Friends
The comma and the "and" in the title above are intentional.
I believe that Martin Silcock in LO105762 got it right when he showed us
that the weak link in the chain of HRM is the M, not the R.
People are, by tautological definition, "Human." They are also, as the
most etymologically learned of the postings on this general topic have
understood, "Resources." The real problem is that some people have
thought (and continue to think) that the resources represented by other
people (never themselves, of course!) are relatively fixed "assets" which
can and should be "managed," rather than adaptable "capabilities" which
can flourish in an enabling learning environment.
The etymology of "resources" in my dictionary has as the primary root the
Latin "(re)surgere--to rise up, lift." Think of a spring bubbling out of
the ground. Before it bubbles, it is nothing to the earth-bound observer.
After it has emerged or been discovered, it can become many things--a
slaking of thirst, a mighty river, a quiet lake or just a source of
fascination to a child. The nature and quality of the future of that
resource, in this age of us humans, depends on the inclinations and
creativity of the humans who encounter it.
The etymology of "manage" in my dictionary has as the primary root the
Italian "managgiare--to handle, train horses." Need one say more?
The real challenge for us in this whole thread is not, IMHO, debating
whether we humans are "resources" or not. I think we are. The issue is
can we/should we be "managed?" Or should we be "enabled," or "led?" My
predilection is for the latter. This is to say that I think that the
issue of "leadership" is a much richer vein to explore than "enablement."
One particular value of the "leadership" vein is that we can much more
easily put this factor through the prism of real world situations (e.g.
Scania Assurance, GE, the Body Shop, ABB, Sears, Matsushita, et. al),
rather than of academic theories. I, for one, would welcome much more of
the former than the latter on this list.
All comments are welcome
Cheers from Caledonia
Richard Goodale
Managing Partner
The Dornoch Partnership
"Learning daily that what we thought we knew yesterday is much less
that we know we don't know today."
--Richard Goodale <fc45@dial.pipex.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>