest title debuting as the #1 bestselling HR book in the UK and US.
Renowned for developing and popularising the concept of the employee experience, Ben has earned the title of "Mr. Employee Experience" – and rightfully so.
He is the creator of the Holistic Employee Experience (HEX) model for optimising business and human performance, and is CEO of HEX Organization. He has spent the past two years sharpening his focus on human-centred leadership in a time of disruption. "My entire existence is obsessed with this topic of employee experience," Ben said. "Many organisations around the world are looking at employee experience as a way to rise above the challenge … to deliver superior and differentiated business performance." That's the battlecry of most employers.
On an individual level, however, employees today are revaluating their expectations of the workplace, "looking at new possibilities to configure their own lives in a way that's going to give them the quality and fulfilment that they want from their experiences," he said. "This has been largely a global awakening in many aspects. People are questioning what the human experience is to them and what it means to them. Organisations, employers and leaders are caught up in this because – as people – they also need to navigate, understand and rediscover what it is to be human."
Human experience is top of leaders' agenda
In his new book, Ben chronicled "massive levels of experimentation" when it comes to business models, workplaces and work configurations. "One thing is absolutely clear: change has come and it's come in a very big way."
Workers are driving this change, and that change includes organisations knowing "what employees will tolerate from businesses, what they'll accept, and what they'll expect".
Having experienced a certain degree of freedom and flexibility from working remotely, many have come to expect what Ben calls a "lighter-touch leadership approach" even after the pandemic.
This change is fundamental and somewhat irreversible, he said. "We're not going back to work the way it was, and we're probably never going to be the same again."
Organisations are having to adapt and change at a rapid pace, but the most
successful ones rely on expert guidance. "Coaching is a key part of that because we're all going through this change as practitioners and leaders," Ben said.
With that, redefining the human experience is now top of the business agenda for many. "We've been given an opportunity to explore ourselves in ways that we couldn't imagine. People are asking more questions about how they can configure their experiences around their life, as opposed to working a nine-to-five job," he said. "It's about exploring our values, our truth, our purpose, our mission in life, and how they fit into an organisation. If you have alignment between those two things, that's the utopia of employee experience."
Strengthening connections
Companies are now responding with more compassion, Ben observed. This entails listening to them more closely. "What's come up through our research is that people really want to be in control of their own experience," he said. "Personalisation and customisation in the context of your organisation are going to be critical in the years ahead. So, how can we enable people to become the
true architects of their own experience? "We're looking at this connection between planning and performance, strengthening the people element and their connection to the planet and the environment," he said.
Human performance and business performance are converging. "One without the other is weak. If you're delivering a great business on the back of a broken workforce, it's not going to work well in the long term," Ben said. "If you have a business that's built on the human experience, research shows, you are leading with a purpose. It's not just some marketing exercise. The purpose of the organisation is critical."
Organisations "deliver exceptional results" when human centricity runs across their support functions in HR and beyond HR. "They have leadership and CEOs taking it very, very seriously because they're absolutely driven by experiences," he added. "In 2022, this is the name of the game for long-term success. Is your business admired and respected? Is it trusted on the inside and outside? Is it having a positive impact on the world? "If we're starting to answer some of these questions positively, then we're going to be in a very strong position for the future."
ViSTy BANAJi
You need a 'CPO' to face the future
No, it’s NOT a chief people officer that you need for steering a course through uncharted waters half a century later. Who’s this mysterious new presence in the C-suite?
Almost fifty years have gone by. We are in 2066 and visiting the headquarters of a large company. We walk to the corner office on the top floor and find the familiar 'CEO' descriptor below the name. But, what’s this? Where we would have expected the CHRO and CFO cabins, is one as large as both would have been together. On the door is the legend 'CHO' which, we later discover, stands for Chief Happiness Officer – happiness (of customers, employees, investors and society at large) having become the metric for measuring organisational performance.1 But here’s another puzzle: Just opposite and just as large is the room for the 'CPO'.
Could the wily HR guys have sneaked in a Chief People Officer after consigning the chief bean-counter to a tiny accountant’s cubicle several floors below? No fears. Successive waves of automation, productivity intensification and contractualisation have brought the employee strength so low that the HR leader’s workspace is just as tiny as and next to the accountant’s. Maybe it’s that cheeky tech chap, claiming credit for all improvement, congratulating himself publicly as the Chief Progress Officer.
It couldn’t be, though. All the worthwhile tech has long since been outsourced. That must be it, then. Since the traditional corporation has been fissured2 beyond recognition and most of the juicy bits now lie outside its boundaries, it’s the Chief Purchase Officer who must have grabbed pole position. Not at all. The purchase head honcho has indeed become far more important but, even so, merits a place only on the next lower floor. Who then is this mysterious 'CPO' who holds no legacy from any function with which we are familiar today?
Okay. Let’s end this futuristic suspense. "The next few decades could be a boom time for philosophy, as we make concrete many of the
challenging ethical choices that trouble us… By 2062, every large company will need a CPO – a chief philosophical officer…"3 Toby Walsh’s concerns were primarily focused on the ethics of using Artificial Intelligence. As we shall see shortly, it is not only AI that poses ethical challenges and ethics is not the sole domain of Philosophy that can make a critical difference to large corporations. Best of all, none of these contributions need await the advent of the CPO, decades hence.
The epistemologically effective executive
The fact that managers are often gullible4 only confirms the (sometimes doubted) fact that they are human. Trusting beliefs that we can comprehend (and, in many cases, even the seemingly profound ones that are incomprehensible)5 is the default setting for the human race.6 Apart from the normal gullibility hazards to which Homo Credulens is exposed, today’s corporate environment adds three more. The emphasis on working cooperatively in teams makes even highly original minds hesitate to express independent, outlandish views. "The likelihood that a smart individual will behave foolishly (and gullibly) is, paradoxically, often increased when that person is participating in a group decision process that is made up of other smart individuals… Groupthink refers to a process in which individually intelligent people, when in a certain group context, convince each other of the rightness of an incredibly stupid course of action..."7 The ability to stand up against group consensus requires considerable mental energy. The problem is that the same resource needed for standing up to peers (and, more so, to seniors) in Groupthink situations is "used for millennials, while doubtless losing an abundance of raw energy within the organisation, also brings with it a huge stream of impulsivity and herd thinking. Given time, of course, several of them acquire the personal expertise that is the surest antidote to getting swept away with the tide of fashionable opinion.9 At any given point in time, however, the proportion of people who have acquired such expertise and the wisdom to deploy it effectively is strictly limited (which is one reason to hold on to people
a broad variety of seemingly quite different operations, including making choices, taking responsibility, exerting self-control, showing initiative, and avoiding passivity. All aspects of selfregulation (including regulating thoughts, controlling emotions, managing performance, and restraining impulses) use this resource." 8 The greater the pressure for performance and discipline, the less energy available for speaking against the consensus.
Finally, the large inflow of beyond their best use-by dates).10
If the general run of managers face so many gullibility gulches, in the case of HR some of these become deep, beguiling valleys with few escape routes back to the plateau of common sense. The problem starts early. HR people are chosen (or self-select themselves) for their pleasant and agreeable personalities. In a fascinating study of the gullibility displayed by a towering intellect like Alfred Russell Wallace
(who almost or, according to some, actually, beat Darwin to the theory of evolution), Michael Shermer surmises that it was his high (projected) score on the agreeableness dimension of 'the Big Five' that hobbled his ability to see through the fake claims of phrenology or of those claiming to communicate with the dead.11 Aiding this predisposition to gullibility that accompanies the agreeableness many HR people possess is their constant exposure to the smoothest talking of business developers. Perhaps it is because "[n]o other domain of management attracts as many charlatans, quacks and snake-oil-salesmen as HR"12 that we are led down blind valleys from which the only escape is via the consultant’s bank.
The most persuasive partners consulting firms possess are, of course, reserved for luring CEOs into costly commitments. Management gurus have even greater access to CEOs and the latters’ unwillingness to appear intellectually wanting makes them tolerate twaddle they would never accept from team members.13 Even internally, CEOs have to contend with 'players' who can divine the top person’s mind and 'bossspeak' before s/he can. It is then not surprising that "[t] hey can become mentally rigid; have business tunnel vision; even fall into groupthink with their 'trusted team'. The most dangerous reaction is to resort to the pre-, quasi-, anti-scientific world of gurus, mantras and soothsayers who confidently promise magic silver bullets to cure all ills. They certainly are tempting. Perhaps that is why so many otherwise reasonable, rational people fall victim to weird wackiness."14
The answer, obviously, is are able to exercise only one of these modes, whichever one it is, you're in deep trouble."15 It is precisely in achieving this balance that Philosophy springs to the aid of the corporate executive.
Throughout the centuries, it has been the task of Philosophy to pierce through the wall of currently dominant belief with the crow-bar of skepticism. Pure Pyrrhonism no more suits our purpose than
not to become disagreeable, closed to new ideas or distrustful of everyone. As Carl Sagan put it: "What is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas. Obviously, those two modes of thought are in some tension. But if you dogmatic rigidity. Starting with Socrates’ salutary admission of his own ignorance, battling Descartes’ demon for a minimum of thinking space, being awakened by Hume, the passionate skeptic, from dogmatic slumber and then, like Kant, building the foundations of pure reason which have been used, in the last two centuries, as a launching rampart by a galaxy of
brilliant thinkers to craft a habitable (if far from waterproof) epistemological house. Epistemology (the philosophical study of the nature, origin, and limits of human knowledge) is just one strand of the astoundingly rich legacy of Philosophy. To tap it we only need to understand the core lessons (leaving to our philosophical guides the detailed arguments on which the conclusions are based). This dose of Epistemycin, taken under a philosopher’s direction, will allow us to think clearly and independently without being swept off our feet by emotionally charged language, to trust people without being gulled by those who wish to turn that faith to their personal advantage and be simple and direct without becoming simpletons or dictators.
The moral manager
Was Philippa Foot really responsible for the death of thousands of fat men? Indirectly, certainly. Her essay16 spawned the whole genre of trolley problems of which a substantial branch line delighted in dropping (or not) fat men from bridges onto wayward railway trolleys to save a larger number of people tied to the tracks where the trolleys were headed. Incidentally, while she made no mention of a fat person in her essay’s thought experiment about the tram (British, you see), she did pose the question of blowing up a fat person blocking the exit to a cave where flood waters were rising. Talk about being sizeist! There is a good reason the trolley problem has raised serious debate and even more books, papers and lectures than the potential number of the obliterated obese. "The aim of trolleyology is to provide a principle or principles that make sense of our powerful reactions and that can reveal something to us about the nature of morality."17 between differing amounts of either vector i.e. the least bad or the most good. It is when principles clash that we need the capacity to make fine moral distinctions and be in a position to explain them convincingly to the employee population at large.
Another area where choices become difficult and emotionally fraught is in dealing with misdemeanour, punishment and clemency. All of us feel uplifted when Bishop Charles-François-Bienvenu Myriel tells the gendarmes to release
Specifically, to what extent is it permissible to sacrifice the interests and rights of a few individuals for the sake of the well-being of a larger number? There is almost no people policy I can think of that is free from implicit assumptions about this question. Yet, there is also almost no occasion that I can recall where these assumptions were made explicit and debated.
The moral choices we make as managers are not as often between what’s clearly 'good' and 'bad' as Jean Valjean who they have found with silverware stolen from the Bishop’s house. Our hearts positively soar when the Bishop pretends additionally to have gifted Jean a pair of silver candlesticks and which, he insists, the latter should carry away as well.18 Where does that heart of ours go when we are about to pass terminal judgement on employees who have committed serious misconduct? I am not suggesting there should be no punishment and I have elsewhere suggested crite-
ria for clemency.19 The point here is only to emphasise that when there is more than one ethical principle at stake (assuming retribution is even ethical) and when the punishment is close to capital (termination, in the corporate context), the greater the thought that must precede it.
These are extremely difficult questions. Are the answers to be found by living a virtuous Aristotelian life or in an enlightened version of Utilitarianism or in the sterner commandments of deontological credo or behind Rawls’ veil of ignorance. A philosopher-guide can help us fashion a moral weave that we are comfortable wearing and displaying in public without feeling ashamed.
Even when choices are not so intellectually taxing, they can demand immense courage. Take the case of conflicting stakeholder claims. All is well as long as stakeholder interests converge. But when they do not, most conventional strategic and financial decisionmaking models are premised on maximising shareholder value. It is the supreme test of the CPO’s worth at the top table to affix successfully at least equal importance to people's happiness, fairness to customers, social contribution and the future of the planet.
The wisdom of the sages
Does Philosophy have something to contribute to the individual leader’s mental strength and the attitude with which s/he faces life? Indeed, it does. "…[F]or the power of philosophy is such that she helps not only those who devote themselves to her but also those who come into contact with her."20
Until recent times every major school of Philosophy had a clear derivation from its metaphysical and epistemological foundations to the ethical principles it prescribed and, consequently, to the code by which individuals were expected to compose their minds and organise their lives. But how does one choose from the richness that two and a half millennia of Philosophy lay before us? Here, once again, is where the trusted CPOs in our midst can play a role by giving us tastings from the variety that is available till each of us finds what’s best suited to our own temperaments and needs. While making our choices, of course, we need to guard against falling for the 'new age' sprouters of pseudo-profound bullshit.21 Life is far too profound and complex to fit into such simplistic models and solutions.
Business leaders (and CHROs) could do worse than making a close study of the Stoic view of life. Its practical utility (especially in times of great stress) for leaders is corroborated by the fact that rulers,22 men of public affairs,23 and even prisoners of war,24 considered great by history’s near unanimous verdict, have been prime exemplars of the Stoic Philosophy. Those too impatient to wait for guidance from their yet-to-berecruited resident philoso-
phers could start with the highly readable 'Guide to the Good Life' by William Irvine.25
The philosopher leader
The CEO who has read thus far might be in a quandary. How much of this Philobabble should s/he heed and what extirpate? Let’s give him some royal (after all we are dealing with royalty’s modern equivalent) examples from history.
One choice would be to follow Domitian’s directive which banished all philosophers from Rome in 95 CE. Domitian was assassinated in 96 CE. The assassins, to the best of my knowledge, were not philosophers. Still. Just saying.
Alternatively, there is the example of Philip of Macedon. While it is difficult to imagine him having much truck with Philosophy himself, he did appoint one of the greatest philosophers ever born to tutor (they didn’t have the CPO title then) the next generation. Aristotle’s pupil, Alexander, went on to conquer most of the known world. By then, Philip too had been assassinated. Again, not by a philosopher, though it is an open question whether the young man trained by the philosopher had a hand in it.
Finally, we come to the ruler personally turning to Philosophy. Plato’s philosopher-kings may be too extreme a model for modernday CEOs since they were expected to be celibate and
Notes:
1. Visty Banaji, “HR’s business should be happiness raising”, 2019. 2. David Weil, The Fissured Workplace – Why
Work Became So Bad for So Many and What
Can Be Done to Improve It, Harvard University Press, 2017. 3. Toby Walsh, 2062, Speaking Tiger Books, 2020. 4. Hervé Laroche, Véronique Steyer and Christelle Théron, How Could You be so Gullible?
Scams and Over-Trust in Organizations,
Journal of Business Ethics, June 2018 5. Hervé Laroche, Véronique Steyer and Christelle Théron, How Could You be so Gullible?
Scams and Over-Trust in Organizations,
Journal of Business Ethics, June 2018 6. Daniel Gilbert, How mental systems believe,
American Psychologist, February 1991 7. Stephen Greenspan, Annals of Gullibility:
Why We Get Duped and How to Avoid It, Praeger Publishers, 2008. 8. Roy Baumeister, Ego depletion, the executive function, and self-control: An energy model of the self in personality, in B R Roberts and
R Hogan (Editors), Personality psychology in the workplace, American Psychological
Association, 2001. 9. Richard K Wagner, Smart People Doing
Dumb Things: The Case of Managerial
Incompetence, in Robert Sternberg (Editor),
Why Smart People can be so Stupid, Yale
University Press, 2002. 10. Visty Banaji, Forward to Methuselah: How older talent can rejuvenate organizations, 2017. 11. Michael Shermer, The borderlands of science: Where sense meets nonsense, Oxford
University Press, 2001. 12. Visty Banaji, Pyrrho, please pay another visit - A DIY kit for sniffing out BS in HR,
March 2017. 13. Dan Sperber, The guru effect, Review of Philosophy and Psychology, December 2010. 14. Adrian Furnham, Management Mumbo-
Jumbo: A Skeptics' Dictionary, Palgrave
Macmillan, 2006. 15. Carl Sagan, The Burden of Skepticism, lecture delivered in 1987. 16. Philippa Foot, The Problem of Abortion and the Doctrine of the Double Effect, Oxford
Review, Number 5, 1967. 17. David Edmonds, Would You Kill The Fat
Man? – The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us About Right and Wrong,
Princeton University Press, 2015. 18. Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, Penguin Classics Deluxe edition, 2015. 19. Visty Banaji, Dealing with misdemeanor at work, July 2019 20. Seneca, Robin Campbell (Translator), Seneca:
Letters from a Stoic: Epistulae Morales Ad
Lucilium, CVIII.4, Penguin Classics, 2004. 21. Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne,
Nathaniel Barr, Derek J. Koehler and
Jonathan A Fugelsang, On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit,
Judgment and Decision Making, Vol. 10, No. 6, November 2015. 22. Anthony R Birley, Marcus Aurelius: A
Biography (Roman Imperial Biographies),
Routledge, 1993. 23. Emily Wilson, The Greatest Empire: A Life of Seneca, Oxford University Press, 2018. 24. James B Stockdale, Courage Under Fire:
Testing Epictetus's Doctrines in a Laboratory of Human Behavior, Hoover Institution
Press, 1993. 25. William B Irvine, A Guide to the Good Life:
The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy, Oxford University Press USA, 2009.
forswear the ownership of property. A far more amenable (if even less attainable) ideal is provided by Marcus Aurelius, arguably the greatest emperor the Roman Empire produced. His study and practice of Stoicism yielded a set of Meditations that continue to be devoured by the literate public around the world. Now which CEO wouldn’t want to be considered among the best of his brethren and have his works read two millennia later?
visty BanaJi is the Founder and CEO of Banner Global Consulting (BGC)
Past Month's events
Ongoing Programmes
Online Programme: Wellbeing: the Road to Resilience Online Programme: HR Business Partner in the New World of Work
People Matters
BeNext 23 May – 24 June
2022
Online This programme was offered to all HR professionals, organisational leaders, and individuals that recognise the importance of actively investing in themselves and in a workplace where mental health, focus, resilience, stress-management and psychological safety are highly valued. People Matters
BeNext 16 May – 17 June
2022
Online This programme was designed for leaders and practitioners interested in how the HRBP drives cultural shifts that align with the changing needs of teams and organisations in the new world of work. People Matters
BeNext 02 May – 03 June
2022
Online This programme brought together HR leaders eager to gain practical, hands-on approaches to talent analytics, connecting HR policies and practices to business performance.
Online Programme: Talent Analytics: Driving Organizational Impact
Online Programme: Strategizing Organizational L&D: Performance, Productivity & Impact
People Matters
BeNext 6 June – 8 July 2022 This programme is for leaders eager to gain practical, hands-on approaches to organisational L&D strategies, connecting policies and practices to business performance. Prior knowledge of capabilities-building and L&D strategising is useful but not indispensable. Online Programme: Agile Culture for HR Teams
People Matters
BeNext 27 June – 29 July 2022 Online This programme is for HR leaders committed to finding creative solutions to complex problems facing their teams, moving from an understanding of Agile processes to a whole new mindset of creativity, innovation and people-centred progress.
Upcoming events
Online Programme: Women in Leadership: Lead, Influence & Transform
People Matters
BeNext 18 July – 19 August
2022
Online This programme is designed for women leaders interested in accelerating their career growth within their organisation and learning critical skills for women heading a team.
Online Programme: Designing Employee Experience in the New World of Work
People Matters
BeNext 08 August – 09 September 2022 Online This programme is for leaders and practitioners interested in how the HRBP drives cultural shifts that align with the changing needs of teams and organisations in the new world of work. People Matters
BeNext 29 August – 30 September 2022 Online This programme is for leaders and practitioners interested in how the HRBP drives cultural shifts that align with the changing needs of teams and organisations in the new world of work.
Invitation Only Event: Are You In The List 2022 Awards
People Matters 04 August 2022 Courageous HR leaders have developed and exercised new skills to meet the new challenges of 2022. People Matters Are you In The List Awards identifies some of the most outstanding leaders who rose to the rising challenge of 2021, leaders who have become the answer to the struggles that businesses and workers are continuing to face even today.
Online Programme: HR Business Partner in the New World of Work Hybrid Event: TechHR 2022
People Matters 04 August 2022 (India), 25 August 2022 (SEA) This year, People Matters TechHR invites you to look at the world with #FreshEyes, to imagine what's possible in a post-pandemic milieu. #FreshEyes is a metaphor for breaking away from the past. We aspire to “see” the world with a new mind, new heart, and new intention. Become the Answer for your team, your business, and society.
Blogosphere >> sonali daMlE
Helping talent teams better understand diversity analytics
Not very long ago, an organisation’s culture wasn’t something that made headlines as much. In fact, it was considered just one of the many factors relevant to employee satisfaction. However, according to a recent survey, 47% of the people actively looking for new opportunities now cite an organisation’s culture as their driving reason for looking for work. Unsurprisingly, about 46% believe that culture is “very important” when choosing a job. So what makes a great culture?
Fundamentally, an organisation’s culture is the way we behave at scale. How we behave is defined by what the company sets as expectations, operating principles and ethics and how these behaviours are recognised, rewarded or punished. Many factors contribute to building a culture; inclusivity is one such vector that, when done right, creates a sense of belonging and has a tremendous ability to develop intrinsic motivation amongst people.
But that is the tip of the iceberg — Inclusivity, especially as it relates to a diverse workforce, is a force multiplier. Bringing in new ways to look at the same situation is the beginning of creating a unique solution, a disruption, and a foundation for innovation; after all, innovation craves diversity.
Why is diversity more than just a catchphrase?
Helen Keller famously said, “Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much.” Each set of individuals brings new thoughts, new skills, new creativity, new energy, and new perspective. And when complementing groups combine, magic happens!
A Deloitte report revealed
that diverse thinking enhances innovation by 20%. Another statistic points out that equal representation of just one vector of diversity, men and women, in organisations is linked with a 41% increase in revenues. Racial and ethnic diverse teams are 35% more likely to perform better, while organisations with an inclusive culture are also likely to have 2.3 times more cash flow per employee.
How to ensure hiring diversity?
Fundamentally, hiring right is more about hiring without a bias than anything else. Everything starts from the top of the funnel. An organisation needs to be extremely cautious about how they authentically talk about their people-first policies. Awareness inside and outside the organisation is the first step in this direction. The idea flow would consist of factors like: • Stating your clear stance on culture • Establishing strong habits of condemning racial, gender, region, ethnicity, or any other form of bias • “Walking the talk” in terms of inclusion & diversity • Learning ways to address specific needs • Regularly revisiting policies to fine-tune the culture code • Showcasing best practices internally and externally
to intrigue and entice job seekers
Learning the art of embracing diversity
A young working professional might have different priorities than a middle-aged employee. Veterans and people from the neglected sections of society might sometimes need an extra cushion to adjust to your organisation before they emerge as top employees. A person from one part of the world might not have the same priorities as someone from another place. Women may put more weight on a particular thing than men. And being inclusive is all about respecting and empathising with all these perspectives without being influenced.
Therefore, as a hiring manager, one should be aware of factors contributing to the needs and demands of an employee. Additionally, leadership teams should focus on customising policies to suit the needs of different groups and avoid thinking from a “one-size-fits-all” prism. Data and leadership response
Judging a candidate based on their credentials alone is the first step to building an inclusive culture, and entrusting data points with this task over manual, “gutfeeling” methods works like a charm for any organisation (they are also associated with building 3x high-performing teams). Leveraging data analytics can substantially reduce recruiters’ bias from the entire hiring process and help fast-track resourcing, screening, and offer rollouts.
Bringing data analytics into the picture can widen your talent pool, expose recruiters to diverse candidates, and eventually help build a much more diverse workforce from top to bottom. Simply put, inclusive workplaces are created when you act on the principle of “horses for courses.”
There is an excellent correlation between how you hire people and those who engage them. Anyone cannot wake up magically to a diverse organisation — it takes heart and soul to lay the foundation at all levels. Hiring managers and leaders should be cognisant of the needs of different sections of society to weave a fabric of diversity.
about the author
sonali daMlE, Chief People Officer at Innovaccer
