Strategic Response - Regina Miller

Second in my series of an ongoing attempt to respond to the wonderful comments that are being offered on the “Strategic HR” series.

Regina Miller is the CEO of The Seventh Suite, a strategic HR consultancy. I found Regina’s blog by following the links from the Recruiting.com blogroll. I have since grown into a fan of Regina’s insights and wisdom. Reading her bio reminds me that there are business people out there that get into HR because they believe it is the best place to get strategic leverage in and for an organization.

Regina wrote:

My take is that the best way for HR to be strategic is to get focused on how to deploy the company strategy so everyone understands it and has what is necessary to get it done.

I love this perspective Regina. I think it is a winner. There are some organizations (like Royal Dutch Shell) that have more formalized strategy communication processes, but most organizations have no way to communicate what the corporate strategy means to a department and individual contributor. I think that HR frequently believes that the line manager will handle this task. I think line managers believe executives will handle this task. And I think executives believe that strategy should be obvious, since they have been working on it directly. But at the macro level, there is a generally a huge chasm between the strategy and the translation of that strategy into tactics that achieve results that achieve the strategy.

HR must never assume that line managers have that translation ability. Since this translation capability is a critical competency in all organizations, HR should either help hire line management who have that capability, or (more likely) be the translators themselves. This is a role that most HR generalists are not equipped to undertake. It might have to come out of the University or Learning side of the HR house.

Thanks for the comment Regina. And keep up the great work on your blog!

Comments

[pablo]

Totally agree,

But I can see more. The HR function has to plan and develop the communication strategy for the company strategy.

But also there are other functions that have to be link with the company strategy:

Training and Development: The new strategy will require different talent and different profiles.

Culture: Also the company strategy may need to develop a different culture or just one or two different values.

Organization: To develop the strategy you need to organize in a determinate way...

I mean the all the function related to HR has to be focus to support and deploy the company strategy.

[pablo]

Totally agree,

But I can see more. The HR function has to plan and develop the communication strategy for the company strategy.

But also there are other functions that have to be link with the company strategy:

Training and Development: The new strategy will require different talent and different profiles.

Culture: Also the company strategy may need to develop a different culture or just one or two different values.

Organization: To develop the strategy you need to organize in a determinate way...

I mean the all the function related to HR has to be focus to support and deploy the company strategy.

[regina]

Thanks for the really nice write-up. Totally agree with the manager translation piece. One of the things we did (and it took several years of course..) is used Root Maps to have execs align on strategy and really bond/get clear on the what has to happen here re strategy and biz plans...and then the roll-out to all employees and the absolute critical link to goals, targets and performance management. You are right - after some time and education of managers (linked to leadership development, leadership member groups, etc.) we were able to start deploying strategy via managers with tools and resources (we called it strategy navigator, etc.) But it took 2-3 years to imbed in the business as a mindset and process (and more importantly helping the biz understand and my hr team understand that that was HR's job - strategy alignment and deployment.)

Have a great day! Glad we are connected and collaborating.
Regina