‘Long and Winding Road’ by David Woodward, Director, March 2011

This is an article that claims in the introduction to answer the interesting question - why do so few HR Directors make it to CEO?’ It then fails to answer the question and ends up by saying that this is the wrong question anyway. This initial analysis sounds highly critical but in fact the article still makes some interesting points which will support those in HR who wish to have a greater impact on strategy.

The article starts by reminding us of Ulrich’s HR ‘business partner’ model and the author speculates on the reasons why it has not had the impact that was hoped for, research suggests that only 15% of the time of HR professionals is spent on strategic activities. Ulrich suggests that the failure to grasp the opportunities presented by his model is partly due to a poor grasp of the essentials of business management. I feel sure that many HR professionals would challenge this assertion and we can quote the fact that our two biggest clients - Unilever and a major computer supplier - have asked us to deliver programmes in business acumen specifically for HR people.

On the other hand we would accept that, as a general rule, finance and business acumen programmes for managers are not known for the predominance of HR people; in a cross functional group HR is likely to have the smallest representation of all. We often find it interesting that our client contacts in HR and Learning & Development are keen to ask us to devise such training for other functions but often do not see the need to attend themselves, or to ask colleagues to do so.

In addition to Ulrich, the author also quotes a professor in International HR Management who claims that the climate is changing and that, in some organisations, the HR Director role is now seen as a good preparation for promotion to CEO. His argument is that the choice of CEO will depend on the key driver of strategy and this has traditionally resulted in finance and marketing backgrounds being the main qualification for the CEO role. But in businesses where ‘people are the asset’, the logic leads to a CEO with HR experience.

You might argue that a professor in HR would say that, and I am sure that this view would be challenged by many CEOs from other functions. They would rightly claim that you do not have to come from HR to have people skills and that, in most cases, such skills will be high on the list of criteria for any CEO selection. Nevertheless it was an interesting issue but, after raising it, the author seems to lose his way. There is a long description of a people driven transformation carried out by a CEO who, from what we are told, does not have an HR background.

There are a number of examples and assertions that confirm how important HR is to developing strategy and how the HR Director has a vital role but there are no examples of HR Directors making it as CEOs. This struck me as indicative of the main problem; there are very few role models that HR Directors can look up to and that those selecting can see as precedents.

The article reflects this problem by coming to the rather lame conclusion that it doesn’t really matter anyway, because the HR Director can still have influence if he or she focuses on issues around performance and value. ‘You don’t need to be CEO to deliver value’ is the quote from Ulrich himself which sums up the conclusions of the final few paragraphs. This is undoubtedly true but it doesn’t answer the question that the article initially posed. Perhaps the answer is that, having seen the pressures and the casualty rate, HR people have more sense than to want to be CEOs!

Click here to read the article in full;
http://www.director.co.uk/MAGAZINE/2011/3_march/hr-director_64_07.html