The question I have been asking and trying to answer in this Column is: Are business leaders imbibing and deploying relevant knowledge to cope with the day-to-day shifting business landscape? Are their solutions to challenges insightful, visionary, and practical with depth? Are we just busy knocking off expenses and not listening to new ideas and concepts? Is the leader’s knowledge of the employee touch just the “cost or expense pull?”
Before I go on to expound on my invaluable concept, the TTE (Total Team Engagement), let me tell you a true story. One of my very close mentors who had successfully run a talent management organization for over three decades, decided to lay-off his high level employees to drastically reduce operating costs. A simple strategy would have been to engage his colleagues and collaboratively chart a new path of “winning” actions.
As a leader, what is your notion of “expense”? Is expense, loss or damage to those on whom it falls? Is expense a negative “cost” on profitability?
Let us examine another point. What form should re-engineering of an organisation take to “forge ahead” in the day-to-day shifting business landscape? Is it financial, strategic or technological?
Today, I will be introducing you to the TTE concept or Human Capability Re-Engineering through Total Team Engagement. This is a sure and sustainable way to build an organisation that wins.
How do we create an organization that fulfils its purpose in the marketplace? For me, what is the outcome of day-to-day work? It is to create and deliver the needed value through employees to customers and then get inflow into the organisation. The challenge for leaders is to proactively make this role happen. Leaders must “maximally” create the needed value through the human capital. My definition of human capability is “unique and differentiating talent imbued in people”.
Today’s HR has a critical role to play. There must be a rethink of the corporate culture. It must be clear to every employee (no matter your unit or department) that if the organization does not succeed in the marketplace, then there is definitely no workplace.
TTE means, we must all play well together as a team. Every employee must be sufficiently equipped and challenged to deliver his best always because human capability must make the organisation succeed in the marketplace.
The organization must as a deliberate policy, establish a scale of balance between employee’s expectation and compensation. The menu of benefits and perks must be managed to turn every employee into a “true and genuine ambassador of the brand. Corporate culture must exemplify great employee experience and thereby great customer experience.
Leaders must imbibe “great strategic partner confidence” in employees in a way that the organisation becomes a great value chain that delivers on great employee experience which leads to great customer experience and then great market success financially. HR must not just focus on better talent system (hiring, training, development of people) but join efforts to make the organisation succeed in the marketplace. Market value must be greatly enhanced, loyal customers must be kept and we must win others.
According to Professor David Ulrich, HR must spearhead diligent evaluation of employee portfolio in order to ensure exemplary human capability effectiveness. There should be promotion of talent management leadership to provide the context for success and winning in the marketplace. This should be the umbrella vision of the organisation. Performance management to ensure completion and achievement of goals, must be done regularly.
Leaders must be focused on the right things such as market-led innovation, creativity and value-delivering relationship. The organisation must strive for huge impact and great market value. Today’s organisation must have an enviable identity in the marketplace. The organisation must be known for its value-delivering reputation. Each employee must be sincerely accountable to himself.
Professor Ulrich pointed out that HR champions must wear new caps of “credible activists in promoting greater real fortunes for the organization. They must be value-adding strategic partners and change agents”.
The checklist of HR value-adding roles also include: fostering greater collaboration in the workplace. Team members must be managed to genuinely work together. Critical issues that can hamper performance must be professionally handled without making “scape goats” of some employees.
Deserving emphasis must be on tasks and outcomes. There must be regular Employee Engagement Surveys to promote team members’ ownership, accountability, success with customers and well-deserved employee appreciation and rewards. Data must be used to create scorecards that lead to improved performance. We must work on evidence on behaviours and competencies. We must build relationships with customers with organisation’s unique and differentiating sets of capabilities.
Let me conclude with the recent report by Harvard Business Review (HBR). It says: “Rapport in the workplace is a critical advantage. Lack of great communication between managers and their employees can hurt productivity and undermine customer experience. It dwindles morale. It makes mistakes happen and deliverables to customers are delayed or even omitted”. Professor Jorge Tamayo pointed out that “You can have a great strategy but it might not work because of lack of rapport. Lack of rapport will kill performance”.
Stronger rapport, HBR concludes “leads to higher and profitable sales”.
