Unleash human potential within your own organization
Barriers to Human Capitalization
While attending the 2008 Dreamforce conference I had the pleasure of listening to a keynote speech by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point and Outliers.
I’m going to attempt to summarize his brilliance, then discuss how small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) can unlock the human potential of their employees using technology.
In his speech, Gladwell discussed the idea of human capitalization – what percentage of people (i.e. human potential) in a given community is successfully capitalized? In other words, what percentage of people that are capable of achieving something actually end up achieving it?
Gladwell presented three barriers to human capitalization, whether it be in a sports team, city, country, ethic group, company, or whatever. Here are the three barriers, with an example of each:
1) Logistical
Logistical (and often arbitrary) rules restrict human potential.
The majority of professional team sports players (hockey, soccer, etc) globally at every level are born in the first half of the year. Why? Because the cutoff for each year is the Jan 1 birth date, and the older kids are more coordinated and therefore get the coaching and opportunities.
2) Economical
Human potential is restricted by the realities of poverty, underfunding, and lack of capital.
In South Central Los Angeles, kids in poor schools receive scholarships but none go to college because they have to cross gang lines. The capitalization for this area of LA is 0%, the same as sub-Sahara Africa.
3) Attitudinal
Peoples attitudes restrict human potential.
There’s a perception that Chinese children are smarter than American children. If you take a group of Chinese 10-year-old school kids and a group of American 10-year-old school kids, and give them a complex math task and time them at it, you’ll find the American kids give up after about 2 minutes; the Chinese kids will still be working after 15 minutes. It’s about persistence, the consequence of culturally ingrained notions of how hard you should work.
Human Capitalization in Companies
There is an excellent discussion of human potential within large organizations as it relates to hiring leaders.
Marcus Buckingham’s Go Put Your Strengths To Work discusses how most employees do not do what they are best at each day, and suggests steps one can take to change one’s job description or grow into a better fitting role.
So given all of that, I want to discuss a slightly different concept: how can small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) unlock the human potential of their employees using technology?
If you run or work for an SMB, consider these questions (I’ve tried to answer these myself for my company, and they are not all easy):
- What percentage of human potential in your company is successfully capitalized?
- Are your employees achieving extraordinary things?
- Do you feel that technology in particular has significantly raised your employee productivity?
- Or do your employees frequently waste time and “reinvent the wheel”?
- Do you feel that you don’t have the time, budget or know-how to deploy technologies that would raise the capitalization of your employees?
Assuming, like me, your company isn’t humming along perfectly in balance and as efficient as possible, then what exactly is holding you back? Ask yourself, how can I lift logistical, economical, and attitudinal barriers within my company to enable our people to engage in more meaningful and productive work?
Let’s look at each barrier as it might apply to your company.
1) Logistical
What rules have been imposed in your business or industry that restrict your potential? Are your business processes effective and consistently executed? Do you find yourself choosing between “standardized” software that doesn’t quite fit, and the uncertainty and expense of trying to customize a solution for your business?
2) Economical
Large companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars on technology. Do you believe that your (SMB) company can afford excellent technology to drive revenues, improve efficiencies, and focus on their business? Do you spend more than you think you should?
3) Attitudinal
Do you (and your people) believe technology will make any difference at all? Do you believe your (SMB) company has the same opportunities as large enterprises to use the best technology in the best ways? Do you insist on it, or do you make do without?
Let’s Discuss Solutions
As the president of a technology consultancy that that focuses on agile consulting, on-demand computing (Software as a Service), and Web 2.0 technologies, I am naturally biased towards what I consider the answers might be (but I could be wrong!):
- Select technologies that fit well with the way you want to run your business
- Customize where your business processes differ from industry best practices to enable competitive advantage
- Employ cheap or free technologies (open-source)
- Move to the cloud (SaaS, PaaS, on-demand computing)
- Adopt an agile approach to running all your projects
- Provide appropriate tools for your employees and customers to improve productivity and collaboration
I feel that there are many other factors:
- Leadership
- Management
- HR processes for hiring, training, and employee development
- Mentoring and coaching
I would love to hear from you! Is human capitalization really an issue in your business? What do you see as common approaches to solving these problems? Have they worked for you? Are there alternatives emerging or mainstream as technologies and methodologies “progress”?