Book Review: 'Unlocking Human Capital To Drive Performance: A CEO’s Handbook'
As organisations become more performance-driven, CEOs and boards of directors find themselves turning into HR managers — dealing with problems like recruiting and retention.
Book: Unlocking Human Capital To Drive Performance: A CEO’s HandbookAutho:rSanjiv AnandPublisher: Tata McGraw-HillPages: 175
As organisations become more performance-driven, CEOs and boards of directors find themselves turning into HR managers — dealing with problems like recruiting and retention. In Unlocking Human Capital To Drive Performance: A CEO’s Handbook, Sanjiv Anand, a consultant with over 25 years of experience working with such directorial boards, tries to highlight the challenges a CEO or the top management of an organisation has to deal with.
Rather than promote someone just to fill the top slots in human resources, Anand stresses the importance of investing in a good HR manager who will make an effort to understand the needs of the organisation and the employees. A good HR manager has to be a change maker, an advisor, a regulator, as well as a “handmaiden”, Anand writes.
Citing the example of Tom Cruise-starrer Jerry Maguire, Anand says that a CEO needs to show his/her employees what they consider most important: money. “It is essential to add a strong annual component of variable compensation based on the performance record of meeting specific targets… For years, KPIs, KRAs MBOs have existed. But their importance today is greater, especially with their link to compensation,” he writes, adding that it is equally important to “nurture your rockstars” by giving them challenging assignments, and mentoring and rewarding high performers.
This easy-to-read guide for CEOs is divided into two parts — ‘Strategic Imperatives’ and ‘Operational Stuff’. Each of the 29 chapters has short bullet-point summaries. The book is illustrated with cartoons that explain the concept of each of the short 29 chapters and add an element of fun to each concept Anand talks about.
Unlocking Human Capital... will find resonance not just with CEOs and the board of directors of various organisations, but also with managers in large corporations, and with family-run businesses.