HR – is like washing hands before you eat

During the last few years I have seen a lot cases where very sound projects or programs failed. Of course you have official explanations, but they are mostly a “set of excuses” of those trying to cover the real reasons. Since everyone is very self-loving they can see everyone else guilty, except themselves. Therefore as end results the message comes out like “There is a mess in the middle, we all were here when it happened, but we do not know who did that and how it happened”. Surely it is not the story to which one would believe, but lets think about what causes those sort of situations and how to avoid.

It is hard to prove may be but all books which I have read, all of them state that the 90% of the success is execution. Execution of course have several pieces from which they consist. Lets call them in very simple and short – Who? did What? and How?. If we translate them to the more business terms we will call it People process, Operational processes, Management process in the order how questions appeared. People Process is not a chance of life that happened to be in the first place, but, it is obviously the first and the main part of the success.

We are like little kids , running to the table to eat the cake while forgetting to wash our hands. It is easy to understand that it is enough to have a piece of cake and hands to eat it. But , the safest way of doing it is to have a plate , a fork, clean hands and tidy table. It is quick to eat cake with hands without any preparation. But then, both hands are dirty with cake and the piece which you ate already included bacterias from your hand.

In business world, many times, having a good product gives a feeling that it is already a success. But, you should not forget that you can always find managers who can make sure that your success product turns into a not selling sink cost of company. Therefore, if you do have a good product and good plan , it is not enough if you do not have right people to make it real. HR is the earliest stage and the most essential piece of the process you can ever imagine you have spent for success of your project. Fastest start does not mean success. The same as eating cake without washed hands which can cause the further bacterias and illnesses. You have to make sure that you carefully built product with your brilliant management approach are handled by right people with right competence and attitudes.

While saying the HR and People process, it sound a bit of common understood human selection and evaluation stuff, which is partially true, but mainly misunderstood in concept. People widely believe that HR is the support organization of the company and the department which deals with acquisitions and lay-offs from the company. Actually I’d say that HR is strategic part of the business process and answers the question of “With whom we can make our idea successful ?”. If the selection is not right it can cause opposite, from the eating tasty cake into the illness with difficult times. Carefully selected right people per each position can make your difference in competition avoiding illnesses and bacterias over the time.

The money at risk with People processes are quite higher than the value at risk with Operational processes. Unfortunately the effect hard to guess from the start and mainly discovered post-factum. Therefore i’d advice to take People process more close to the heart of your organization in order to select better and align more powerfully for success of your company.

Regards,

Imran Baghirov.

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