Firing up the Global Brain

HR, People and Technology

TMA World Viewpoint

Firing up the Global BrainHR, People and Technology

A global organization is like a giant

brain and like most brains typically

functions at a fraction of it potential

capacity.

It is HR’s primary responsibility to

ensure that this brain, made up of

individuals and groups,

is always developing its capabilities, is

working in close alignment with the

organization’s overall strategic goals and

is producing outstanding results.

TH

INK

ASK

?!How

?

Firing up the Global BrainHR, People and Technology

In 1999, I wrote a chapter for a book published by the Institute for

Personnel Development (IPD) called:

The Global HR Manager: Creating the Seamless

Organisation

The chapter ‘The HR Manager as Global Business

Partner’ presented speculative arguments about the

future strategic role of HR in a company’s drive for

global competitiveness.

Firing up the Global BrainHR, People and Technology

The main points of the chapter were:

Every business function today, including HR, must answer two questions:

1 “What value do you add?”

“How can you add more value?”2

Firing up the Global BrainHR, People, and Technology

There are two primary forces driving global competitiveness:

human talent and technology.

As in other performance revolutions throughout human history, the

people/technology interface will drive progress. Today, we can think of business

performance as being generated out of a complex system of interactions, many

of which are increasingly facilitated by technology:

INTERACTIONSAssignmentsCulturesIdeasKnowledgeOrganizationsPeoplePoliciesProcessesResourcesStrategies

PeoplePeoplePeoplePeoplePeoplePeoplePeoplePeoplePeoplePeople

TECHNOLOGY

PERFORMANCE OUTCOMES

Firing up the Global BrainHR People, and Technology

HR’s primary goal must be to generate higher

performance outcomes through enabling and

mobilizing human intelligence using the

global power, reach and interactivity of

technology.

Firing up the Global BrainHR, People and Technology

This will require HR to build strong, performance-focused

partnerships with senior executives, global business managers,

functional managers and technologists.

It will also require many HR practitioners to undergo a radical

shift in mindset and skills, towards multidisciplinary business

thinking and high-tech as well as high-touch expertise.

Firing up the global brain HR, People and Technology

Technology is to globalization, to use another physical analogy, what the vocal

chords, the mouth and the tongue are to the voice.

It is the enabling infrastructure.

We can use this infrastructure well, or poorly, in trying to

achieve our personal objectives.

If we are voice professionals (actors, singers, newscasters)

we had better understand how to use our vocal infrastructure

for producing best results.

Firing up the global brain HR, People and Technology

It is the same with new technologies in the workplace:

We must make sure they are used by our professionals in the

most effective ways possible in supporting the delivery of

performance outcomes in line with or better than those in

our global business plans.

Firing up the global brain HR, People and Technology

Doug Menuez, photographer, has spent years

documenting what he calls digital moments.

In his photographs, he looks to explore the

interface between people and technology.

As talent effectiveness professionals, we need to

understand these digital moments in our

organizations.

Firing up the global brain HR, People and Technology

It is tempting to leave such work to the

‘techies’, but that is a huge mistake.

Technicians tend to talk an obscure, technical

language, and often make huge assumptions

about what the rest of us know to get the

technologies truly working for us.

HR needs to be the force driving

towards human-centered technologies.

Firing up the global brain HR, People and Technology

Since 1999, when I wrote the IPD chapter, the world has seen huge upheavals.

Gone are the wildly optimistic and even naïve days when the major global competitiveness issue facing many companies seemed to be

“How fast can we get over there?”

Firing up the global brain HR, People and Technology

Terrorism, recession, geopolitical instability, financial crises, the risks of moving people around the globe, the outsourcing of professional services to lower cost countries, higher insurance and security costs, uncertainty in global supply networks, more competitive local players challenging global brands, etc., have all added to the complexity of the global business environment.

Complexity has increased demand for greater connectivity to enable more intensive virtual collaboration across multiple borders.

Firing up the global brain HR, People and Technology

Collaborative technologies are on the rise, but a major challenge is to ensure their successful use.

I’m old enough to remember when overhead projectors were left gathering dust in training department closets because no one really knew how to use them.

We’ve come a long way in the use of workplace technology, but it’s an evolving landscape.

To fulfill its own global strategic potential, and to be a full business partner

HR must position itself in the People-Technology interface.

Firing up the Global BrainHR, People and Technology

Firing up the Global Brain:

Begin with an inventory of Digital Moments in your organization

What collaborative technologies are

being used?

Who is using them and for

what purpose?

How are the technologies being used?

What results are

being achieved?

Are there better ways for getting

the most out the technologies?

What other capabilities would

users find most beneficial?

To learn more about how TMA World can

help your organization, please contact us at

enquiries@tmaworld.com

or view:

www.tmaworld.com/training-solutions/