March 2008 Archives

"Building the 21st Century HR Organization" - Part 1
by Dave Ulrich, Jon Younger, Wayne Brockbank

For HR to be a success it must start with a clear strategy that delivers value and a structure that reflects the organization of the company. To align HR with its business organizations, HR leaders must first understand the model of business they serve and implications for HR design.

In a recently published article we looked at companies along a grid of centralization - decentralization, which leads to three basic ways in which a company operates: holding company, functional organization, or allied/diversified organization (Lawler and Galbraith, 1995). We then look at the role of HR and appropriate HR structures for each of those organizational models.

Download Part 1 in our series "Building the 21st Century HR Organization" in .PDF format.

Additional Resources

	Many of the ideas in this article are discussed in How Leaders Build Value.

Companies spend millions on leadership development - only to get lukewarm results. Why? They rely on leadership competency models that identify generic traits (vision, direction, energy) without a supportive and systemic leadership architecture. Then they try to find and build next-generation leaders who fit the model. Result? Vanilla managers and executives who aren't equipped to manage their firm's unique challenges.

There's a better way. Build a leadership brand: a shared identify among your organization's leaders that differentiates what they can do from what your rivals' leaders can do.

In this short video, Norm Smallwood introduced the concept of Leadership Brand and how it can elevate market value and sharpen your competitive edge.



Additional Resources

The ideas in this video are explored in-depth in the recent book "Leadership Brand" by Norm Smallwood and Dave Ulrich published by Harvard Business Press.

I would like to welcome you to The RBL Review, the online HR journal and community of The RBL Group. Our goal is to offer new ways of thinking about Strategic HR and Leadership in the public, private and nonprofit sectors. We aim to help HR people run their organizations more productively, more competitively, and more creatively.

Articles and short videos, provided by RBL Group consultants, offer practical ideas based on the Firm's experience with the world's largest companies and on proprietary research and close ties to academic institutions and research partners.

I hope you enjoy The RBL Review.


Dave Ulrich, Co-founder The RBL Group