All capital is a leadership responsibility! I recall one of my earliest negotiations with an executive team when the CFO noted, following a 30-minute presentation on human capital investment, that as a leadership team they truly understand the principles associated with an HR vs HC mindset. This was quite unnerving as one of my close acquaintances was a senior manager at the company and seriously appealed to me to connect with their leadership due to the ongoing people challenges they were experiencing.

At that point, I realized that we were in any case not going to do business with this company so I had a bit of a go at the CFO when I asked her what the purpose of their finance department was. She astutely responded that their function is to manage and support finance-related aspects such as payroll, debtors and payment. I wholeheartedly agreed, but then asked her if she was sure that they were not also responsible for the financial capital investment of the company. At this question, she looked at me with half a frown and stated that capital is the executive and board’s responsibility. I again agree with her position. I then asked her my final question, “so who takes care of the people in the business?” To which she responded, “O, that’s the job of HR!”

I did not have to push the point as every executive around the table immediate saw where I was going, so I merely responded that this view of hers supported the fact that she at least had a view that the people were merely a resource to the company and not seen as part of the very wealth basis they possessed. You see – ALL CAPITAL IS A LEADERSHIP RESPONSIBILITY! I assume that you have a well-crafted financial capital investment strategy in place, but my question is how well is your human capital investment strategy designed and implemented at this point?

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