The Importance of Environmental Scanning: A Dose of Daily Drucker

I read alot. I get alot of newsletters. I read several blogs on a daily basis. I get alerts from the Feds, SHRM, and several other organizations. I think it is important to know what is going on in the world. It helps me make informed decisions in my daily business as well as in my daily life. SHRM calls that "environmental scanning" and in the material it puts out for PHR and SPHR education it stresses that this is a skill that is important for the strategic HR leader. I agree and in the classes I teach I try to stress how important it is. Many times I skeptical looks and under-the-breath comments about "not having the time."

Today's entry from "The Daily Drucker" lends some credence to my emphasis and personal actions. According to Drucker, "The technologies that are likely to have the greatest impact on a company and an industry are technologies outside its own field." It goes further by saying "Many changes that have transformed enterprises have originated outside the specific industry of that enterprise." He gives several examples, such as the zipper, which had a major impact on the clothing industry was originally for closing bales of heavy goods. No one ever thought it would replace buttons.

By extension we can apply this principle to human resources. The changes that will have major effects on how we deal with people will come from outside the field of HR. It will be social trends, legal trends, technology trends, economic trends, political trends, educational trends, etc. If you are not monitoring these on a regular basis you will have no opportunity to prepare to deal with changes. As usual you will be left to be reactive (the bane of HR) and executive management in your company will continue to see you as the "file cabinet."

So invest some time each workweek to read outside of HR. Review newsletters, blogs (see my list of favorites), magazines, technology items and social happenings to be alert. Take a look at The Futurist, Wired, The Economist, Freakonomics, and more.

Drucker on HR: The Knowledge Worker

This past weekend I happend upon a book called The Daliy Drucker: 366 Days of Insight and Motivation for Getting the Right Things Done. It is chocked full of quotes, insights and action items from the most prolific and most respected of management writers and consultants. If you don't know who Peter F. Drucker is you need to click on his name and read about the man. If you had nothing but Drucker books in your library you would not be short anything. Although he has passed away The Drucker Institute at Clairmont College continues his work.

I bring this up because the entry in the book for January 7th is "Knowledge Workers: Asset Not Cost," which comes from his book Management Challenges for the 21st Century. He starts off with the statement "Knowledge workers OWN the means of production." (My emphasis.) He states further "It is the knowledge between their ears. And it is a totally portable and enormous capital asset. Because knowledge workers own their means of production, they are mobile. Manual workers need the job much more than the job needs them. It may still not be true for all knowledge workers that the organization needs them more than they need the organization. But for most of them it is a symbiotic relationship in which the two need each other in equal measure."

Drucker then argues that "Management's duty is to preserve the assets of the institution in its care. What does this mean when the knowledge of the individual knowledge worker becomes an asset and, in more and more cases, the main asset of an institution?" For him and for me there are alot of human resources implications to that question. How do you attract and hold on to these workers? What policies are necessary to change or impliment to hold on to the highest producing knowledge workers? Do you have the appropriate compensation system in place? How do we increase their productivity and how is this converted into organizational performance?

I think in many organizations one of the first hurdles HR has to get over in dealing with knowledge workers is convincing management that they are indeed an asset and that the company needs them on the job much more than they need to have that particular job. Perhaps one good way would be to educate them through the use of Peter Drucker and his writings. So all HR professionals should have a good dose of Drucker on their bookshelf and should be well versed in the use of Drucker wisdom. You will be a better HR pro and you will have a better management team as a result.