Leveraging the New Human Capital forever changes the way managers see today's highly complex employees. Through interviews with corporate executives, overviews of available research and four stories of major corporations, the book sets out five specific strategies organizations can use to adapt to this new workforce.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
An easy read. The authors have written an insightful guide for the Information Age workforce. -- Human Resource Planning, Jan. 1, 2005
Compelling argument for why organizations need to change their basic beliefs about the nature of business, human beings, work itself. -- Academy of Management Executive, May-July 2005
For practitioners in the field or organizations wondering whether a work-life strategy makes sense, this is arguably the definitive work. -- Work and Family, January 14, 2005
Helps managers understand the structural changes in today's workforce and how they can be turned to an advantage. -- Reference & Research Book News, February 2005
Humdinger of a book. One of the best of the breed. Cogent, comprehensive summary of strategies, programs, benefits, schemes, ideas. -- Journal of Employee Communication Management, May/June 2005
Packed with cogent case studies, good ideas, broad directions, lot of inspiration. Excellent strategic analysis with insightful organizational behavior understanding. -- Training Media Review, May-June 2006
Peppered with examples and statistics that illustrate how focusing on human capital benefits the bottom line. Solid research. -- Industry Week, February 2005
Provides numerous concrete examples such as setting shifts to coincide with family care resources. Recommended. -- Choice, March 2005
Puts the information in an easy-to-access form; ultimately it really focuses on the business case for utilizing these practices. -- Human Resource Planning, Sept-Nov, 2005
Stands out because it backs up its ideas with wisdom from today's best business thinkers and experiences of successful organizations. -- Soundview Executive Book Summaries, July 2005
Compelling argument for why organizations need to change their basic beliefs about the nature of business, human beings, work itself. -- Academy of Management Executive, May-July 2005
For practitioners in the field or organizations wondering whether a work-life strategy makes sense, this is arguably the definitive work. -- Work and Family, January 14, 2005
Helps managers understand the structural changes in today's workforce and how they can be turned to an advantage. -- Reference & Research Book News, February 2005
Humdinger of a book. One of the best of the breed. Cogent, comprehensive summary of strategies, programs, benefits, schemes, ideas. -- Journal of Employee Communication Management, May/June 2005
Packed with cogent case studies, good ideas, broad directions, lot of inspiration. Excellent strategic analysis with insightful organizational behavior understanding. -- Training Media Review, May-June 2006
Peppered with examples and statistics that illustrate how focusing on human capital benefits the bottom line. Solid research. -- Industry Week, February 2005
Provides numerous concrete examples such as setting shifts to coincide with family care resources. Recommended. -- Choice, March 2005
Puts the information in an easy-to-access form; ultimately it really focuses on the business case for utilizing these practices. -- Human Resource Planning, Sept-Nov, 2005
Stands out because it backs up its ideas with wisdom from today's best business thinkers and experiences of successful organizations. -- Soundview Executive Book Summaries, July 2005
From the Publisher
Winner of the Academy of Human Resource Development 2005 Outstanding Book of the Year
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
EXCELLENT GRAND TOUR OF NEW IDEAS FOR ORGANIZATION & HRM,
By Gerry Stern "Stern's Management Review Online" (Culver City, CA United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)
This review is from: Leveraging the New Human Capital: Adaptive Strategies, Results Achieved, and Stories of Transformation (Hardcover)
An ambitious overview of new approaches to human resources. Key to the book are five adaptive strategies: choosing to invest in people; adopting a new set of beliefs; redefining organizational culture; transforming management practices; and ensuring a fit between the first four strategies based on purpose, culture, and management practices and policies. The adaptive strategies involve rethinking how to achieve business results, reexamining how work is organized, and transforming how people are managed. The book concludes with the effects of adaptive cultures and practices on organizational performance. We at Stern's Management Review (www.FutureOrganization) find this to be an excellent grand tour of new ideas and practices in organization and human resource management. As a premium, the book includes extensive references, making it all the more valuable.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Unusually clear, stimulating and valuable,
This review is from: Leveraging the New Human Capital: Adaptive Strategies, Results Achieved, and Stories of Transformation (Hardcover)
This is an unusually well written treatise on human resources. The focus is on the value of human capital in the modern economy. Although academically commissioned the intent is practical. It would be a good thing if CEOs of giant corporations as well as heads of mom and pop enterprises would put their laptops aside on that cross-country flight and read this book instead. They wouldn't be bored, and they would likely to do themselves and their business a big favor as they learn how to manage their most important and most valuable resource, their employees.
The style of the book is engaging, vivid, concrete and clear. I have seldom run across a book on the business/labor/economics spectrum that is as engagingly written, and I've read a more than a few. The thesis in a nutshell is this: as we have moved from an industrial economy to a knowledge- or information-based economy, we have at the same time evolved a workforce that is--as Burud and Tumolo phrase it--comprised of "a different animal." This new "animal" (their metaphor uses giraffes and elephants) does not, as once was the case, devote his or her entire life to the corporation. Instead today's human resource is a "dual-focus" person who has a lifestyle that balances work and a life away from work. When I first picked up this book I expected the usual celebration of the "new" capital in the work place, that is, women. And I expected some guidance on how today's management might best understand and work with women as opposed to the traditional employee who was usually male. But Sandra Burud and Marie Tumolo have gone beyond that quasi-political position and made it clear that today's human resource, whether male or female, is the elephant in the office who is of enormous value, and regardless of sex will be giving some very real quality time to home and family. So what's a CEO to do? The authors make it clear that management must work with its human capital in a manner that respects the entire human being while recognizing that this human being is their most valuable resource. I've repeated myself, but this really is the crux of the matter. The old style management that expected 70 hour weeks and no life outside the umbrella of my father (and mother!) the corporation, must think again. This doesn't mean that management is getting a divided or a compromised effort from its new (and more enlightened, I must say, employees) but in fact is getting more since today's worker is sophisticated, can "self-organize" and work with others to create added value in a way that was not possible in earlier generations. Management must recognize that their employees are "biological systems seeking to fulfill their needs and aspirations" (p. 16, quoting C. Ehin from "Unleashing Intellectual Capital," 2000) and not machines. The question might arise why is this happening now? And the answer is that in today's complex and highly competitive, interactive and interdependent global economy, it is human creativity and human "relationship capital" that will make the difference between success and failure. Another point worth emphasizing is that you may make a better widget and you may invent an amazing new technology, but you will be quickly out of business when the competition catches up, as it inevitably will, unless you can reinvent yourself. What will sustain your company until and toward its new breakthrough will be the public relations, customer service and innovative cost cutting that can only come from employees who are appreciated and respected as human beings as well as employees. In other words the primary focus of enlightened management is the cultivation of an educated, skilled and creative workforce. Management must exhibit and foster the "trust, mutual understanding, and shared values and behaviors that bind the members of human networks and communities and make cooperative action possible." (p. 15, quoting from "In Good Company: How Social Capital Makes Organizations Work," 2002 by D. Cohen and L. Prusak). Noting the subtitle of the book, "Adaptive Strategies, Results Achieved, and Stories of Transformation," we can see how the authors organized the book and what they hoped to achieve. They begin with what they call "the new workforce reality." From there they go to the "adaptive strategies," with an emphasis on the idea of investing in people as a means to business success. They back this up in Part 3 with "Evidence of Results Achieved," and finally end with "Four Stories of Becoming Adaptive," in which we see how DuPont and three other companies met new challenges and transformed themselves by developing and nurturing "employee-focused" cultures. Each part is preceded by a keynote statement from a "thought leader." Peter Senge, whose "Whole People" essay kicks off Part 1 is particularly eloquent and enlightening. Also stimulating are the words of Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi whose "The Paradox of Work" keynote for Part 2 includes this bit of wisdom: He asks, "What makes the difference between a job and a vocation?" His answer: "Two things matter most: how much value a person is able to find in the product or outcome of the activity, and how much value he or she can find in the activity itself." (p. 76) By the way, another bit of wisdom I like from Csikszentmihalyi appears on page 18: The authors make the point that we only have "so much mental space." Our attention can only go in one direction at once. They conclude "This space limitation is the reason that multitasking is 'more a myth than a reality. Humans cannot really successfully multitask, we are in fact moving attention rapidly, but consecutively attending, not simultaneously.'" (The words inside the single quotes are from Csikszentmihalyi.) "Leveraging the New Human Capital" is not only very well written but it is organized in a clear and easily accessible manner. The book is also beautifully edited and proofed. (Note: The following books by Dennis Littrell are now available at Amazon.com: Yoga: Sacred and Profane (Beyond Hatha Yoga) Dennis Littrell's True Crime Companion Novels and other Fictions Cut to the Chaise Lounge or I Can't Believe I Swallowed the Remote! The Holon Teddy and Teri High School from Hell Let's Play Overkill! Like a Tsunami Headed for Hilo Understanding Evolution and Ourselves Coming soon: The World Is Not as We Think It Is) Now available at Amazon: The World Is Not as We Think It Is
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