Insights on Emerging Trends and the Future of Human Resource Development

Hot on my rapid reviews of Advances in Developing Human Resources (a change from my professional origines in Materials, Minerals and Mining). The foresight focus of my management and MBA blog can hardly ignore this paper, Abstract and link below. Hopefully the DRH's et al will recover from the 2008 financial crises and 2009 considered by The Economist to be the year of the CFO-Chief Financial Officer.

Normally managers who share my professional discipline as a metallurgist and materials scienctist and engineer do not mistake natural physical resources, dead matter as opposed to the human-kind. Could using hard science concepts for the very much softer shorter-life variety be at the problem at heart?
Abstract:
The problem and the solution. The future holds countless challenges. The future cannot be known, and it must not be ignored. Understanding trends and indicators emerging today helps us to proactively think about potential future developments and positions us to constructively shape them. This article reports on a survey of 55 human resource development (HRD) and HRD-related practitioners and academics who identified trends, variables, and challenges that they believe are affecting and will affect the profession during the next 15 to 20 years. by

Refs:
Ruona, W. E. A., Lynham, S. A., & Chermack, T. J. (2003). Insights on emerging
trends and the future of human resource development. Advances in Developing
Human Resources, 5(3), 272-282
Univ. of Georgia, Texas A&M Univ., Univ. of Minnesota resp.

Abstract:
The problem and the solution. The future holds countless challenges. The future cannot be known, and it must not be ignored. Understanding trends and indicators emerging today helps us to proactively think about potential future developments and positions us to constructively shape them. This article reports on a survey of 55 human resource development (HRD) and HRD-related practitioners and academics who identified trends, variables, and challenges that they believe are affecting and will affect the profession during the next 15 to 20 years.

Ref:
Link to Sage Publications
Key words:emerging trends; HRD future role; HRD challenges

in reference to: Sidewiki - Toolbar Help (view on Google Sidewiki)

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change

No work or blog on Foresight today can afford not to take into account the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change .

The site is too rich to do justice to their work in the time I have alloted to my post.

Lets say that my post is timely in respect to "The next major round of negotiations will be held in Bonn, 29 March-8 April. It will be preceded by pre-sessional events, directly related to the work of the sessions, which will start on 26 March. Additional information on these events is available here (pdf 160 kB) .

More...

The site is also the main base reference for official data (the reviewed facts) together with the methodology and science under pinning the data.

More...

An anchor link is provided on the right-hand side bar "Major Foresight Issues"

My Serious Foresight Ommission -IPCC Climate Change Senario Work:Unfinished From ommissions to => O-missions and E-missions, JOBS

From GHG-CO2 Emissions and Climate Change, longstanding amnesia and ommissions to =>

O-missions and E-missions. ( ROI-Return on Innovation, fair distribution via Jobs cf. for example: Green Jobs - Good Jobs approach by Appollo Alliance of USA )

Be part of the solution not part of the problem.

I simple wish to record one of the most important foresight works to date, the practically incontestable uncovering of man's role in climate change and global warming by the excellant work in progress by the UN_ IPCC International Panel on Climate Change. I have added 2 links to my foresight links.
1. IPCC-online reports.
2. IPCC-report on Emission sources

More reports...

And since nothing is as simple as it appears, Quirin Schiermeier of Nature has launched a debat

along the lines entitled:

The "Claim that the challenge of cutting emissions has been underestimated is debated."[Link-html]

Most constructive informative comments may be viewed at the above link

Modern Management and The World in 2009, The old year out, the new year in.

The Economist has issued it’s latest online forecast edition: In Modern Management and The World in 2009. Before the ink was dry the terrible news of events in India fell.

All news and comments taking a rear-seat in comparison with the very sad news of these events. The Economist reacted immediately with a very timely, thoughtful and well-balanced article in The Economist online .

In spite of this and an Airbus flight trial crash with more irreversible losses, I still wish to bring my readers attention to the earlier Economist leader “Modern Management and The World in 2009.” Although their previsions are doleful, they are yet far from the seriousness of the above events.

On the contrary, in spite of the pain announced for 2009 the ironic style and humour of the journalist are both a warning to all concerned and a source of inspiration and hope to fight the worst effects.

I know of no more succinct crash course in modern management, summary of recent managerial trends over the last two or three decades with a short-term projection. (NB not a fact nor an event)

To quote outrageously from The Economist

I. Modern management: Lesson I A-Z: All you need is cash.

"Lately, the guiding principle for managers everywhere has been to gather up whatever cash they can find, and then do their damnedest to keep as much of it as possible for as long as possible. This increasingly desperate search is changing modern management—not always for the better.

The increasingly desperate search for the stuff is changing modern management—not always for the better

SELDOM has corporate strategy been turned on its head so quickly:
-Barely a year ago, cash was a dangerous thing to accumulate: activist investors stalked companies, urging boards to return it to investors, to pay special dividends or to buy back shares.
-Ever since the 1980s the fashion had been to make companies as lean as possible, outsourcing all but your core competencies, expanding your just-in-time supplier system around the globe, loading up with debt to “leverage” your balance-sheet. Old-style defensive conglomerates, such as Arnold Weinstock’s General Electric Company, were dismantled. Companies that hoarded cash—even ones as good as Toyota and Microsoft—were viewed with suspicion.

-No longer! For many big American companies, the day of reckoning came two months ago when the deepening financial crisis brought about the abrupt closure of the overnight commercial-paper market. This briefly sent even the most solid companies into a desperate scramble to find money to meet such basic obligations as paying their staff. Since then, the guiding principle for managers everywhere has been to gather up whatever cash they can find, and then do their damnedest to keep as much of it as possible for as long as possible.

Source:
All you need is cash

II. The World in 2009: The year of the CFO - Chief Financial Officer.

Is due to the inimitable, entertaining Lucy Kellaway in Nov 19th 2008 From The World in 2009 print edition, courtesy of The Economist online. Ref & Link below

"Prepare for the year of the finance director. In 2009 the world will find out just how bad corporate balance sheets really are, and companies—most of which escaped the early effects of the credit crunch—will start to find it trickier to raise money. Add to that the upward push in costs and downward slide in demand, and the chief financial officer (CFO) will be called upon to shore up the P&L –(profit and losses) , too.
Corporate life won’t be funny


There will be a shift in the balance of power in the boardroom, which will affect how companies are managed, what it feels like to work in them, the culture of business and even its language. More »

Thinking outside the box (an over-rated activity at the best of times) will not be celebrated. Ticking boxes will be
No one will talk of EQ (“emotional intelligence quotient”) any more. It will be EVA (“economic value added”)
Goodbye “talent”, hello “staff”
Prepare for the year of the finance director. CFO –Chief Financial Officer Up DRH down
“Yet being a corporate foot-soldier in 2009 is not going to be enjoyable.”

And concludes
The firm financial leadership will be welcome in that it will help companies survive, yet being a corporate foot-soldier in 2009 is not going to be enjoyable.
-Moaning will be on the rise as inexorably as expenses will be on the decline.
-There will be less foreign travel, which will make work more efficient but duller.
-There will be no more free champagne in first class—it will be steerage only.
-Expense-account lunches and subsidised health clubs will be slashed, and stationery cupboards will be thinly stocked.
One blessed thing will be cut: weekend off-site meetings in luxury hotels.
-If managers feel the need to bond at all it will be more likely over a quick cup of tea from the vending machine.
-There will be no more laughter workshops led by an outsourced facilitator
—but then in the new world of 2009 there is not going to be a lot to laugh about.

Source:
The World in 2009: The year of the CFO - Chief Financial Officer.

Creating Tomorrow - Never so necessary, never so urgent? - Organisational Change Processes & Strategy

Critical comments with references (links) based on a white paper: "Creating a Value Driven Change Capability for Executing Organisational Strategy from Cranfield School of Management – April 2008" by Prof Chris Edwards and Rob Lambert of Cranfield School of Management.

Their leader quote is:
"As Darwin so aptly states the winners tomorrow may well not be today’s strongest, nor today’s most intelligent,but those most adaptable to change."

"Suffer-in-silence"? (JA)

For my generation and probably Prof. Edward's this could be an never ending refrain: Bob Dylan sang many years ago "The Times they are a changing "

The following quote also from the authors:
"Today with responsiveness and agility increasingly becoming the organisational focus, clear lines of responsibility for change are essential." provoked my comment as follows:

Although typical in management school & company jargon this could well conjure-up an image of a "Circus" in the minds of the worse critics, today the critics are most likely to be a disallusioned general public and we can be sure the humourists won't miss their target if they ever turn from their main political targets! Aren't we lucky, we scholars and bloggers?

I felt it was high-time to look again at this, apparently galvauded subject; "Organisational Change and Transformation"

A free white paper by the, UK-IT magazine & website ZD.Net, provided stimulation and ample material for my post.

The authors of the paper, Edwards & Lambert ascertain that there are many indications that the rate of organisational change / transformation is increasing with an associated increase in investment risk. Their paper was published in April 2008. In the light of what is common knowledge today - "financial crises, recession, increasing unemployment..." this appears to be a euphimism. As "insider management observers" the authers probably benefited from some privileged foresight.

The subject is most often treated as a management process topic. Edwards & Lambert consider that there is perhaps one more important issue:

"Maybe more important than an effective process is the unifying of responsibility for ‘creating tomorrow’".

This is not really revolutionary. It simply found resonance in me from my own knowledge and reading on management, notably what Peter Senge in the 5th Disciplne terms "The motivationg power of vision of a shared vision" Senge likens this to the elastic band pulling reaction pulling towards a shared vision and goal.

cf. my earlier post in my Sept. 2006 post: INNOVATION -THE WORTHWHILE PROJECT-Conversational styled, review of science's powerful tool "The Experimental Method" in politics and humanities from Blog.

"In many organisations responsibility for delivering today’s performance is clear whereas that for creating tomorrow is less so. "

I wonder if my Hypothesis in Recession and The Environment I – Climate Change -Root Causes and Solutions 26 Sept. 2008. and

Recession and The Environment II – Climate Change: Root Causes and Solutions
also in my "Conversations-on-Innovations" Blog
is to some extent substantiates of these "States of Affaires", the short vs the long view or again as Senge puts it "The Art of The Long View"!

Or again as some sceptics may put it "What is as opposed to what could or should be...?


"All of this investment in change is in an attempt to create a ‘better tomorrow’ for the organisation."

I believe, even the most causual of observers, like me for example, have noticed such apparently huge investments -often seen as real lay-Offs or simple stock-market - manipulation announcements?

My turn to ask the pundit's what is specifically the true, objective ROI-return on investment on such schemes whatever the errors underlined by the scholars?

Whatever, Edwards & Lambert have provided a useful summary paper on the subject raising many questions on change management and it's processes worth summarizing as follows:

An 80/20 rule: THE ANSWER IS IN THE QUESTIONS (QUESTIONING PROCESS MANAGEMENT!)

-Exactly who in an organisation aligns, prioritises and coordinates the portfolio of business change initiatives, ranging from IT enabled change to Six Sigma local projects as well as strategic imperatives defined by the Board?
-Who is responsible for creating organisational readiness for change? Who ensures that adequate business change resources are allocated to each initiative? Who mobilises the various groups that need to be involved in operationalising the change (IT, Organisational Development (OD), etc)? Who tests and signs off the change as suitable in terms of efficiency and compliance?
-Just who rigorously conducts post implementation investment reviews on business change programmes? Some of these tasks are frequently allocated to a Programme Office but such a group often exists to provide administrative and support services only; not a truly managerial capability, with real responsibility and authority. The above questions relate to responsibility for the creation of the organisation’s tomorrow and, as such, it could be said to be the CEO’s responsibility.

"But then everything is the CEO’s responsibility and he/she only has 16 working hours in each day! "

What !!! ?

Comment: Come on Edwards & Lambert... and a fat salary to pay for help but only an "outsider would dare say this, n'est ce pas!

In summary, it is considerably less clear who coordinates and operationalises the creation of tomorrow’s business than it is to understand who delivers today’s business.


Edwards & Lambert summarise the numerous ‘methodologies’ which have been proposed to achieve "successful transformation."
and extract main themes which they bring together to form an Organisation’s Change Capability. cf. Table labled Fig. 1.


The first four elements are concerned with developing an agreed change portfolio.
The literature stresses the criticality of the leadership team communally committing to this prioritised portfolio.

The remaining six elements are involved with the detailed planning, delivery and review of the change initiatives.

As outlinned above recent research undertaken at Cranfield by Professor Chris Edwards & Rob Lambert suggests that these six elements are necessary but they are insufficient, in themselves, to deliver the critical benefits(the famous bottom red-line profit or a more hollistic better future for all?). Realisation of these benefits is more closely associated with the formulation of an agreed change portfolio. (as discussed above.)

Edwards and Lambert state that:
"Their purpose in writing this article is to stimulate a debate so that organisations begin to enhance their capability for executing the business strategy. As the school report might say “More emphasis needed on ‘strategy execution’ and rather less on ‘creating the perfect business direction’”.

"Maybe more important than an
effective process is the unifying of
responsibility for ‘creating tomorrow’."

I can live with that, better, I can perhaps turn this into "I can live better with that", a more hollistic "Global Approach".

SOURCES & REFERENCES:

1. N° 8. Financial Management (Cranfield). In Top Ten White Papers curtesy of ZDNETUK, this Week Nov08 (Free upon sign on)

2. INNOVATION -THE WORTHWHILE PROJECT-Conversational styled, review of science's powerful tool "The Experimental Method" in politics and humanities

3. Recession and The Environment I – Climate Change -Root Causes and Solutions 26 Sept. 2008.

4. Recession and The Environment II – Climate Change: Root Causes and Solutions

Stop press on Recession 13Nov2008 17h00- !

Economic group OCDE says developed world in recession