Often managers talk about resources when they mean people. And managers allocate resources to projects and tasks instead of people. This leads to a waste of talent and to decreased performance and loyalty of people.
In many meetings managers talk about resources when they mean people. And resources (people) are allocated to projects and tasks or cut to increase profits. Sometimes managers speak like this in front of the affected people. And in weekly or monthly reports you can find a section "resources" with numbers about money and people.
That "resource punk" practice has at least two consequences
- The managers do not think about the individual person who comes with talent and capabilities. Thus the company wastes the potential of the person to the benefit of the company.
- Decrease of motivation and loyalty: People want to be seen and treated as people. Once they understand, hear and experience that their managers view them just as a resource or a number their motivation to perform and their loyalty decreases significantly.
Imagine the situation of a company in an economic downturn.
The management team needs to decrease costs to stabilize profits. So they discuss how to cut resources (money and people). There is a heated discussion in the management team who has to cut how much. Finally they agree on a resource reduction of 10% in each department, which means every tenth person will be made redundant.
Next day the senior executive invites all employees to a townhall meeting. He communicates the decision:
"There is an economic downturn. We loose customers and sales. To stay profitable we need to cut 10% of our cost and resources. I hope you understand our decision. Thank you."
For affected people who will loose their job, that message is a shock.
And for the 90% of the people who stay and who are supposed to perform that message is a shock, too. They understand that their managers view them just as costs and resources which could be cut. As a consequence their motivation to perform and their loyalty decreases significantly. From now on they think twice before they stay two hours longer, come into the office on a saturday, postpone their vacation due to the importance of a project or share their ideas. Many start to look for a new job outside the company.
Authors of business books as well as professors at universities and business schools formulate theories about business. One methode to formulate a theory is to abstract from experience and examples. Thus writers and lecturers do abstract from people in the real world, transform their observation and thinking and write and speak about resources, human resources and human resource management. As a consequence students and managers are trained to speak about resources instead of people.
Another reason may be that it is easier and there are less emotions involved if you decide on resources compared to decide on people.
To break down the resource punks we all just have to think, talk and write about people when it is about people and NOT about resources.
Do agree with this and the word "resource" now has a derogatory intonation. But what should be alternative? Not sure
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Love the way you put people at the center here Frank. If all theory had to roll out into evidenced practices - the problem would decrease also. Thoughts?
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Love the way you put people at the center here Frank. If all theory had to roll out into evidenced practices - the problem would decrease also. Thoughts?
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A root cause of this barrier in managements lack of understanding of their employees' competencies. In many cases, a person's competencies are assumed to be those required to perform the employee's current role, and ignore the persons previous work/life experience. How often do we receive a company-wide email asking if anybody can translate a document into another language ?
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I agree with you. We should always talk about PEOPLE (in capital letters).
Unfortunatelly there is a feeling that if you talk about resources, less emotion is involved. But at the end is just another hipocrisy of the sistem.
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I can agree with all the topics. It is annoying to hear or read the CEO's words like "our staff is the guarantee of our success" and so on ... and to find out the practise like Frank Schwab is telling us! It is time for a new leadership!
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A well written post Frank, and in fact it inspired a post I will submit tonight on a somewhat related and yet a bit different angle. Thanks for the challenge!
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Your basic proposal is get real. Perhaps we can get more real than calling resources people.
The people emphasis in business is because success is driven by people. The basic logic is take care of the people and they will take care of the business. It is possible that the pace of change has overtaken this logic. So now, whether you take care of people or are a bit short-sighted you still suffer the vagaries of the market like HP or are brought under the scanner like WalMart.
I have argued that the new dictum should be take care of the application of Knowledge. Please note that this does not mean ignore the people. Quite to the contrary. I am a strong believer of Theory Y and that a collective organized for trust and teamwork in application of Knowledge turns constructive; people deliver their best. So, calling people resources will not dehumanize them if the company focuses on providing the means for superior application of Knowledge. It enables the collective surface any form of reality and deal with it innovatively.
In effect I am saying do not worry about the people. Worry about disseminating company goals, and values such as listening and contemplation and honesty, and empower the people to deal with reality. I am saying this because the means to empower them are now easily available. It is possible to convert IT into a reliable sorce of intelligent energy to effect this empowerment.
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Frank,
You have some great points. One of my books (Firing and Laying Off) actually addresses how to deal with this issue, at least the example you've illustrated here. The main idea is to have transparent, follower-centric organizations. We focus too much on leadership, and not enough on followers, but it's followers that make things work. By focusing on followers and making leaders' actions transparent, you empower people and create a stronger organization.
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