Through the eyes of the HR strategist

The world belongs to the discontented.

Robert Woodruff, former Chairman of Coca-Cola

Real HR strategists are not easily impressed. So don t ever ask one whether they think your business is well run. It would be like asking a top opera singer of the stature of Pavarotti what they thought of your local, amateur, light operatic society. If they were in a good mood and did not want to hurt your feelings, they might suggest that you could be doing a great deal better than you are. However hard they might try to see the virtue in your efforts though, their mental yardstick would be La Scala, not the local village hall.

HR strategists are the truly discontented. So however good you are in the way you manage your people, an HR strategist will see it as amateurish. They will see vast opportunities for improvement. Even if you did everything they asked you to, they would be back in your office the next day with a new list of opportunities to pursue.

This book has taken about a year to write but has probably been over 30 years in the making. It is a response to all the poor people management I have observed and personally experienced from my own, earliest employment experiences to my more recent life as a consultant working with large, global organizations. These experiences include the failure by all of my former employers to really get the best out...