T H E P R O F E S S I O N A L J O U R N A L O F H R P E O P L E + S T R AT E G Y

VOLUME 39 | ISSUE 1 | WINTER 2016

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FEATURES

The Rise of the Chief Information Security Officer

Developing the Cyber Leadership Talent Pool

EXECUTIVE ROUNDTABLE

The Link Between Risk and Talent

Ensuring the Secure Enterprise: A Pivotal Role for HR

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S Y S

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T H E N E W T A L E N T

H R P E O P L E + S T R A T E G Y A N N U A L C O N F E R E N C E

A P R I L 1 0 - 1 3 + S C O T T S D A L E , A R I Z .

+ Navigation of the new technology environment in the workplace

+ Importance of building communities and diverse perspectives

+ New leadership paradigms that focus, in part, on organizational values

Join fellow HR executives for three days of thought-provoking discussions that will challenge your current thinking while focusing on three factors that are impacting the new talent ecosystem:

Learn more and register today at hrps.org/annual

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Louis Efron

AUTHOR & FORMER HEAD OF GLOBAL EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENTTESLA MOTORS

Hitendra Wadhwa

PROFESSOR OF PRACTICECOLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL & FOUNDERINSTITUTE FOR PERSONAL LEADERSHIP

Jennifer Golbeck

SCIENTIST, AUTHOR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSORUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

K E Y N O T E S P E A K E R S I N C L U D E :

John W. Boudreau, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR AND RESEARCH DIRECTORUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S MARSHALL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS

VOLUME 39 | ISSUE 1 | 2016

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H R P E O P L E + S T R A T E G Y A N N U A L C O N F E R E N C E

A P R I L 1 0 - 1 3 + S C O T T S D A L E , A R I Z .

+ Navigation of the new technology environment in the workplace

+ Importance of building communities and diverse perspectives

+ New leadership paradigms that focus, in part, on organizational values

Join fellow HR executives for three days of thought-provoking discussions that will challenge your current thinking while focusing on three factors that are impacting the new talent ecosystem:

Learn more and register today at hrps.org/annual

15-0

685

Louis Efron

AUTHOR & FORMER HEAD OF GLOBAL EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENTTESLA MOTORS

Hitendra Wadhwa

PROFESSOR OF PRACTICECOLUMBIA BUSINESS SCHOOL & FOUNDERINSTITUTE FOR PERSONAL LEADERSHIP

Jennifer Golbeck

SCIENTIST, AUTHOR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSORUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

K E Y N O T E S P E A K E R S I N C L U D E :

John W. Boudreau, Ph.D.

PROFESSOR AND RESEARCH DIRECTORUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA’S MARSHALL SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AND CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS

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ContentTHE PROFESSIONAL JOURNAL OF HR PEOPLE + STRATEGY

VOLUME 39 | ISSUE 1 | WINTER 2016

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FEATURES

10 The Rise of the Chief Information Security Officer Aileen Alexander and Jamey Cummings

14 Critical Success Factors for Cybersecurity Leaders Richard Klimoski

20 The Accident-Prone Personality Robert Hogan

24 CASE STUDY: Transforming the Safety Culture at New York City Transit Levi Nieminen, Carmen Bianco, and Daniel Denison

29 CASE STUDY: First, Do Less Harm: A Health Care Cultural Operating Case Study to Improve Safety Debra Ball, Bryan Kaminski, and Kevin Webb

34 CASE STUDY: High-Reliability HR: Preparing the Enterprise for Catastrophes Ben Baran

39 A Practical Guide to Emergency Communication Karen Garavatti

42 Human Capital Management: The Central Element of All Risk Mark L. Frigo and Mark C. Ubelhart

DEPARTMENTS

4 From the Executive Editor The People + Strategy Vision Marc Sokol

6 Perspectives Ensuring the Secure Enterprise POINT Mary Gentile COUNTERPOINTS Malcolm Harkins | Ronald Sanders | Judy Docter

47 Executive Roundtable The Link Between Risk and Talent Moderator: David Reimer Participants: Jillian Griffiths | Todd Hittle | Valerie Salembier | Gregg Tate

50 In 1st Person Enterprise Security and Safety from the Perspective of a Small HR Department: A Conversation with Paul Fricano Marc Sokol

56 Linking Theory + Practice Risky Leadership Networks: When Leaders Leak Strategic Knowledge Brad Winn

59 Book Reviews Corporate Stewardship: Achieving Sustainable Effectiveness Reviewed by Kathleen Ross The Other “F” Word: How Smart Leaders, Teams, and Entrepreneurs Put Failure to Work Reviewed by Kathleen Ross

PEOPLE + STRATEGY2

Executive EditorMarc Sokol, Ph.D.

Sage Consulting Resources

Associate EditorKathleen Ross, Ph.D.

Healthy Companies International

Perspectives EditorAnna Tavis, Ph.D.

New York University

Linking Theory & Practice EditorBrad Winn, Ph.D.

Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University

Executive Roundtable editorDavid Reimer

Merryck & Co.

Editors-at-LargeYochanan Altman, Ph.D.

Middlesex University Business School

David Creelman, M.B.A. Creelman Research

Alison Romney Eyring, Ph.D. Organisation Solutions

Steven Steckler EMD Millipore

Hala Khayr Yaacoub, Ph.D. University of Balamand

HR PEOPLE + STRATEGY EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE

Chair of the BoardRichard Vosburgh, Ph.D.

RMV Solutions

Vice Chair of the BoardSimon King

Bristol-Myers Squibb

TreasurerCathy Malaer

UniGroup

SecretaryKim McEachron

Genomic Health

HR PEOPLE + STRATEGY HEADQUARTERS

Executive Director Lisa Connell

Managing EditorMary Barnes

Art DirectorJohn R. Anderson Jr.

Senior Design SpecialistShirley E.M. Raybuck

THE PROFESSIONAL JOURNAL OF HR PEOPLE + STRATEGY

HR People + Strategy is a dynamic association of human resource and business executives committed to improving organizational performance by creating a global network of individuals to function as business partners in the application of strategic human resource management practices.

HR People + Strategy continuously seeks to build recognition from business leaders and the HR community for the critical role of HR as a strategic business partner in achieving higher levels of organizational success. In support of this mission, HR People + Strategy:

• Serves as a global forum for presenting the latest thinking and information on the HR implications of key business issues and strategic HR practices.

• Offers a broad range of comprehensive publications and professional development programs with distinguished human resource scholars, practitioners, and business leaders.

• Builds networks of diverse individuals to exchange leading-edge HR ideas, information, and experiences.

The Five Pillars of Knowledge

The following five knowledge areas are those HR People + Strategy believes are the most critical and strategic to HRM and HR best practices. HR People + Strategy has identified these pillars of knowledge through extensive research on human resources management and organizational development. These five areas drive the content and outcomes of all HRPS educational activities, from conferences to webcasts to content in our People + Strategy journal.

• Build a Strategic HR Function. Enhancing the impact of the profession

• HR Strategy and Planning. Ensuring excellence in human capital management

• Leadership Development. Impacting leadership skills and attitudes individually and collectively

• Organizational Effectiveness. Strengthening the organization’s effectiveness in achieving its intended outcomes

• Talent Management. Securing diverse talent to meet the organization’s future needs at all levels

The People + Strategy journal is published quarterly by HR People + Strategy.

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©Copyright 2016 HR People + Strategy. All rights reserved. Permission must be obtained from HR People + Strategy to reproduce any article in any form by any means, electronic or otherwise, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system. To obtain reprint rights, visit www.copyright.com.

People + Strategy SubscriptionDigital Only: Provides access to the latest four (4) journals in digital format. Current members: included as part of annual dues; affiliate members: $49.95; libraries and academic professionals: $69 nonmembers: $99.

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HRPS Membership DuesIndividual Membership: $495 (includes subscription to People + Strategy). Visit hrps.org for more information.

AdvertisingPeople + Strategy accepts advertisements of educational value to the HR People + Strategy membership, including professional development resources, books, publications, and other materials, as approved by the HR People + Strategy Publications Committee. For advertising rates and other information, visit www.hrps.org/advertise.

SubmissionsArticle submission guidelines are available online at www.hrps.org. Look for the Call for Papers for each issue.

CorrespondenceAddress editorial inquiries to: Marc Sokol, Ph.D.

editor@hrps.org

PEOPLE + STRATEGY6

Perspectives | POINT | COUNTERPOINT

Ensuring the Secure EnterpriseBy Marc Sokol

The challenge of enterprise secu-rity, at first glance, seems one of having the right technology,

a more consistent process, and avoid-ing others with bad intentions. Then again, perhaps you have come across the Pogo cartoon phrase, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” The author of our lead perspective, as well as the other thought leaders providing com-mentary, tell us that in the end we are responsible for what happens. It comes down to awareness of our own human nature, our habits, and the unintended consequences of structures we create in pursuit of specific objectives. It also comes down to enabling choice and the capacity to act in the face of difficult decisions. Building this into your orga-nizational culture and preparing teams to think together—before, during, and after a crisis—this is the real opportu-nity for HR professionals.

Mary Gentile, author of the book and program, Giving Voice to Values, is a global authority on why people choose not to speak up, and what we can do to foster speaking up when it matters most. In her lead perspective, Gentile shares a view on the human factor in enterprise security, along with research that tells us it’s more than building a better mouse-trap.

The commentaries that follow each build upon the initial perspective.

Malcolm Harkins, a deeply experi-enced chief information security officer, provides concrete example of how people are both the cause and cure for information security issues.

Ron Sanders, former chief HR officer for the U.S. Intelligence Community, the IRS, and the Defense Department’s civilian workforce, shares his observa-tion of habit and response as the critical human factors that impact enterprise security. Ron also sees effective response coming from human resources, and how we can access the levers of orga-

nizational DNA to enhance enterprise security.

Judy Docter, the chief human re-sources officer for a financial institution, provides a final commentary, showing how we put intention into action, and how an HR team comes together to build that culture of risk management called for by other thought leaders. Culture, in this case, isn’t just a lofty concept; it’s a set of tangible tactics that give voice to individuals and teams across the organization.

If you believe effective enterprise security and risk management requires intentional action before, during, and after critical events, then this issue of Perspectives is for you. After reading the lead perspective and commentaries that follow, you can contact any of the authors or me directly. Let us know what your company is doing to ensure a secure enterprise.

Marc Sokol is executive editor of People + Strategy. He can be reached at Marc.Sokol@SageHRD.com.

POINT

The Human Factor in Enterprise SecurityBy Mary C. Gentile

At its heart, enterprise risk and enter-prise security come down to the human factor. This includes tangible and critical arenas for HR risk management, such as working with risks potentially associated with engaging third-party service providers, protection of com-pany data, outright fraud, issues of physical safety, and numerous but less tangible risks to good organizational decision-making that arise from false or incomplete information. In all of these cases, ensuring enterprise security re-quires more than systems of data flow, approval processes, and monitoring systems.

The most logical and well-commu-nicated control system is useless if it is not observed, and employees can find

Perspectives | POINT | COUNTERPOINT

PEOPLE + STRATEGY14

By Richard Klimoski

T he chief information security officer (CISO) role is evolving. Given the dynamic and evolving nature of cyber threats, the key to being effective as a senior cyber leader is to build and maintain credibility. Both the potential

cyber leader and his or her supporting organization have a role to play in building and maintain credibility in the eyes of key stakeholders. In this article I offer several suggestions on how to go about doing this.

According to GlaxoSmithKline CISO Robert Coles, “The primary job of the CISO is to convince key stakeholders that threats to cybersecurity should not be seen somehow as representing an acceptable risk.” While most managers have had to come to grips with enterprise risk in the areas of finance, operations or even human resources, the cyber risk domain represents uncharted territory. The reality is that the scope of threats to the enterprise posed by such things as denial of service, theft of intellectual property, identity theft and loss of customer can be enormous.

Traditionally the responsibility for enterprise risk management falls to the “chiefs” who make up the senior leadership team of the company (e.g. CEO, COO,

Critical Success Factors for Cybersecurity LeadersNot Just Technical Competence

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CFO, CTO, and CIO). In a publically traded organization, one might expect that the board of directors also have a role to play. But if every member of a leadership team is responsible when it comes to cybersecurity, then who is really in charge? Based on the many reports of cybersecuri-ty breaches and the huge loss estimates reported every day in the popular press, it appears that real leadership in this domain has been lacking.

The CISO Role Depends on CredibilityThe CISO represents a new role as potential member of the top management team. In general, he or she holds deep knowledge of the risk potential of information technology and has the business acumen necessary for a deep appre-ciation of business processes that need to be installed and maintained to be successful as a firm.

Kathleen Richards, editor of Information Security Maga-zine points out that the CISO position is currently found in firms with 1000 or more employees. In these larger firms the CISO has a “dotted line” relationship with key execu-tives in IT operations, data center management, corporate compliance, and enterprise risk and privacy officers. She quotes Bruce Brody, a past CISO in several government agencies and now the chief cybersecurity strategist at Cubic Corporation, “…the person who would be the CISO needs to have the ability to communicate across the divide of senior management and engineering [but] be equally comfortable in the coat-and-tie boardroom as in the Hawaiian shirt-and-jeans back office and IT department” (Richards, 2014). Richards also reports that the market researcher Gartner recommends that companies with as few as 150 employees consider hiring one.

CIO and CISO: BFFs or Inevitably At Odds?The issue of the most appropriate reporting relationships for this new position has received a great deal of attention. Much of this has focused on how to link the roles of the CISO to the CEO and chief information officer (CIO) and whether the CISO should “have a chair at the board table.” The emerging thought on this is that the CISO and CIO really have different mandates. Bruce Brody, CISO at Price-waterhouseCoopers puts it this way: The job of the CIO is “power, ping, and pipe,” while the role of the CISO is to “defend, react respond, and recover.”

Clearly they must work closely together and separating the former from being a member of the IT operation may work against this. However, Greg Shumard, who served for 11 years at CIGNA and who is currently an advisor at Tena-ble Network Security, makes it clear that when it comes to the inevitable disagreements regarding investments in such things as IT technology, cybersecurity threat mitigation or data governance policy, the CISO must have “an escalation path.” He argues for ensuring that that there is the “power of the position to escalate disagreements to the appropriate CEO or Board position for review consistent with risk assumption guide-lines” (TechTarget, 2013).

John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, supports this point of view. Shumard also notes that when the CIO and CISO go together before Boards together their request for

resources to deal with cyber threats or for policy support would be like a “one-two punch” and thus be seen as much more credible (CIO Journal, 2015). All this said a recent sur-vey of where the CISO “fits in” to the leadership structure found that 47 percent reported to their CEO, 45 percent to the CIO, and 4 percent to the chief compliance officer. Only 2 percent report to the COO or CFO (ThreatTrack Security, 2014).

How CISOs Add ValueThe details of the CISO role are only now being fleshed out. One way to characterize the responsibilities for this new C-level position can be found in survey results by the Ponemon Institute asking a sample of 113 CISOs what they consider the “best day on the job” (reported in Richards, 2014). According to respondents, when it comes to dealing with cyber threat-related issues a best day would involve having:

• Identified and system vulnerability (19 percent)

• Stopped a cyber crime (32 percent)

• Solved a cyber crime (33 percent)

• “Protected” a colleague from risk (5 percent)

• Secured funding (3 percent)

• Persuaded management (3 percent)

• Educated management and the Board (3 percent)

• Received recognition (2 percent)

While the role or position of CISO is still being shaped, a few things are becoming clear regarding practices that he or she might employ in order to be effective.

A recent report published by the IBM Center for Applied Insights captured several ways the CISO can add value to the firm:

• Contribute to the development of a strong strategy around enterprise risk management with special atten-tion to cyber threats

• Promote a comprehensive risk management platform

• Establish effective relationships with operational man-agers by understanding their needs, issues and con-cerns

• Exhibit the practice of extensive, continuous and effective communications around risk threats and risk management opportunities

The report profiled several companies (Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, BB&T, and Bharti Airtel Limited) and their respective CISOs (Shamia Naidoo, Ken Kirby, Felix Mohan) as illustration of these contributions.

Credibility as a Critical Success FactorThe importance of winning influence with other executives is clearly in the critical path to a CISO’s success. Senior cyber leaders require organizational leadership and executive management support to be able to effectively carry out their responsibilities. Joseph Granneman CEO of Search Security.com believes that this can only happen if the CISO exhibits skill listening to executives’ needs and matching them to in-formation security objectives. This requires extensive CISO

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Executive Roundtable: The Link Between Risk and Talent

How Organizations Are Mitigating Security Risks

In our series of conversations in which we engage members of the C-suite for their take on a major issue facing today’s executives, in this issue, Executive Roundtable editor David Reimer talks to two

chief operating officers, one CEO, and one head of HR about the link between risk and talent. It is not an academic question in this era of rapid disruption, regulation, and existential threat. The business model, conduct, and regulatory risks organizations face are viewed as hugely strategic as well as tactical.

Thus, there is often hesitation among executives to speak openly (as we discovered when we approached several executives) about how they are currently assessing human-factor risks and addressing them more effectively, and where they are still grappling with implications not yet fully understood. The group here represents a cross-section of publicly and privately held companies ranging from mid-cap to global in scale. For all, though in varying ways, talent has become an integrated conversation with risk.

Executive Roundtable Participants

Jillian Griffiths Chief Operating Officer Clayton Dubelier & Rice

Todd Hittle Chief Financial Officer / Chief Operating Officer American Association of Advertising Agencies

Valerie Salembier Chief Executive Officer Authentics Foundations

Gregg Tate Head of Global Talent Adidas

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People + Strategy: How does your or-ganization view risk differently today than pre-financial crisis?

Jillian Griffiths: Deep talent risk analy-sis hasn’t always been a part of private equity’s (PE) processes. But today, PE can’t buy at seven times, expect the fi-nancial markets to increase, and then sell at 10 times. For us to be successful, we need to have management teams that are able to execute. We need to be able to see sustainable operation-al improvements. That goes back to people—do you have the right people to execute your strategy? And so it’s become an increased focus for us in terms of who the people are in the companies we acquire—where is the talent, and do we have the right depth and breadth? We sit down with each CEO and human capital leader twice a year and collaboratively discuss the direct reports to the CEO. We look at a heat map of performance, potential, retention concern, and succession. If we want to have a good return on our investment, and for the company to have long-term success, we need to have the right team. It’s a more disciplined approach of what we look at when we analyze risk.

Todd Hittle: Transparency and talent have changed. The talent challenge is at the forefront in advertising. Cre-atives can do lots of different things today, and so it’s incredibly challeng-ing. As cool as Mad Men was, Millenni-als don’t see traditional ad agencies as sexy compared to Google or Face-book. Our quarterly board meeting was yesterday, and when talent came up, the CEOs around the room all sat up in their chairs and basically said the same thing: Talent is the biggest challenge we’re facing, not only in terms of getting the best and brightest, but because we’re working them hard, and we’re understaffed because of other dynamics in the business, and so they’re leaving.

Gregg Tate: We’ve all been talking for years about the war for talent. As Josh Bersin of Deloitte rightly predicted at the end of 2013, “The war for talent is over. Talent won.” People are no

longer lining up outside our door waiting for us to pick them. We have to go out now and present ourselves to talent—we have to draw talent rather than having folks just come to us.

P+S: How does risk show up differently now, in day-to-day terms?

Jillian Griffiths: Clients and partners are demanding more diversity. Inves-tors increasingly have an environmen-tal, social, and governance focus and are asking a lot more about a diverse workforce. In private equity, you have limited partners coming back and asking, “What are you doing about talent?” You didn’t used to have those questions. Now it’s not only about the management teams, but also about who is working for you, who is on your boards, the service providers you use, and so forth. It’s forcing us to have those conversations right at the top of the organization and helping us to think carefully about the talent we bring to the table.

That’s a big shift, because culture doesn’t change overnight, especially in bigger organizations. It needs to filter down. You can say all you want at the top, but there are so many layers. It takes consistency and discipline, even if you know what needs to get done.

Todd Hittle: I mentioned transparency earlier. New challenges brought on by technology—programmatic, viewability, ad blocking, fraud—have made trans-parency one of the biggest challeng-es agencies face today. Combined with the fact that it’s much more common for many accounts to be up for bid all at once, that changes the conversa-tion—makes it more complicated—and it means that there are more of those complex conversations happening. You couple that shift to the talent risk I mentioned earlier, and there’s more work to do everywhere at once with fewer people to do it. The stakes are very high.

Valerie Salembier: It’s interesting, because I think the print industry fac-es a slightly different dilemma. Most newspapers have always operated at a loss…

Todd Hittle: Unless you had a great classifieds section.

Valerie Salembier: Right! But of course digital killed the classifieds. Now, mag-azines have historically been profitable. But magazines that are still making money are profitable because of the niche markets they serve. For instance, fashion magazines still provide a superi-or experience to what the Internet can deliver. Meanwhile, all profit from print divisions is going into investment in dig-ital. The follow-on from that is position reductions in the core print business, with the net result that most executives in print aren’t doing two jobs, they’re doing three.

How that translates to the day-to-day is that sometimes the leaders who run those profitable businesses have in-creased power and sometimes increased impunity for bad behavior. The twin excuses of “I deliver profits,” and “I’m over-stretched,” can be used to justify behavior that’s not actually justifiable, and in fact increases conduct risk.

P+S: Was there a moment for you when your own definition of “risk” changed?

Gregg Tate: When I was in Asia, like many companies, we were so focused on the region as this mega-market that it was easy to get deluded by the fact that it was a mix of emerging and mature markets with all kinds of different practices. In different places, we’d encounter behavior that is not the way we conduct business. You’d sit and talk to people and they’d say, “But this is how things have worked in this economy in the past.” You had to change the conversation, and calmly and respectfully explain that this is not the way we operate. We have a zero tolerance policy for this. At the same time, you have to manage people from very different cultural backgrounds and markets who might be freaking out and shouting into the telephone, “I can’t be-lieve they did X, Y, and Z!” And we had to educate those folks on that side that though something wasn’t done right, it wasn’t a huge deal—it’s just part of the learning curve when doing business on a global scale.

To be clear, I’m not talking about

VOLUME 38 | ISSUE 2 | SPRING 2015 49

illegal behavior—that we dealt with de-cisively. But there’s a fine line between the appreciation for a different culture and your personal ethics, and the ethics of your organization. A local practice that we nix may not be a legal question, but rather a company decision about how we do or do not conduct business.

We all come out of different perspec-

tives and frames of reference based on where we grew up. We’ve had differ-ent values built into us, experienced different living conditions and different economic conditions. We’ve cut our teeth on different cultures. If I just drop someone from one culture into a re-gional management role in a different culture, it’s going to be tough. It’s not about whether I’m Chinese, Pakistani, or American, or 25, 40, or 70. It’s about what I grew up around. Part of risk management is learning to account for that.

P+S: What is HR’s role in helping address risk? What does business need from talent experts?

Todd Hittle: Management doesn’t know what it doesn’t know. We need HR to really help us figure out more than just how to reduce headcount from 10 to five, because if that’s all we do, those remaining five people are going to be really unhappy. Great HR partners can help leaders figure out a way to bridge that—to bridge corporate goals with what the employees want and need. There are trade-offs a leader can then make, including how he or she per-sonally engages talent. In my business, if you can make a home and a culture for people so they feel good, then you are largely immunized against the lure of more money, more glamour. But we managers are sometimes in the dark about that.

Jillian Griffiths: There’s more need for HR to be at the table to help translate the business strategy to talent. I know they haven’t always been at the table—sometimes they haven’t been asked. But now they have to be at the table because organizations are multigenerational. The way you translate messages to each may be very different, and you need to

be able to adapt how you take the strat-egy and address the talent at different levels and among different generations. What I need from HR is more creativity than they’ve ever had to have before.

Todd Hittle: And to kind of be bilin-gual: The younger, lower level staff, they speak a different language. And the lon-ger-term leaders, they sometimes only speak the language of business.

Jillian Griffiths: Agreed. I think that everyone in the organization needs to understand that. If HR doesn’t under-

stand the business, then how can you create the strategy to align? Sometimes the business doesn’t take time to explain it to HR. You need to get everyone in the room. Everyone needs to under-stand and speak about the business.

Gregg Tate: One of the things I like in HR practitioners is people who have had multifaceted careers. Learning how to deliver on the business front and, honestly, having to deal with HR people when I was managing a factory, was criti-cal for me. In addition to [backgrounds that are] multifunctional, I like multi-cultural; it gives you a different appreci-ation for what’s out there. It’s not a one size fits all world anymore.

The role that HR has to play is talent manager, sure, but also strategic partner. You’ve got to be in line with your busi-ness partner. HR has to feel the busi-ness pressures and ask, without being prompted, “Where are we going?”

HR should also be an advisor and call out when we don’t have the talent for that, or we aren’t ready for that. But, we also have to make sure we’re building the needed competence. That’s what HR must do. HR has to be plugged in to the outside world, and also into the business, and know what talent from the outside world we’ll want or need to hire, and then where to find it.

HR has to be plugged-in to the outside world, and also into the business, and know what

talent from the outside world we’ll want or need to hire, and then where to find it.

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