HR's role in developing and implementing strategy.

Our ever-changing business and economic landscape demand the development and implementation of new strategies and changes, faster and more efficient than in the past. However, organizations continue their struggle realizing strategies or significant changes. Most organizations try to leverage past successes to enhance the success rate of current strategies or changes. What worked in the past may not work today or in the future.

Several critical factors will, in the future, drive success; (1) change enabling milieu, (2) psychological connection, (3) structural connection and (4) contractual connection. These factors are described in; Corporate Success – A Fresh Focus on Strategy (2011). More important, the role of HR is significantly elevated and fundamental to the how strategies will be developed and implemented. Most failures occur when the head of the organization is pointing in one direction and the feet going in a different direction or staying on the old path. HR can no longer be just a “support” function but has to move to the point where new strategies are planned, developed and implemented. HR is not an afterthought – focusing on all the traditional functions. HR needs to be at the table, translating the strategy into practice and embed it into individual job descriptions and performance reviews.

In a series of weekly blogs, I will focus on the critical success factors and how that relates to HR. Get your copy of Corporate Success – A Fresh Focus on Strategy (2011) and join me as we lead the ideas and practices that have the potential to transform HR’s role in the development and implementation of corporate strategies and changes.