Re-visioning the CEO & CHRO engagement algorithm – 2030

Have you ever noticed that in the corporate world, it is more often than not, the HR professionals who suffer from an existential crisis! If you think I am joking, then consider this — have you ever come across Finance or Sales or Engineering/Product professionals debating how can they be “trusted partners” to the CEO? Short answer – “highly unlikely!” One reason is that a Sales leader swears by targets and customers and there is a clear link between his/her impact on the top and bottom line. The Finance leader keeps the engine humming by using financial tools and skills to conserve cash, optimize costs and even, generate cash through Treasury and other avenues. Lastly, the Product head is a key cog in the larger wheel because s/he is one designing viable, futuristic products. 

My hypothesis is that CHROs tend to suffer from a healthy dose of an inferiority complex and when we measure ourselves with other CXOs, we are found wanting and end up in self-flagellation about “Do we deserve the seat at The Table?” To be fair, this concern is not entirely misplaced. CHROs have, at times, failed to cross over from being good functional leaders to be being great business leaders. Very few of us have been able to achieve that. Therefore, it is not unexpected that HR is still debating tenuous relationships that exist between many CEOs - CHROs and tip-toeing around setting expectations and deliverables in order to build a strong and trustworthy relationship. There are a few reasons for this — CEOs are under pressure to deliver and an organization’s attention span and the ability to sustain long-term interventions is often fraught with a lack of stamina. CHROs, by nature, deal with people and between ramping up or ramping down (which have shorter cycles), tend to focus on concepts like Organization Design, Talent Development, Leadership Coaching and so on – all that requires patience and time.

In a way, CHROs first need to be sellers of “ideas” to their CEOs and it is here, more often than not, that CHROs fail in our ability to link the Ideas ◊ to Viable Interventions ◊ to Demonstrated Business Impact. There is no doubt that the onus for setting the contours of this relationship rests with the CHROs first. Demonstrating deep functional competence, understanding different functions, having an ability to wear a ‘strategic problem solver’ hat rather than just a problem-solver, continue to be some of the tips that we can use to engage with the CEO. 

However, there is a far more profound issue at hand that dwarfs everything that a mere CEO-CHRO relationship may risk getting subsumed in. In his book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, Klaus Schwab (2016)1 states that steam, electricity, and electronics/IT brought in the first, second and third revolutions. Now a Fourth Industrial Revolution is (in progress and it) characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres”. It is marked by emerging technology breakthroughs in a number of fields, including Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Reality, Nanotechnology, Quantum Computing, Biotechnology, The Internet of Things (IoT), 3D printing, Autonomous vehicles and so on.

With this onslaught, HR as a profession in particular and the world of management, in particular, is at the cusp of changes that are literally re-writing the ‘what and how’ of relationships, expectations and performance measurements that are coming to categorize a new world order. A report by McKinsey Global Institute (MGI, Nov ‘17)2  reveals that by 2030, the following is most likely to happen: Between 400 million and 800 million people globally could be displaced by automation. Of these, about 75 million to 375 million may need to learn new skills; In about 60 percent of occupations, at least 1/3 of the activities could be automated, implying substantial workplace transformations and changes for all workers; there will be a new demand for workers in a range of occupations, including manufacturing, construction, and installation. 

As the workforce landscape changes, CHROs urgently need to engage with their CEOs to re-align their strategies for engaging with a diverse workforce, where automation and intelligent machines are re-drawing the job landscape. Various reports talk about how traditional careers may wither away, how the “You-Tuber” generation perceives work-reward-engagement models and how do we create a more diverse and inclusive workforce. Progressive companies like Expedia Group are already investing heavily in People Technology and Data Analytics tools and processes to strengthen the ability of HR to provide predictive intelligence to the CEO to ‘see ahead of the curve’ and take actions on all of these issues. Better education and widespread Internet reach will ensure that more Women are able to join the workforce than ever before. How will CEOs and CHROs prepare for the dying of old jobs and skills and yet find creative ways to train a diversified workforce to face a brave new world will be a battle worth fighting.

Instead of being stuck in a boss-subordinate relationship, the CEOs-CHROs should ™partner∫ in a world where the role and meaning of work has started to shift

It is most likely that the role of the CEO will undergo a transformation, just as that of the CHRO. A whole new set of performance parameters will need to be created and measured. Thus, this is a great time to press the reset button by both these role holders. The existence of current companies and the birth of new ones is contingent upon the CEO and the CHRO moving away from the pedantic debate about articulating each other’s roles better. Instead of being stuck in a boss-subordinate relationship, the CEOs-CHROs should “partner” as per the claims of the MGI report “we will all need creative visions for how our lives are organized and valued in the future, in a world where the role and meaning of work start to shift”. 

As business leaders, therefore, it is a call to arms for CEOs, CHROs (in fact all CXOs) to revisit their approach to leadership. In the next decade, we will start seeing the emergence of professions that have not existed before, and to articulate a future that none of us know how it will be unfolding. We can only be certain that it has started to unfold. 

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