Human Resources as the Custodian of Strategic Capabilities

By Hubert Saint-Onge

This article puts forward the view that HR is crucial in developing and aligning strategic capabilities to support the effective execution of new strategies. Organizational design, team reconfiguration, change management, and talent acquisition are all crucial activities within the scope of HR. To fulfill this role, HR must actively participate in strategy formulation and execution to assess and align company culture, plan for organizational changes, and monitor strategy execution. Giving HR the accountability to act as the custodian of strategic capabilities will accelerate the company's strategic evolution.

A typical conversation on strategic capability

The senior executives were sitting around a table to discuss new growth opportunities. Their main products had run out of ramp for growth in the marketplace. One of the team members pointed out that a competitor was making inroads with a product line they could bring to market. He closed his intervention by saying: "There is no reason why we couldn't take them on with a similar product." Most team members initially liked the idea. But then, a more skeptical voice put forward a strongly worded point of view that this kind of product needed a lot of customer attention and that "… as we have discussed before, we just don't have the culture that would allow us to give the required attention to customers: we would fail miserably with such a product." You could hear the air come out of the balloon. Everyone sat back and agreed. Without a second thought, the team went back to brainstorming other ideas to trigger the growth they badly needed.

If this conversation sounds familiar and your organization are experiencing a similar problem, then this article is a must-read. Click here for more .?