Leveraging the New Human Capital: Adaptive Strategies, Results Achieved, and Stories of Transformation

415 Pages·2004·2.34 MB·English

by  Sandra Burud Marie Tumolo

LEVERAGING THE NEW HUMAN CAPITAL
LEVERAGING
THE NEW
HUMAN CAPITAL
Adaptive Strategies, Results Achieved,
and Stories of Transformation
SANDRA BURUD AND MARIE TUMOLO
Davies-Black Publishing
Mountain View, California
Published by Davies-Black Publishing, a division of CPP, Inc., 1055 Joaquin Road, Suite 200,
Mountain View, CA 94043; 800-624-1765.
Special discounts on bulk quantities of Davies-Black books are available to corporations, profes-
sional associations, and other organizations. For details, contact the Director of Marketing and
Sales at Davies-Black Publishing; 650-691-9123; fax [phone].
Copyright © 2004 by Davies-Black Publishing, a division of CPP, Inc. All rights reserved. No
part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or
by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written
permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles
or reviews.
Davies Black and its colophon are registered trademarks of CPP, Inc.
Visit the Davies-Black Publishing Web site at www.daviesblack.com.
09 08 07 06 05 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burud, Sandra L. Marie Tumolo
Leveraging the new human capital : adaptive strategies, results achieved, and stories of
transformation / Sandra Burud and Marie Tumolo.
p. cm.
Includes biographical references and index.
ISBN 0-89106-205-X (hardcover)
1. Human capital. 2. Quality of work life. 3. Work and family. 4. Emotional intelligence.
5. Adaptability (Psychology). 6. Organizational change—Case studies. I. Tumolo, Marie.
II. Title.
HD4904.7.B87 2004
658.3′14—dc22
2004015276
FIRST EDITION
First printing 2004
To my husband, Larry Remlinger, whose incredible love and
wisdom enrich my life beyond measure
—Sandra Burud
To my mother, Dee Tumolo, whose love, encouragement,
and interest in my journey enable me to travel to places
beyond my imagination
—Marie Tumolo
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
About the Authors xvii
PART 1
THE NEW WORKFORCE REALITY 1
Whole People by Peter Senge 3
1 People, the Engine of Success 9
2 Knowledge and Service Work 23
3 The Rise of the Dual-Focus Worker 35
4 The New Ideal Worker 55
PART 2
THE POWER OF ADAPTIVE STRATEGIES 73
The Paradox of Work by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi 75
5 Choosing to Investin People 79
6 Adopting a New Set of Beliefs 93
7 Redefining the Organizational Culture 107
8 Transforming Management Practices 121
9 Ensuring Fit: Beliefs, Culture, Practices 155
vii
viii LEVERAGING THE NEW HUMAN CAPITAL
PART 3
EVIDENCE OF RESULTS ACHIEVED 169
The Importance of Relational Capital
by Robert Reich 172
10 Human Capital Results 175
11 Customer Results 219
12 Organizational Performance Results 233
PART 4
FOUR STORIES OF
BECOMING ADAPTIVE 265
The New Leadership
by Rosabeth Moss Kanter 266
13 The DuPont Story 271
14 The Baxter International Story 289
15 The SAS Story 305
16 The FTN Story 327
Afterword 349
Notes 353
References 365
Index 389
PREFACE
The employee today is a whole different animal. In the fable of the giraffe
and the elephant,* the giraffe, who is a successful carpenter, wants to
expand his woodworking enterprise, so he invites the elephant (a capable
craftsman) to join him. Left alone to begin his work, the elephant inadver-
tently smashes into walls and damages equipment in the narrow workshop,
which was designed and equipped for the giraffe. The giraffe returns and
surveys the damage and arrives at a solution: The elephant should join a
gym to lose weight and take up ballet to become more graceful. In his
giraffe-centric view, the giraffe overlooks the inherent differences between
giraffes and elephants and misses the opportunity to capitalize on them.
American businesses, like the giraffe’s workshop, have also been
designed with giraffes in mind. These giraffes may differ in appearance—
they are both male and female and come from different ethnic back-
grounds—but they are still all giraffes. The “gene” they share is not visible.
Their giraffe-ness—the trait they have in common—is that they are “work-
primary”: they put work first. Work is their primary role, and they are sin-
gularly focused on it. They do whatever it takes to get the job done and they
have had the invisible system of support in their private lives that makes that
singular focus possible.
Throughout the Industrial Age, certainly for the past half-century,
giraffes made up the bulk of the workforce, and giraffes remain at the helm.
* Roosevelt Thomas, Building a House for Diversity. We have “embroidered” Thomas’s fable and
used it to make a different point than he makes.
ix
x LEVERAGING THE NEW HUMAN CAPITAL
Elephants, however, now outnumber giraffes three to one. Most workers no
longer focus exclusively on work even when they are at work, nor is work
their sole priority. They lack the system of invisible support that would
enable them to do so. Without a mate devoted to managing life’s nonwork
tasks—essential to operating as a giraffe—these elephants operate in “dual-
focus” mode, with work alternating with other priorities. Elephants require
new equipment, but they can do things that giraffes cannot.
The influx of elephants is occurring just as work itself (woodworking, in
our story) is evolving in a way that makes elephants’ strength essential. The
heavy lifting these adaptive, multidimensional, and collaborative animals
are particularly adept at will make the critical difference in the woodwork-
ing enterprise’s adaptation and success.
Business thinkers have suggested ways to improve the output of the
workshop: reengineering its work processes, crafting new business strategies,
and changing its culture, to name a few. But it has consistently escaped their
notice (perhaps because most of them are giraffes themselves) that the
worker is an entirely different animal. As the base around which all orga-
nizational performance revolves, this concept is a deceptively simple but
profound element in the dynamics of the workshop. Understanding it is
essential to accomplishing any other organizational change.
This book is designed to help business managers understand these
structural changes and turn them to an advantage. It presents a new frame-
work for managing, testing it against research data and the real experiences
of four very different companies. It is organized in four parts, each begin-
ning with a statement by a thought leader—Peter Senge, Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi, Robert Reich, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter—that connects
that leader’s insightful work in management, psychology, or economics to
the book’s central ideas.
Part 1 describes the three converging forces that are shaping a new
American business environment. As organizations grasp this new reality,
described in Chapters 1 through 3, it alters who can help them succeed
best. Chapter 4 describes the qualities of these contributors and the talents
they bring.
Part 2 (Chapters 5 through 9) describes five strategies organizations can
use to adapt to the new reality. These adaptive strategies build on one an-
other and begin with fundamental decisions about people and organiza-
tional values.
Preface xi
Part 3 offers research evidence showing how the adaptive strategies
described in Part 2 affect business results. Chapter 10 shows how employee
performance is measurably affected. When employees are more effective,
customers have a superior experience, as the research in Chapter 11 shows.
And when employees are more productive and customers have a better
experience, shareholder value is improved, as shown in Chapter 12.
And finally, Part 4 (Chapters 13 through 16) presents the stories of four
very different companies, exploring what made them decide to manage in
an adaptive way, what approach they used (each is unique), and what hap-
pened as a result. These real-life examples show how it all comes together.