The foundation of good business is good people and it is the people in any organization that make all the difference to results that the business delivers, and how it delivers those results.

We cannot talk about business performance and business effectiveness in the absence of the performance and effectiveness of the people who are responsible for the business. The core idea of this year’s National HRD Conference is this inextricable link between people and business results. It is also true that people are not the responsibility of HR alone; people are the responsibility of people, whether they are functional heads, divisional heads, business unit heads, etc.

Therefore, people development and their effectiveness should be made the responsibility of all people in the organization, who lead other people. This is not the ‘soft side’ of the organization, as is sometimes assumed, but it is core.