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FINAL WORKSHOPS FOR THE YEAR: ‘A Master Class: Moving HR Into

Line For The New Economy’ – PrciewaterhouseCoopers

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A MASTER CLASS FOR HR PROFESSIONALS: The competitive pressures wrought by the New Economy & New World Of Work call for a change in the role of the Human Resources (HR) function. No longer is being a Strategic Partner sufficient!
 
In today's business environment, HR professionals must become business leader in their own right to identify new business opportunities, define business strategy, and company priorities, and prepare the organisation for discontinuous, and often disruptive change.

REGISTRATION FEE: Inclusive of lunches & teas, parking, and learning materials:

DATE: >> 19-20 August 2004 (Starts @ 07:30 for 08:00); Venue: PricewaterhouseCoopers Sunninghill.

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1. Human Capital Management: The Chief Financial Offer(CFO) Point Of View*

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1. INTRODUCTION

"We spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on employees. It’s the biggest

investment we have." - Sarah Meyerrose, EVP Corporate and Employee Services, First Tennessee National

Human capital—the sum of a workforce’s skills, knowledge, and experience— puts CFOs in an awkward position. Companies spend a great deal on employees, yet few finance executives understand in any detail how this investment creates value for the business. Consider the following figures: On average, companies spend 36 percent of their revenues on human capital expenses, but only 16 percent say they have anything more than a moderate understanding of the return on human capital investments.

A new attitude

As we will explain in this report, this situation is changing. CFOs—along with investors and boards—are coming to view human capital as a crucial source of value. As a result, finance executives are taking a more active role in the management of human capital, and many are seeking to apply financial discipline to these investments.

This report explores human capital management through the eyes of the CFO. What is the current status of human capital management and what is changing? What does this imply for the CFO’s role in human capital management? What steps are companies taking to manage human capital as a source of value rather than a mere cost?

The remainder of this chapter reviews the study’s key findings. Chapter 2 explains the CFO’s changing view of human capital. In Chapter 3, we show how finance executives are becoming more involved in human capital decisions. Finally, Chapter 4 considers the ways in which companies are attempting to apply greater financial discipline to human capital management.

Key findings

Our survey and interviews have led us to the following conclusions:

# Despite high spending, few know the return on human capital investments. On average, companies spend 36 percent of revenues on human capital expenses, according to our survey. Yet very few understand the return on these investments—only 16 percent report that they know the return to a "considerable" or "great" extent.

# CFOs see human capital as a key value driver. Finance executives believe that human capital is a central factor in their companies’ ability to achieve the outcomes that drive shareholder value. For example, 92 percent think that it has a great effect on the company’s ability to achieve customer satisfaction. Eighty-two percent believe this is so for profitability and 72 percent do for innovation and new product development.

# How companies manage their human capital is now an investor and board-level issue. Forty-nine percent report that investors are beginning to ask about human capital issues to at least a moderate extent. Today, 23 percent say that their boards are highly involved in human capital issues; in two years, 36 percent expect such involvement. Interviews suggest that recent board interest is partly a result of the past year’s corporate scandals, but also a growing recognition of human capital’s importance to the bottom line.

# CFOs have a balanced view of the HR function. CFOs have traditionally regarded HR as a non-strategic cost center, but they increasingly see it as a strategic partner. Thirty-nine percent consider HR more of a partner, and 33 percent see it as equally a partner and a cost center.

# The top workforce priorities are building leadership capabilities and raising workforce productivity. In addition to leadership capabilities (59 percent cited this as a priority) and productivity (58 percent), respondents also cited acquiring key talent (47 percent), retaining key talent (38 percent), and measuring human capital’s contribution to business performance (28 percent) as a priority. Large companies are especially likely to label this last item as a key concern: 40 percent of those with over $1 billion in annual revenues want to measure the influence of human capital on attaining business objectives.

# HR technology has been a major disappointment. In spite of years of technology spending, few are satisfied that these investments have improved their ability to manage human capital. Overall, only 20 percent report that their investments in technology allow them to track and measure human capital to a considerable extent. And while half of respondents are satisfied with their ability to track turnover,very few say their systems are useful for workforce planning, measuring skill levels, or assessing the return of human capital investments.

# Finance is involved in aspects of human capital management. In addition to traditional areas of CFO involvement, such as setting and allocating the company’s overall human capital budget, finance now plays a significant role in setting the HR function budget and determining how to allocate that money. Fifty-six percent say that finance has at least a 50/50 role with HR in setting the human resources budget, and 58 percent say this is so for allocating the HR budget.

# CFOs think they should be more involved in human capital decisions. Today, 38 percent of finance executives say they have an "important" or "leadership" role in human capital decisions, but 62 percent believe they should. Interviews indicate that involvement might include designing HR metrics, adding a financial perspective to HR decisions, and helping link HR policy to corporate strategy.

# Finance executives tend to think both HR and finance should report to the CEO. Today, 52 percent of top HR executives report to the CEO, and only 15 percent report to the CFO (a reporting relationship that is more common in smaller companies). Although there has been talk recently of HR reporting to finance, our interviews indicate that most feel that the ideal structure is for both finance and HR to report to the CEO, and for these functions to work collaboratively.

# Human capital is increasingly a factor in M&A pricing. A growing number of finance executives think that human capital is important in determining the price of an acquisition. Today, 45 percent report that it is very important and in two years, 59 percent believe it will be.

# Few explicitly consider human capital value when making layoff decisions. Despite a growing recognition that human capital is a source of value, relatively few make a serious attempt to weigh the value of skills, knowledge, and experience lost against payroll savings when making layoff decisions. We found that only 38 percent do so to a "considerable" or "great" extent.

2. THE CFO’S VIEW OF HUMAN CAPITAL

It’s no secret that finance executives have historically been skeptical about intangible assets such as human capital. Largely because such assets are difficult to quantify, CFOs usually treat them simply as costs—necessary, perhaps, but costs nonetheless. Likewise, CFOs have generally taken a dim view of the HR function, viewing it less as a strategic partner than as a cost center.

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2. How Do We 'Celebrate' Our Diversity ?

By Stanley Letsoko and Themba Missouw. Business Day

Online Edition, 24 July 2004

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'Standards' are being used as exclusionary practices, write Stanley Letsoko and Themba Missouw

What is it exactly that we celebrate in SA when we say we celebrate diversity ? What does it mean to live in a diversified society, and what are the implications for individuals?

Celebrating diversity means an acknowledgement of racial, religious, gender, ethnic, philosophical and cultural differences. In SA this comes against the backdrop of past injustices in the form of an apartheid colonial mentality of "us" and "them". The "us" were colonisers originating from Europe and the "others" indigenous people with everything that they stand for, being caricatured and subjected to gross forms of misrecognition.

Although there are attempts to have an all-inclusive approach in SA, we are, however, still caught in the approach that has more to do with what is known as the "rituals of culture". This is a very unfortunate approach to diversity, as it owes its existence to what Nazir Carrim from the Wits School of Education refers to as "bad multiculturalism". The practitioners of bad multiculturalism have a tendency to reduce centuries'-old problems into one of the aspects that characterises diversity.

Any critical approach to diversity has to have a broad focus. What currently amounts to practical understanding of diversity in SA has been limited to the "rituals of culture", which have a tendency to reduce diversity to lifestyle, in the form of culture, and culture to music, dress and food. In SA, our version of diversity is culture.

This approach does not only impose the elements of what it deems to be the defining characteristics of a particular culture, but also has a tendency to caricature such cultures. The celebration of diversity with Indians, for example, usually involves stereotyping them into eating samoosas and wearing saris.

With Zulus this stereotyping translates into "traditional attire" or the "Zulu dance", "indlamu". Any occasion celebrating diversity is not over until the fat Indian lady, or Zulu lady, Xhosa lady or coloured lady sings or performs an ethnic dance.

In institutions of higher learning, if a person says he or she is Zulu or Xhosa, he or she is not only expected, on those days set aside for the celebration of diversity, to be dressed up in ethnic attire, but also to perform a traditional dance.

A celebration of diversity becomes an exotic event in which Orientals and other exotics are expected to do what they are known to do. Everything becomes a theatrical spectacle in which the activities of European ancestry are dominated by cheerful observations of the "others". The following day they hold the same old prejudices and misconceptions about these people.

This has nothing to do with us celebrating diversity. We celebrate diversity because the past apartheid regimes trivialised and dismissed these other cultures as savage and vulgar. The injustices of the past had nothing to do with lifestyle but the deliberate denial of life opportunities for the "others". The tendency to emphasise lifestyle when we celebrate diversity is a deliberate attempt not to want to do deal appropriately with the legacies of the past.

Celebrating diversity means allowing people to express themselves in their own way and giving them a form of recognition that is isomorphic with their self-perceptions and understanding of their own cultures. To use British cultural studies professor Stuart Hall's term, it means allowing expressions of "authentic forms of recognition to thrive among ourselves".

However, this is not where the story of our diversity should end. Any form of diversity should also embrace diversity in organisations, institutions, companies and our homes. This means a form of recognition that, although it is good to give recognition to the lifestyles of others, we must also give recognition to the fact that they were denied life opportunities by the draconian laws of apartheid. Institutionally and organisationally, it will mean making these people part of the institutions, organisations or companies that they have come to join.

Hall once made an interesting observation in what he referred to as "the paradox of blacks", in Britain. He was particularly amazed how blacks were coping in London against the background of numerous forms of disadvantages, including marginalisation, fragmentation, unemployment, criminalisation, educational underachievement, and psychological breakdowns.

These are problems faced by some of the previously disadvantaged in SA, especially in institutions of higher learning. This is also an important factor as it raises some of the issues most institutions of higher learning are grappling with in their attempts to be politically correct.

The main factor leading to such experiences is the obsession of these institutions with success in the form of MBA ratings and standards. The language of standards is at the core of those who oppose change — their exclusionary practices are usually camouflaged in talk about standards. The reality of the position of minorities in institutions that are predominantly white, male and middle-aged is that they either fit in or face the dire consequences.

Although minority groups struggle to gain entry, once accepted they are treated as if they are "affirmative MBA students", even though they have successfully gone through the selection criteria. Yet even the selection criteria are flawed as they are based on neo-apartheid psychometric tests that are culturally biased.

So previously disadvantaged groups have first to overcome a myriad of obstacles in the form of psychometric tests and the question of standards, and then they are still treated as affirmative action students even though the criteria used to assess them is the same.

Most of the much-talked about standards that came to be associated with certain institutions have a history that goes back to the heyday of apartheid. Standards were measured by the number of white students enrolled and the number of white teaching staff in such institutions as opposed to other groups.

Many institutions got where they are today through the social inequalities of the past, but in a country undergoing transformation, trying to stay at the top using a similar approach is a silly pipe dream.

Diversity should be our strength, not a liability. Yet there is a lot of resistance to diversifying coming from within SA. How do you explain the fact that 10 years after the advent of democracy some big and well-respected organisations are still battling with the issue? Educational institutions of higher learning, especially, should take the lead in such matters and make us believe that they are serious. They teach these concepts to their students, yet they lack in their implementation. They should stop complaining that they cannot find skilled people from other groups. If they cannot find them, they should train them.

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3. Revising The Balanced Scorecard*

By David Creelman who can be contacted at

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1. Introduction

The balanced scorecard (BSC) appears to have had remarkable success. According to Bain and Company over 60 percent of firms use scorecards. Satisfaction with the scorecard is high. Companies in Bain's survey rate them a 4 out of 5. Kaplan and Norton have expressed disappointment that the BSC is still too dependent on the on-going sponsorship of the senior team. A change at the top can kill even a successful scorecard project, something unlikely to happen to other financial reporting or control systems. Yet, Bain's study shows only 5 percent defection each year which is low compared to CEO turnover.

This picture of success obscures important issues. The issues are seriousness of the implementation, the emphasis on maps or measures, the emphasis on inquiry or control and the number of measures.

2. Seriousness of Implementation

Dr. Bernard Marr from the Cranfield School of Management estimates less than half the companies claiming to use a balanced scorecard go beyond adding a few high-level non-financial performance indicators.

There is value in ensuring that top management sees and attends to performance indicators around customers, people and processes. It is low cost and low risk. But this not the same as the full BSC implementation and should be called something different. Anyone embarking on a scorecard project would do well do be clear up front whether they are planning to add a few measures or look for a tool to drive the execution of strategy.

3. Measures vs. Maps

The first articles on the balanced scorecard talked about adding non-financial measures to management reports. This is so obviously a good idea that it is not surprising that it has been widely adopted. However, in more recent work Kaplan and Norton have shifted their focus to strategy maps. This is an a dramatic change in emphasis.

The strategy map is a way to articulate strategy. For example, "Our strategy is to increase sales by improving product quality. We can improve product quality by improving the skills of production workers." For simplicity I've only mentioned three measurable elements: sales, quality, and skills. A real strategy map would have perhaps a dozen key elements.

A strategy map is important because:

a)The management team has to agree on what the strategy is.

b)The causal links can be tested. By measuring quality and sales the firm can learn if improving quality really does lead to improved sales.

c)The articulated strategy can be communicated across the firm.

Kaplan and Norton see measures as a core element to the maps citing the cliché, "you can't manage what you can't measure". However, simply agreeing on strategy and communicating it across the firm is a very valuable exercise. One can do a strategy map without being too concerned about the specific measures.

So there is actually an important divide here. Companies can put in a lot of sensible measures without doing the map, and companies can do the map without worrying much about measures. Since scorecard projects typically get bogged down on the measures companies interested in executing strategy would do well to focus first on the map, and only use measures to the extent they are practical.

4. Inquiry vs. Control

There is a another profound distinction in how the BSC is used: for inquiry and communication or for control. Kaplan and Norton stress that the point of the BSC is to facilitate the discussion and communication of strategy. If everyone understands how training relates to skills, how skills relate to quality, and how quality relates to sales then the firm will run better. It is also a tool for learning because it makes explicit assumptions (e.g. better skills lead to better quality) which can then be tested.

Unfortunately, most organizations are more interested in control than communication or learning. The balanced scorecard often becomes just another source of targets that managers are required to reach. As soon as people are being penalized for not hitting BSC targets learning and communication tend to go out the window. Managers will concentrate on measures and targets they can hit rather than on ones that are helpful for strategy execution, and they will manipulate the numbers rather than learn from them

James Creelman (a distant relative and scorecard expert) says the most common pitfall in scorecard projects is resistance to the transparency the performance measures create. Managers believe, and rightly so in many cases, that the scorecard results will be used to punish them, rather than as a way to learn and communicate.

The tendency for all systems to become control systems, and for control systems to become counterproductive, is one of the central problems of modern management.

5. Few Measures vs. Many

It's easy in a presentation to talk about using a few key measures to drive strategy but according to James Creelman scorecards very often become unmanageable as they try to show everything going on in the organization. He also notes that even when senior managers do try to keep the number of measures small they may fail to come up with something that people really believe in.

Scorecard proponents argue that this is because they, "did it wrong". I argue that it's because often business is too complex to be captured in a few measures. Whatever position you take the truth in practice is that many scorecard projects fail on this hurdle.

6. Conclusions

The apparent success of the scorecard obscures some of the issues with implementation. Adding some non-financial performance indicators to management reports is a safe and simple thing to do. Using a strategy map to facilitate communication of strategy, while not worrying too much about measures, can be a helpful process. However, the full blown scorecard process, the process which could have the greatest potential impact, risks becoming a control system or overly complicated.

Even with the distinctions I've made in this article I've probably left out some fundamental variations in scorecard projects. Dr. Marr says, "The BSC started as a measurement system, then became a management system, then became a strategic change framework, and now has become a framework to manage intangible assets (for which the concept of intangible assets had to be re-defined to fit the model, defying all previous research in the field)."

Firms need to think hard about what they are really trying to achieve before embarking on any scorecard project.

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4. Why HR Governance Matters*

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1. Introduction

A wide-ranging set of influences has propelledcorporate governance issues out of the

boardroom and onto the desktops of business executives throughout the organization.

HR executives face significant challenges, including managing a global function,

realizing returns on technology, accelerating the pace of organizational change, leveraging human capital strategically, and reforming management practices in response to proliferating regulation.

Historically, most HR leaders have not been challenged to think formally about functional governance issues, so they operate with an implicit model. In those few instances where governance is made explicit, it is usually

synonymous with compliance and does not address the central issue – improving

leadership and management of a function that invests an average of 36 percent of

operating revenue in compensation, health care, retirement, training, and other human capital investments. With over a third of revenue at stake, it’s time for HR leaders to develop an explicit model for functional governance – and to communicate the model proactively to involved stakeholders. This paper suggests how to formalize HR governance and shows how explicit governance can help HR executives uncover significant opportunities to improve functional performance and contribution.

2. The short history of HR governance

The concept of corporate governance arose from a confluence of legal, political, and economic ideas. Generally speaking, formal debates of the past 50 years have centered on the question of whether an organization can manage itself without regulation – and if not, who should do the regulating.

Until recently, US regulation of corporate governance has come from state statutes and stock exchange rules. But in 2002, federal lawmakers usurped the field when

they passed the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. For HR executives, Sarbanes-Oxley has many implications, including personal, legal accountability for the reliability of reporting and decision making for benefits plans and programs. But it may be shortsighted to limit the scope of this far-reaching regulation to the single activity of effective plan governance.

The term "HR governance" may have been conceived in the mid-’90s along with HR’s widespread efforts to transform the function from an administrator into a business

partner. Sarbanes-Oxley is another important motivation for HR executives to examine functional operating models with the goal of improving business contribution. Sarbanes-Oxley is now being considered as a model for corporate governance in Canada and the EU. So the most interesting chapter in the history of HR governance is just now being written.

3. HR Governance: A Definition and Key Elements

Because "HR governance" is an emerging organizational practice, there is currently no commonly acknowledged definition. HR governance is the act of leading the HR function and managing related investments to:

# optimize performance of the organization’s human capital assets;

# fulfill fiduciary and financial responsibilities;

# mitigate enterprise HR risk;

# align the function’s priorities with those of the business; and

# enable HR executive decision making.

Governance is not a strategic objective. It is a systematic approach to management that enables the function to achieve strategic and operational objectives.

4. The elements of governance

Mercer defines five core elements in an HR function’s system of governance. These elements enable functional leaders to manage areas of focus and accountability

effectively. While distinct from each other, these elements are interdependent, meaning that each one must be individually articulated and developed to govern explicitly and effectively.

Exhibit 1 illustrates the relationship among business, human capital, and HR functional strategies that influence HR’s operating model and inform its

governance system.

# Structure and accountability outline the design of the guiding group (the council) itself as well as its relationships with involved stakeholders. A charter document usually articulates the council’s areas of focus based on strategic, operational, and functional accountabilities. The charter may also address roles, meeting structures, and protocols.

# Effective councils link strongly to structure and refer to the personal, interpersonal, and group effectiveness of the council and other involved stakeholders.

# Philosophy and operating principles describe, at a minimum, the function’s risk tolerance, approach to delegating authority, and expected level of management

autonomy at business unit or geographic levels.

# Core management activities include HR strategy development, business planning, oversight of rewards plans and programs, HR resource allocation, and HR staff development/leadership succession. Through these core management activities, the council sets direction and priorities, ensures effective execution over time, and enforces internal controls.

# Performance monitoring refers to the framework and metrics used to evaluate and communicate the function’s operational effectiveness, compliance, and contribution to business success.

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5. Complimentary HR Tools/Downloads: Establishing Change Leadership

Roles & Responsibilities

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Establishing clear change leadership roles and responsibilities at the beginning of your change effort is critical to success. It is vitally important that both the executives and the people impacted by the change understand who is in charge, who is responsible for various change activities, as well as who owns key decisions. This tool will help you clarify your change leadership roles.

At the beginning of your change effort, you should define these roles as best you can, given what you know. Then, as your picture of what is needed shifts, you can redefine the roles and responsibilities as required.

We suggest six formal change leadership roles: Sponsor, Executive Team, Change Process Leader, Change Leadership Team, Change Project Team and Change Consultant. The magnitude of your change effort will determine how many of these roles you will need to fill. For large, complex efforts, you will likely need all six. You may want to tailor or combine them to fit your circumstances. Feel free to change the role titles to fit your organization’s culture and norms.

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6. Case Law & Legislation Review:

Judgment Date 23 April 2004

Jurisdiction Labour Appeal Court, Braamfontein

Judge Zondo, Judge President, Mogoeng, Judge of Appeal, Comrie, Judge of Appeal

Subject Practice and Procedure Appeal and review

Summary of Facts: Although the respondent has never enjoyed majority representation within the appellant's employ, the respondent and the appellant were involved in collective bargaining from 1986 until 2002, and the appellant allowed the respondent to elect shop stewards at workplaces where the respondent represented less than 50% plus one of the workforce. During early 2002 the appellant informed the respondent that it intended to increase its representivity threshold. This idea was again raised in the appellant's draft relationship agreement which was circulated to the appellant's collective bargaining partners. Eventually, that threshold was set. At the time, the respondent represented 11% of the appellant's workforce. The agreement between the two parties contained a termination clause stating that "The agreement shall remain in force and effect until either party shall give to the other 3 months written notice in writing of its intent to withdraw from the agreement. On 4 March 2002 the appellant gave the respondent a notice of its intention to terminate the recognition agreement. The collective agreement was terminated three months later. On 26 June 2002 the respondent launched an application in the Labour Court on an urgent basis seeking an order which would ensure that, pending an arbitration of the dispute by the CCMA, the respondent continued to exercise all the organisational 

rights it used to enjoy in terms of the recognition agreement. This application was successful.

Summary of Judgement: The main question in this appeal is whether the effect of section 21(11) of the Act is to prevent the normal operation of the principle that, where a contract stipulates a mode for its termination, that mode of the termination of the contract (eg the giving of notice for the termination of such agreement) is effective to terminate the contract. Another question is whether; if the recognition agreement containing the organisational rights could be terminated by the giving of notice without complying with section 21(11), the notice that was given in this case had the effect of terminating the agreement.

There is a distinction that must be drawn between the organisational rights regulated by a collective agreement and those regulated by an arbitration award. The distinction is that, in the case of those regulated by a collective agreement, the provisions of section 23, which apply to all collective agreements, apply to the collective agreement in which they are contained whereas those provisions do not apply to an award that regulates the manner in which a union must exercise organisational rights conferred on it by an arbitration award in terms of section 21(7). This makes a major difference in regard to the termination of such organisational rights. Section 23(4) deals with the termination of a collective agreement that had been concluded for an indefinite period. Of course, organisational rights that are contained in a collective agreement fall away when the collective agreement in which they are contained is validly terminated. The exception is where the collective agreement itself provides otherwise. In other words a collective agreement cannot be terminated in the manner provided for in section 23(4) if it itself precludes that. Section 21(11) only applies to those organisational rights which are regulated by an arbitration award issued in terms of section 21(7) whereas 23(4) applies to those organisational rights contained in a collective agreement regulating such rights. the recognition agreement in this case, together with the organisational rights contained therein, was terminable by the giving of written notice without following the procedure set out in section 21(11) of the Act.

On the basis that the appellant should have given three calendar months' notice, the agreement was validly terminated but only at the end of June 2002 rather than on 4 June 2002. If the recognition agreement was due to come to an end at the end of June 2002, then there was no justification really for the respondent to launch the proceedings that it launched four days before the actual termination of the agreement.

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7. Book Reviews

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# The Instant Manager

By Cy Charney, AMACOM, 2004

To purchase this book click on: http://www.kalahari.net/e-trader/referral.asp?toolbar=mweb&linkid=5&partnerid=293&sku=27674503

It’s like CliffsNotes for managers. No question about it, many times you are better off diving into a real book when you’re grappling with complicated and serious managerial issues. We suggest many such readings on this Web site. But other times, let’s face it, who has the time? This very afternoon, for example, you need to interview a job candidate, and it’s been awhile since your last encounter with a job applicant. How are you going to prepare yourself? What bases do you need to cover? What sorts of questions must you never ask? The Instant Manager has a chapter on interviewing—and you can read it in about five minutes.

So with our caveat that The Instant Manager is not the War and Peace of management volumes, it is excellent for what it is: a handbook of quick hits, how-tos, and reminders on a wide range of topics.

Chapters are organized into six big subject areas: personal growth, communication, teamwork, leadership, human resource management, and performance improvement. Leadership, for example, is then divided into seventeen sub-areas including "Encouraging Creativity," "Giving Feedback," and "Handling Conflict between Associates" and others. Most of the advice is dispensed in the form of checklists and bullet points.

# The CCL Guide to Leadership in Action: How Managers and Organizations Can Improve the Practice of Leadership

Edited by Martin Wilcox and Stephen Rush, Jossey-Bass, 2004

To purchase this book click on: http://www.kalahari.net/e-trader/referral.asp?toolbar=mweb&linkid=5&partnerid=293&sku=27804052

The CCL referred to in the title is the Center for Creative Leadership in Greensboro, North Carolina, a place where managers of all levels can seek training and tune-ups in leadership skills. This edited volume is a handy compilation of articles from CCL’s bimonthly magazine, Leadership in Action. What you’ll find here: practical advice on building cohesive teams, dealing with interpersonal conflict, leading across cultures, managing succession, and keeping a handle on your own career.

In the career area, for example, executives are warned against becoming too complacent about early success. "Many high-performing executives have one or more blind spots that they ignore as long as they continue to meet their business goals," it is said. The chapter goes on to offer checklists of self-assessment questions.

The articles are organized into two main areas, leadership skills for you, personally, and for the betterment of your organization. Most of the authors are associated with CCL in some way, either as directors, managers, fellows, or program associates. As an all-around guide to the complexity of leadership, this is an accessible and valuable entry point.

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