HR PEOPLE ARE FROM MARS, CEO'S ARE FROM VENUS! By Dr John Sullivan

The differences between the "focus" of CEO's and HR professionals are dramatic. This differentiation can be characterized into 12 different "degrees of separation" They include:

I) COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
CEO's are highly competitive. They continually focus on the opposition and look for ways to gain the upper hand. They want to win, and win big. For example, Jack Welch the CEO of GE expects each and every business to be #1 or #2?or he will sell it off! This means CEO's constantly do side-by-side comparisons both in business practices and results between their firm and the top ones in their industry.

CEO's continually strive to improve their own firm, while simultaneously "hurting" the competitor. HR executives couldn't be more different. For example, the VP of sales constantly tries to steal away customers from the competitor. In contrast, HR is reluctant to steal away the competitors top talent because of "ethical concerns" or for fear of retaliation. Few HR managers have done a side-by-side competitive analysis comparing "us to them? And almost no one in HR does a monthly comparison of their results (for each HR function) with the results of each of the direct competitors as well as the top firm in the field

HR executives also tend to have a preference toward "cooperation" and they often look at things only from the positive side. They need instead to learn how to identify the competitor's weaknesses and yes, even take actions that directly harm the competitors. This is especially true in the talent area, where there is a "war" for talent going on.

HR action steps
•  Do a function by function comparison of “our” and “their” HR. Compare our people results, not just our practices
•  Identify and design a plan to exploit your competitors weaknesses
•  Target the competitors top talent for poaching
•  Develop plans to continually improve our people practices faster than our competitors can “copy” them
•  Include in the design of all new programs a continuous improvement component to ensure that the program provides us with a continuing (measurable) competitive advantage
Hire HR people who are highly competitive and that have both business degrees and line experience (i.e., production, sales, product development or marketing)

BE FOREWARNED
This article is designed to make you think. It is by design critical of many in the HR profession (even though generally HR people don't take kindly to criticism). I realize you can't easily generalize about all HR professionals but my research and observations have shown that we are in fact different. I don't believe it's in our DNA but rather it's a result of a history of promoting people with a lack of line management experience and business degrees. I've been in HR for over 30 years. I've served as a Chief Talent Officer for a Fortune 500 company, a professor in a business school and a CEO. During that time, I've found that when you interview or observe CEO's you find that they are dramatically different then "we are. They are generally aggressive types that try to make a big splash and enjoy the direct line of fire while too many HR executives are happy as staff officers. Unfortunately, if we choose to remain comfortable as part of "overhead" we may also be simultaneously degrading the importance of the "people function to the level of purchasing, accounting and shipping. If VP's of HR are to become future CEO's and business leaders we need to look at our perspective, our thinking and our language and then dramatically shift it so it comes more into alignment with the approach taken by senior business executives!.

Please stay tune for the next degree of separations in December.