Impact of Human Capital

The importance of having people in the right assignments cannot be over stressed.  Developing and positioning people are key responsibilities for all managers.  When we focus on “people” we learn quickly that it is important to see them as “individuals.”  Successful companies have started to look at the competency requirements in their organizations and matching the competencies of its individual people to those roles.  The result of this approach is predictable in that each person is found to have a unique set of abilities and learning needs leading to establishment of individual training plans with ownership and responsibility for execution of those plans being shared between the employee and their manager.  Today’s managers many times do not have the time or expertise to handle these new important responsibilities.  

Transitioning to this type environment and making it work is extremely difficult, particularly for older well established organizations.  Training and development organizations also are challenged to change and must adapt to a model resembling a cafeteria format from what was probably more like a home style restaurant.  The need for competency evaluation becomes critical and those evaluations must be timely and accurate.   As the need to create Project Teams, Change Management Teams and other small organizations with specific progress missions emerge we start to see the importance of accurately understanding the learning needs of each individual and how to balance their abilities and needs within each organization.  The question becomes: “Does the team have the balance of skills needed to accomplish the mission?”  Each person is actually a unique System offering unique sets of explicit and tacit knowledge that ultimately define their ability to add value.  The ultimate question becomes, "What can you do?” not, "What can you discuss?"  Adding value is the ultimate requirement of us all. 

Value Creation is the joint responsibility of each employee and management.

We used to think that the best way to train people was to make them all alike.  We would test against a standard set of criteria and then train to make everyone equal.  We would not focus on what we already knew, but work diligently on what you did not know.  Everyone would work on things that did not know or like while and not devoting time to work on the things in which they excelled. 

Imagine an orchestra being managed in that manner.

Variability in knowledge is one of the components of diversity.  The question becomes: “Is diversity extra weight or GOLD?”  We must not forget that with great diversity comes great opportunity.