I was recently invited to a HR conference where at my behest, I was allowed to present a topic of my choice. I presented ‘God in HR’. If you think the subject was strange, wait till I disclose the agenda. The agenda was:
- To create CONTROVERSY
- To create CONFUSION
- To CHALLENGE the conventional wisdom
- To get CLARITY
The first three were done by me. But I advised the audience to search for clarity themselves. This was done because I had limited time – and the time required to get clarity is not less than a few years, just in case you are wondering. As Steve Jobs in his famous Stanford Speech said, “Stay hungry! Stay foolish!” I wanted to create hunger in my audience and I wanted them to start thinking foolishly – only then could they challenge the conventional wisdom.
In the conference, I shared some paradigms which the audience apparently found strange, not to my surprise. I talked about HR, about leadership, about money, the mission of an organization, about Balanced Scorecard and about how HR people have been gifted with a tremendous opportunity by the Almighty. In the following lines I will very briefly touch upon the above. I will later delve deeper into the main topic – The Benevolent Scorecard.
Human Resources
When I first attended the Leadership – Care and Growth Model, I being the only HR person was almost ridiculed (read insulted) by the trainer for calling myself ‘Head of Human Resource’. He was actually challenging the paradigm of treating humans as resources. Today I am thankful to him for he is one of those people who taught me the incredible wisdom of thinking foolishly.
Unlike machines which become dead when the clock strikes 5 PM, people continue to live afterwards. Traditional management theories have completely disregarded the fact that we have a much nobler responsibility – that of people. We are so fortunate that God gave us this responsibility, that we have an opportunity to change people’s lives, to make a contribution in their lives.
Leader is the Servant
John Adair wrote a whole book on this theme. The title of the book: “The Leadership of Muhammad” (peace be upon him). He also wrote a hadith (saying of Prophet Muhammad) on the cover page:
“On a journey, the leader of a people is their servant”.
In another hadith, the Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) said:
“Each one of you is a custodian and each one of you shall be asked about his (or her) custody”
After reading the book, the idea that a leader is responsible for the care and growth of his people starts making so much sense. The conventional wisdom, on the other hand, says that he has to get results through his people. Put your hand on your heart and tell – which of the two would you like to work for? Again put your hand on your heart and tell – for which of the two would you work harder to deliver results? Unfortunately, most people on leadership positions have taken it upon themselves to rather ruin the lives of those they are made responsible for.
Do we Work for Money or Money Works for us?
Money used to be a resource, wasn’t it? It works for us and not the other way round. God created everything for us (Quran 2:29). But in our blind faith on conventional wisdom, we have completely messed up with the original equation (and started treating humans as resources). We defined the purpose of an organization as ‘Maximization of Profits’, kept beating the drum around human resource being the most important asset and started creating formulas for putting a value to ‘Human Capital’. What are we actually doing? We are treating people as money which can make more money. Which of the statement is correct: Everything exists for humans OR everything exists for money? Everything will fall in place if you can answer that question right.
Balanced Scorecard
For those not yet familiar with the concept, a Balanced Scorecard provides a logical framework for achieving business or financial success. I will not go into details as I am sure you will find plenty on the net. The following figure is but a simple illustration of how the idea works:
If you notice, even in the Balanced Scorecard, the thing at the top is Business or Financial Success. Guess what is at the bottom. I kept looking at it for very long – there was something wrong in it. The ‘foolish’ part of my brain was not comfortable at all. Don’t get me wrong. It is not that I don’t like the BSC concept. I am actually a fan of Kaplan and Norton, those two brilliant people who gave us this extremely useful and logical framework. The only problem is that it is developed on the principles of conventional wisdom. What really matters even in Balanced Scorecard is money. It tells how our plans and strategies in four perspectives should cause us to make more and more money. Period.
When financial success or results are the focus you lose sight of the Present. That is because results are a future activity, an outcome of what you do in the present. Consider the example of a cricket match in which a batsman has to score runs at a moderately high pace. Now instead of looking at the ball his mind is focused at the scoreboard, the number he has to get to win. What is he doing? He is focusing on future; losing sight of the present; and in an attempt to score faster, doesn’t treat the ball on its merit and gets out. That is why we always have the sight screen in front of the batsman so that he can focus on the present i.e. the ball, and the scoreboard is always on the side.
Now let’s start thinking foolishly. What if the higher objective was to make people successful while everything else was designed to achieve that noble objective? It would then sound like this: Having successful people will only be possible if our internal processes are aligned with this objective; and internal processes will only work if our customers are happy with them. If all this is achieved financial success will be a guaranteed outcome – any other possibility becomes difficult to imagine.
Let us take the example of a sales rep. A customer will only be convinced if the internal processes are designed in such a manner that the rep provides a product which is needed, is of good quality, is made available at all points of purchase, and on time. The rep has been provided an appropriate compensation package, caring leader and all the training and resources to ensure that he makes a quality call. The internal processes have also identified the potential customers accurately. With all these processes in place, would it be too difficult to predict a successful sales call? What we have done is that we have put the Balanced Scorecard upside down as under:
The financial scorecard is no more at the top. It is not even considered one of the four perspectives. It is at the side, a lagging indicator of what we are doing in the present. We are now treating people as the purpose not as a resource, while financials have become an indicator of performance.
| Question: Can a resource ever be more important than the purpose? |
Even this was less foolish than what I am going to suggest in the next few lines.
Model leaders are supposed to be simultaneously both exalted and humble, capable of vision and inspiration, yet at the same time dedicated to the service of their people.
If we have agreed that the Balanced Scorecard will work better when the higher objective is to make people successful, what if this success meant more than just financial or career success? Would a genuinely caring manager also not care for the subordinate’s success in his other roles (how can a caring manager not care about this)? If yes than would he not like to keep an eye on how successful he is in those roles.
In such a case, we should be having two indicators of success. One for financial or ‘Material Success’ and the other for ‘Spiritual Success’. The scorecard will then turn into a truly Benevolent Scorecard as illustrated below:
The desire for a Convinced Customer (read God’s pleasure) will drive alignment of my internal processes. If these processes are aligned I will become a successful human being. As a father, mother, son, daughter, brother or sister I will do everything that is required for earning God’s pleasure; similarly as a neighbor, as a friend, as an inhabitant of this planet I will do all that I am meant to do. I will live a meaningful life, a satisfying life. There will be more life in my years than years in my life. And when the time comes to bid farewell, and the appointed angel takes a look at my ‘accountability sheet’ I hope he won’t have to say “What a waste of time!!”
A genuine leader is the one who shows the path to goodness of both the worlds.
Benevolent Scorecard. Any takers?
Muhammad Faisal is an MBA and the Head of HR and Information Systems at Macter International. He has authored ‘The Tablespread of the Holy Prophet (PBUH)’ and has translated several books of reknowned scholars. He can speak English, Urdu and German.