Go from Good HR to Great HR Leaders

You can accomplish anything in life, provided that you do not mind who gets the credit. – Harry S. Truman

I was inspired to a great extent when I read the best selling business book, Good to Great by Jim Collins. Taking some of the ideas from this great author, I felt that I need to write an article which would touch the heart of every HR to assume a bigger role in their company thus becoming GREAT HR LEADERS.

In order to become great, you must be willing to ask the “brutal questions” of yourself and your business if you are going to identify and remove the obstacles that are preventing you from moving ahead. What are some of the brutal questions that you have to ask yourself before you launch wholeheartedly towards your organizational goals?

Leadership is all about making people disciplined, making their thoughts disciplined & action disciplined. From a highly capable individual who makes productive contributions through talent, knowledge, skills and good work habits an HR has to climb to the next step in the ladder by becoming a Contributing Team Member who contributes individual capabilities to achievement of group objectives and works effectively with other in a group setting. From the Contributing Team Member to become a Competent Manager, the HR organizes people and resources toward the effective and efficient pursuit of pre-determined objectives. From this level, he climbs himself to the position of Effective Leader by catalyzing commitment to and vigorous pursuit of a clear and compelling vision, stimulating higher performance standards. Finally, to reach to the top level & terming himself as an HR Leader he slowly builds enduring greatness through paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional will. In other words, irrespective of your position / status in your organization, a good HR has 5 level hierarchy to become a great HR. In the truest sense, this is what a CEO EXPECTS FROM HR in the changing global scenario.

LEVEL 5 = HUMILITY + WILL

Whenever you do a strategic planning for a company, you start with the session with four pertinent questions.

Where are we now? In order to get the right answer, we have to gather data and information from every part of the company to develop a crystal-clear picture of starting point especially with regard to sales, market position and profitability apart from the routine / mundane tasks which the department of HR is involved with.

The second question, we need to constantly ask, where would we ideally like the company to be in the future? It is a difficult question to answer. In order to get an answer, we need to idealize and practice future orientation. In other

words, we imagine that we can make the company into anything we like in the years ahead and thus create a perfect vision of what the company would look like if we were successful in every aspect.

The third question, we need to ask is that how did we get to where we are today? What did we do right? What would you do differently? What have been the biggest successes so far, and why did they occur? What have we failed at, and what are the reasons for it? Remember the activities which we have performed viz a viz the results. Those managers who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.

The fourth question we normally ask and the answer is always, what do we do now, to get from where we are to where we want to go? Based on the experience of some of the great organizations, what should we be doing more of or less of? What should we start doing that we are doing today? What should we stop doing altogether?

If we could get the right answers and plough these answers correctly through people cohesively, consistently and determinedly, we truly become great performers leading the company’s to great standards getting the title HR LEADERS.

Leading from good to great does not mean coming up with the answers and then motivating everyone to follow your messianic vision. It means having the humility to grasp the fact that you do not yet understand enough to have the answers and then to ask the questions that will lead to the best possible insights.

This write up is an inspiration of several books which I have been going through for over several months.

1. Good to Great – Jim Collins2. Goals – Brian Tracy.3. Get Paid More & Promoted Faster – Brian Tracy.

The said write up has been written by Iyer Subramanian, attached to Bombay Chamber of Commerce & Industry. E Mail: iyerpdkgnm@yahoo.com Cell No: 9892523163