Last night I gave an address to a meeting organized by Human Potential Accounting, writes Philip Whiteley. It was held to promote the fourth edition of the Human Capital Handbook, and I was pleased that the talks and discussion addressed some of the big themes of the crisis in the business model, and the impact on the economy.
It was rather gratifying to hear eminent speakers make similar points to mine in almost the same way; having arrived independently at similar conclusions. Raj Thamotheram, keynote speaker and founder of the Network for Sustainable Financial Markets, said there is a problem with the ‘meta-narrative’ we tell ourselves about business and management:
‘We don’t just have a reporting or a metrics problem; we have a fundamental problem with the meta-narrative; the story we tell about business … is badly broken. We need to fix technical problems, but trying to do that within the current narratives will fail.’
This mirrors my own frustration with initiatives on human capital, in which efforts are made to insert a feature of ‘the human contribution’ into a framework designed by the financial accounts. What’s needed is a conceptual shift that recognizes that the company consists of people; that employees aren’t just one of the assets; rather we are the core asset, who create all the others.
Simon Caulkin, contributor to The Observer and Financial Times, criticised the business media for failing to challenge the assumptions behind the way in which businesses have been run, with their excessive focus on short-term profit maximization. We address the theme in New Normal Radical Shift. An excerpt reads:
Coverage of business and management is superficial and inadequate. It is confined to financial reporting – which the media wrongly assume is the same as the business result – and the occasional scandal like BP in the Gulf of Mexico. It is like only covering politics when there is a disaster or a budget, and not bothering with leadership selection, policy commitments, manifesto promises or conferences. (Chapter 6, sub-heading: ‘The political class: a problem’ page 91 of the hardback version).
Special mention should go also to Ann Graham, contributor to Strategy+Business, who helped put the whole thing together. See her profile of Tata here.
Coming just a week after our successful seminar to mark the book launch, and setting up of our Linked-In group Radical Shift, I hope that this is the start of a constructive conversation and some positive change.
