“This morning I received a management development guide through my door. I flicked through it and came to rest at the “Human Resources” section. And I shivered. No nothing unusual. In fact more of the same! What made me shiver was the language used to describe people.”
These words by David Gurteen resonated with me as I struggle daily with the simplistic holing of people. David goes on.
There were four training courses and I wanted to rename each of them - to change the language that was used in talking about people.
- “Managing human resources” to “Managing people” or even to “Working with people”.
- “Attracting, retaining and developing talent: a strategy for increasing human capital” to “Attracting, retaining and developing people: a strategy for helping people to develop themselves”
- “Return on investment on human capital” to “Helping people to be their best.”
The idea is simple:
- Lets STOP thinking of people as resource, or talent or capital but quite simply as people!
- And lets stop talking about manipulating people but about working effectively with each other and helping and supporting each other.
And of course lets not just change the language lets change our behaviours too! But try as I might I cannot think of a better name for the most hated term of all “Human Resources”! Any suggestions? Or maybe a paradigm shift is in order? Lets transform the concept of “HR” and then we would not need a new name!
HR is so systematic that it will take behavioural change at the level of individuals to remove it. How is this relevant to Knowledge Management. At the most basic level, knowledge will only be shared if we start respecting the people we work with. We teach our children to share and be mindful of others. We don’t teach them that children in other families are just there to make that family sustainable!
Let the development of the Human Respect Department begin. Richard Branson (Virgin) has just purchased an island in Australi for his employees to use for their vacations. Think about it.