Human Capital Series - Introduction

Having sold ‘knowledge and experience’ through this last professional decade, I have encountered sundry of material on the ‘art of selling’ including the highly acclaimed and read publications on what makes ‘rain makers’. Moreover during the academic stint at B School we of course had an entire discipline of Marketing teaching us the finer art and also preparing us for the never ending battle at the corporate battlefield. What I remember from those days is mostly the skullduggery of the plethora of case studies and anecdotes and some guiding principles that I have modified and used to some success and lot of failures at the market place.

Intriguingly interesting has been my stint of selling human capital services across the national geography. ‘People issues’ and Organization Behavior were a one credit course in my entire selection of courses at the B School. But over the years, personally I have found work in this space the most challenging, fulfilling and engaging. The more intricate and esoteric travail is selling these services. I always found it squeamish to even ask “Do you have any people issues?” I am sure the ubiquitous reply from anyone right from the CPO to your laundry boy would be – “Don’t we all?” In this rather naïve or ordinary repartee lies the essence – All of us individually, in a group or in an organization are bound by principles and rules that the environment prescribes on us. Our successes are based on the efficient maneuvering of ourselves through these labyrinthine routes. At each bend on this road is the enquiry post where we seek advice – The talking post may be an elderly person, a psychologist, a psychiatrist or a human capital advisor / consultant.

So what these animals – human capital advisors- do in organizations? More often than not, people policies in organizations tend to fall on the ‘black spots’ of the organizational outlay. While strategic issues like structuring and target setting remain on the top of the memory of the CXO, some of the root issues on the people front do not present themselves on the same level just because they are shrouded by multifarious factors and each issue has a spin much like the locus of a toroidal plane! The very nature of these issues requires a Socratic mode of questioning to unravel them. Having said this, I must apologize if this area suddenly sounds like rocket science. As all areas, there are simple and interesting principles here which make it interesting, exhilarating and totally engaging.

The broad palette of these ideas and musings has led to a few governing ideas which I use time and again. The following series intends to traverse some of these areas and explore ideas and experiences, test various principles empirically and provoke some thinking and tickle the grey matter…The other reason for penning these down is to articulate and understand issues and discuss what are the signs one needs to be cautious of. The broad format will be to look out for the symptoms and understand their connections of the systemic pathology.