Five steps: Secure the leadership role you deserve Five steps: Secure the leadership role you deserve in organisational transformation
Too many HR leaders hear about a transformation too late to influence it. Business leaders have already made many of the strategic decisions. Often without considering whether the organisation has the capabilities to deliver it.
Research proves that this is a critical mistake. A report from Bain & company shows that: “Only 12% of business transformations achieve their original ambition, and those that do differentiate themselves by the way they manage talent”.
If talent is the vital factor, why are HR leaders left outside the room where strategic decisions are being made?
Running the HR function well is no longer enough
Rupert Brown, former CPO, researching for his book ‘Lost in Transformation’ met accomplished leaders who found themselves left out of the early conversations about transformation.
He learned that one reason why HR leaders can fail to build a strategic presence is because of the operational pressures that are more familiar: “Their comfort zone pulls leaders back to HR expertise rather than transformation work”.
However, when any leader wants strategic influence, they have to work for it. It takes time to build commercial credibility and trust. It’s a tough lesson to arrive too late to the table. “You can’t do a quick charm offensive when you suddenly want strategic influence,” says Brown.
If you want business leaders to involve you instinctively while strategy is still taking shape, they need to know in advance the value that HR leaders can add. This is translating strategy into the leadership capability, organisation, culture and workforce changes needed to deliver it.
Building strategic influence demands its own strategy
Many HR leaders feel that deliberate influencing can be seen as being political. They are conscious of their responsibilities to role model integrity and feel that there is a dilemma between pushing themselves forward and being seen as ethical and objective.
However, they need to become much clearer about the outcomes they really want for themselves and for the HR function, and to make conscious choices about what will help them to achieve them.
If the desired outcome is that the CHRO is someone the CEO automatically involves in the early stages of strategic thinking, then building that profile and credibility has to become a priority in its own right.
If you want business leaders to involve you instinctively while strategy is still taking shape, they need to know in advance the value that HR leaders can add
Take control of how time is spent
Brown identified ‘Energy Vampires’ that suck up time. HR leaders may be hard-wired into employee relations case management, hiring and operational meetings and problem solving with stakeholders rather than shaping the agenda.
Extricating themselves from these may be difficult. But is the only way to secure time to build and nurture the strategic relationships that will ensure involvement
A leader’s calendar is one useful test. If strategic influence genuinely matters, time needs to be scheduled and protected for understanding the business, building senior relationships and thinking ahead, and not dominated by the operational demands of running the function.
Five ways to build strategic influence before you need it
1. Be ‘a business leader who happens to be in HR’
Know how the organisation makes money, what drives performance, where the risks sit and which measures really matter.
Strategic credibility grows when senior colleagues seek your view on the business, not only on HR.
Keep strengthening that commercial knowledge so you can contribute confidently to discussions well beyond the traditional HR agenda.
2. Manage your time strategically
Take time to think proactively about what you want and then how to achieve that.
Operational challenges are important, but they can crowd out time for understanding the business, building senior relationships and thinking strategically.
Strategic influence will, in turn, enable you to promote the interests of your team and win the resources you need to effectively support the transformation.
3. Build positive political intelligence
Understanding how power works does not mean compromising your integrity.
Map the stakeholders who shape important decisions, understand how influence really travels through the organisation and identify where you need stronger relationships before the next major change begins.
The aim is to contribute while leaders are still deciding what to do, not after the decision has been made.
Strategic influence will, in turn, enable you to promote the interests of your team and win the resources you need
4. Be courageous and use your depth and breadth of insight
Commercial understanding and good judgement make constructive challenges easier.
HR also has uniquely broad visibility across the organisation. This can give the CHRO a perspective that few other senior leaders possess.
Good people data strengthens that position. Use reliable people analytics to move discussion beyond instinct and anecdote, connect workforce issues directly to business risks and decisions and show what is happening, why it matters and where the business may need to act differently.
5. Invest in building trust
Trust grows through consistency, judgement and the way you handle difficult conversations. The CEO needs to know that you understand what the business is trying to achieve and that you will challenge constructively when the evidence or your judgement says it is necessary.
Treat trust as something you build continuously: be dependable under pressure, respect confidences and be clear about where you stand.
Trust also runs both ways. Strategic partnership is stronger when the CHRO knows their judgement will be respected when they are not in the room.
Strategic influencing starts before transformation
None of this can be created quickly when transformation suddenly becomes urgent. The relationships, judgement and credibility that give a CHRO or HR leader genuine strategic influence accumulate through everyday choices long before that moment arrives.
That is why the best time to earn the seat next to the CEO is before there is a transformation program to discuss.
Do the groundwork early and HR is far more likely to help shape the strategy, rather than simply deliver decisions that have already been made.
For more insights, you can attend the webinar: ‘How to be a strategic partner to the CEO’.
If you enjoyed this Five Steps article, you can read another: Five Steps: How HRBPs can become culture change accelerators
