Leadership Architecture: Strategic Alignment of HR and Corporate Strategy

by John Gutowski

Corporate cultures drive the learning and development engines in large organizations. As a result, employee development departments that are managed by Human Resources get hung up on metrics that are already in place to justify their existence. Typically the metrics are man hours of training per hour or year, number of attendees and the cost of the fully developed program. None of these measure outcomes, only activity. I’ve come across three different perspectives on how to go about measuring employee development.  Elliot Masie, head of the Masie center in Saratoga Springs has a novel approach for measuring training. Take the average weight in pounds of each female and male participant in your annual training endeavors divide by 2000 and celebrate the annual gross tonnage trained (AGT²). Other practitioners such as Jack Phillips, of the ROI Institute, developed a statistically based process to measure the effect of training.  A former CEO of Motorola, Bob Galvin, once told me they develop their employees because it’s the right thing to do for the corporation’s future. There are obviously many schools of thought.

There is a basic equation. You own it. The average cost of developing a corporate employee is much more than you’d think. Most corporations spend money educating employees on processes but not necessarily on people skills. Both are equally important. Meeting financial and corporate governance obligations at the expense of working together in a productive environment won’t get you where you need to be. What you get in return depends on what you put into the cultivation, nurturing and pruning of your employees. 

Before you undertake building a metric that measures performance of incumbent employees, examine your system for bringing talent into your organization. The majority of new hires enter the organization because of a specific expertise. They’re not usually hired for being “people” persons, but they bring a technology to the business to fill a void. Engineers, designers, researchers and marketers come to mind. One of the many roles Human Resources plays in the vitality of the organization is to ensure that the right people are in the right positions.

A corporation that focuses in sustainability must devise a development system based on the strategic direction of the organization that takes not only the organizations needs into consideration but also the dreams and aspirations of its employees.

First of all, not everyone can be a leader in the context of large organizations; secondly not everyone wants to be one either. That’s a fact!  Let’s look at what really should happen at the core of the business.  New hires need to be introduced to the culture of the company by people that live in the company. What are the products and services that the company sells to make a profit? What is their specific contribution to the bottom line?  A welcome from the CEO on a DVD and congratulatory email are impersonal.  During the assimilation process into the culture they need to have a feel for the expectations of their management and ongoing feedback on how they are doing.  Notice the word “ongoing”. 

Feedback is not an event for an anniversary party on what one’s done during the year.  A simple definition of feedback is: A review in the present that explores the activities of the past so that modification can be made for the future.

Observing people and how they interact with their environment says a lot about the quality of their character.  Leadership is about character.  I’m not talking about the ability to take over the helm of the corporation quite yet but leading people in the context of the job.  Why do people listen to you?  In most cases it’s not because you brought your technical bag of tricks to the party.  It’s because you have potential.  Here’s the rub - potential is nothing until it actualizes as performance. The population in large organizations can’t all be high potentials.  You’ll find a mix of high pots, low pots, no pots and folks that retired on the job.  It is what it is.

To ensure the vitality of the organization let’s see how a high potential is identified and developed. Are politics in play?  Of course!  Given that as a corporate reality in any industry, let’s start with the things that weren’t part and parcel to the technical and academic credentials that were scrutinized during the hiring process. If you’re fair and equitable to these people you’ll have them for a long time. Retention won’t be your issue. Most employees leave corporations because of their relationships with bosses, peers and insiders, not because they don’t enjoy what they do. Once you select candidates for advancement, develop pools. The last thing you want is a shallow talent pool. Look at past history as an indicator of turnover or churn then look at the future. Is the organization expanding, contracting or stagnant?  You need to estimate which position will open due to attrition and/or growth.  If the corporation is stagnating then it’s your call.  Typically a pool of three qualified people for each position will give you options to fill a position without much of a learning curve.

Assessments should be incorporated into the development of those folks you’ve determined to have potential for a number of reasons. There’s a phenomena where a person can appear capable to take on higher level responsibility by their immediate manager and be a jerk to the people that report to them.  Let’s call it “kissing up and kicking down”. It’s not what you want in your organization.  A little due diligence in selection of high potentials can do a lot for HR’s credibility and corporate culture. 

Take the pool of candidates and require a battery of assessments, either self- evaluative or 360º where the candidate is evaluated by direct reports, peers, management or in some cases customers, both internal and external. Some assessments have normative data that will have profile with a person’s character, drivers and risks associated with their personality. Others measure personality types, ability to work with others, run a business or their emotional intelligence. Look at what you’re trying to measure and select the best one for the environment that you want to maintain and create.

This architecture for learning will vary depending on the type of business you are: flat, hierarchical, not for profit, etc.  Modify as necessary.  Realize that everyone is in a different place and since we have to start somewhere, let’s start with articulating roles and responsibilities at different levels. I am suggesting you build your program around assessing and grouping your talent into the following five areas.

The architecture’s foundation consists of Individual Leadership Skills such as changing one’s behaviors as different situations present themselves, how to make quality decisions, solving problems down to root cause and developing plans with contingencies.  These skills will remain throughout one’s career.  The things that change drastically are scope, visibility and impact to the organization.

The second set is Group Leadership Skills such as enrolling direct reports so that they are motivated to go the distance.  It includes focus, unity and connection.  Here’s where conflict management and understanding your own and each group member’s personalities play out.

The next layer of the architecture is Organizational Leadership moving from a tactical to an operational mindset.  In this time you are building relationships with other departments, moving from being responsible for individual performance toa process orientation.  Now you’re moving away from your technical expertise. Your “hands on, head down” way of doing business shifts to “hands off, heads up”.

As you gain expertise the next layer would be moving into a Transitional Leadership role where you become a corporate strategy translator and a change agent. You begin to be more cross-functional and can even span cross-businesses.  You’re beginning to become a role model for a lot of people.  One of your main concerns is developing people through different means such as mentoring, coaching and teaching. 

Transformational leadership is the next layer where you start building leadership capacity.  You’re initiating change.  Processes are being challenged.  The business itself is under the microscope.  It’s now up to you to innovate, recreate and sustain the business.

And finally the apex to the architecture is the ability through Strategic Leadership to be the spokesperson for your corporation to create the future of the enterprise through who you are and what you stand behind, stand for and stand out. 

This is not about technical training that needs to be addressed as needed as new processes and technological advances evolve. This is about scrutinizing the Human Resource processes and training functions. If it isn’t strategically aligned to the vision, mission, guiding principles and succession of leadership of the corporation then the people and processes that you have in place are perfect for the outcomes that you’re achieving. Here’s hoping you’re “World Class”!

John Gutowski is an executive coach with The Droste Group. For more information about the subject of this article call 877.550.5100 or email us at info@drostegroup.com