The Harvard Business Review recently titled an article that ‘The Best Leaders are great Teachers’. Priyan Fernando proves this interesting combination, being more than a business leader, to also being a teacher for the team of people who worked with him for over three decades as a Senior Executive, and later, an EVP at American Express. This energetic and charismatic leader has demonstrated some phenomenal results making him one of the most revered business leaders in the services industry. His focus was not just about work but extended to deeper wisdom of life, success and growth. He has categorically stated the importance of betting on people as a greater priority to betting just on strategy.
One has to but feel the passion that he displays towards his people each time one raises a business question to him. Having seen Priyan operate at a distinctive level, I can personally vouch for the magnetism that he can bring about. His ability to directly connect with individuals, motivate and inspire the teams to carry out even the most complex functions or projects is exceptional. Priyan is not alone in pitching his stake with his people. More and more leaders are recognizing the importance of an engaged team to build an effective work culture. Individual contributors are making way for group deliverables and accomplishments.
This creates a significant shift in the deliverables from the HR group. No more is HR a mere service provider to the organization. A traditionally run human resources department provides structure and the ability to meet business needs through managing the company’s most valuable resources – its employees. The new roles expected from HR are much more. HR leaders are being routinely considered as part of the top strategy team. HR leaders have as much a ‘seat’ on the table as do the others. No business strategy is ever considered complete without the significant inputs by HR.
The role of HR is changing in yet other ways too. Computers and systems processes have become prominent. Several tasks hitherto undertaken by humans are being automated. By increasing intelligence in the environment, humans need to keep one step ahead. Managing the new cognitive workforce is a new ball game that HR has ventured into. The omnipresent question is how far this will go. It is now possible to treat robots at par with their human counterparts. Robots get employee IDs, they have reporting supervisors, and need training. Thankfully they do not have interpersonal issues. But does this make robots candidates for being considered as employees? We don’t know the answer to that, but we do know that HR is an important contributor to the digital agenda of the organization.
Similar to HR, the Finance function too struggles to remain relevant. Technology has changed everything rapidly. The speed at which technological changes are taking place is far too greater than what most departments are capable of keeping up with. The advancement of newer techniques is creating an ever increasing expectation from the services. Use of big data for analytics, robotics for speed and efficiency, and artificial intelligence for cognitive assessments is being routinely infused in the services to provide meaningful management information for decision making. The world is progressively realizing that going digital is probably the only way to remain competitive
In this VUCA world, there is an intrinsic uncertainty in the cosmos. The best way to make a difference is by creating paradigm shifts i.e. fundamental change in the approach or underlying assumptions, to acknowledge the reality and swing into appropriate actions. If each company and person in the world wants to create a competitive advantage over the rest, it must replace the usual way of thinking about or doing something by a new and different way of thinking. New research is finding new markets and new analytics provides new solutions. And, new paradigm shifts enable achieving success and significance.
Table of Contents
COVER FEATURE
The Power of Self, People and Shared Services
WORDS OF WISDOM FROM A LEGENDARY BUSINESS LEADER
ReDefining the HR for Competitive Edge
A REPORT ON THE 2nd NATIONAL HR LEADERSHIP SUMMIT 2018
The Race for Relevance
TECHNOLOGY OPPORTUNITIES FOR THE FINANCE FUNCTION – AN EXCERPT FROM ACCA’S RESEARCH REPORT
Leadership Highway for Process Revolution
A REPORT ON SSF’s EVENING OF POWERFUL CONVERSATIONS
Data-Data Everywhere, but Not a Drop of Value
A CASE STUDY – LEVERAGING ANALYTICS TO DRIVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
3 ‘I’ Framework for Competitive Edge
A USEFUL CAPABILITY FRAMEWORK FOR HR TRANSFORMATION
