Georgetown University

School of Business

MGMT550 Information Technology and Business Strategy

Changing the mindset

From personnel management to human resource management and beyond

Ewan Sutherland

Human resources management

Human resource management involves all management decisions and actions that affect the nature of the relationship between the organisation and employees--its human resources.

Beer et al., Harvard Business School

The emergence of HRM

• increasing international competition
• increasing size and complexity of organisations
• slower growth in traditional economic sectors
• greater government involvement
• increasing education of workforce
• more concern for career and life satisfaction
• changes in workforce profile (age, sex & skills)

Human resource management

• influence of people
• human resource flow
• reward systems
• work systems

The benefits of good HRM

• commitment
• competence
• cost-effectiveness

Leadership

To manage is to lead, and to lead others requires that one enlist the emotions of others to share a vision as their own

Henry Boettinger, Formerly, Director of Corporate Planning, AT&T

Leadership

People cannot be managed. Inventories can be managed, but people must be led.

H Ross Perot, Founder, Electronic Data Systems

Making it happen means involving the hearts and minds of those who have to execute and deliver. It cannot be said often enough that these are not the people at the top of the organisations, but those at the bottom.

Sir John Harvey-Jones, Making it Happen

Nowadays we are all leaders

• identify change
• develop change
• encourage change
• welcome change

Managing change

When you want to change people you need courageous patience.

James I Owen, Deputy Commissioner, Internal Revenue Service

The manager as consultant

• coach
• counsellor
• leader
• mentor
• problem finder
• problem solver

Barriers to understanding

• cultural assumptions
• personal defensive filters and biases
• expectations based on previous experiences

Organisational politics

Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527)

In victory vengeance, In defeat malice.

Teams

• increasingly the focus of work is in teams
• a flexible way to solve problems
• easily wound up when over
• requires high levels of commitment
• individuals may work in many teams

A vision of a new organisaton

• radical decentralisation
• intense interdependence
• demanding expectations
• transparent performance standards
• distributed leadership
• breaking down of boundaries
• networking and reciprocity

Network organisations

• goals
• experience
• decision-making
• responsibility
• accountability
• trust
• timing
• work
• recognition
• rewards

The knowledge platform

Intellectual capital

Knowledge that exists in an organisation that can be used to create differential advantage.

K Hugh Macdonald, ex-ICL

Applications of intellectual capital

• research
• development
• design
• tailoring
• application

If you don't keep your intellectual capital refreshed it will erode

• identify it
• utilise it
• maintain it

Development

• recruitment
• education
• training

Organisational culture

A pattern of basic assumptions - invented, discovered by a given group as it learns to cope with its problems of external adaptation and internal integration - that has worked well enough to be considered valid and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, and feel in relations to those problems.

Ed Schein, Organisational Culture and Leadership

Levels of organisational culture

• artifacts and creations
  • technology
  • art
  • visible and audible patterns of behaviour
• values
  • testable in physical environment
  • testable only by social consensus
• basic assumptions
  • relationship to environment
  • nature of reality, time and space
  • nature of human nature
  • nature of human relationships

Organisational culture

An appropriate organisational culture can compensate for the failings of the structure and processes

Michel Crozier

• principle of simplicity
• principle of autonomy
• principle of governance by culture

Organisational design

a planned programme across the organisation to evaluate and improve the processes and structures by which the organisation operates

Guidelines in user involvement

• senior management should initiate the process
• functional management should immediately follow senior management
• IT professional should be involved
  • to begin technical discussions
  • to brief management on development in applications
• Users should be included sufficiently early to build trust
  • to build trust
  • but only once management are certain what they are doing
• before users are brought in management should be able to answer
  • are we ready to expand the group?
  • are we clear on the objectives?
  • do we have the correct technological perspectives?
  • have we considered organisational issues?

Readings in HRM

• Tom Peters "A Passion for Excellence" & "In Search of Excellence"
• Shoshana Zuboff "In the Age of the Smart Machine"
• Rosabeth Moss Kanter "The Change Masters & When Giants Learn to Dance"
• Ed Schein "Process consultancy" "Organisational Culture and Leadership"
• James Belasco "Teaching the Elephant to Dance"

Changing the mind set

• HRM is much, much more than personnel management
• we are all leaders
• we must all work in teams
• individuals and organisations must learn
• organisational culture is both a boon and a hindrance