After reading dozens of predictions regarding the new decade I am struck by evidence of an unfailing human trait: namely that things mean pretty much what we want them to mean.

We'll attribute significance to the least consequential points if they suit us and happily ignore the most flagrantly obvious if it threatens some cherished prejudice or belief.  We are blindest to precisely whatever might be most illuminating.
                                                                                    Paraphrased from Transitions by Iain Banks

Yesterday Versus Tomorrow
When Birinyi Associates summarized the economic projections for the major investment banks their work confirmed that too many forecasts are based on assumptions that the future will turn out looking largely like the past. It is devastatingly clear that we are entering a period that looks nothing like the past, and to use backward-looking data to project the immediate future carries the risk of disaster.

Human resources professionals are not exempt from this behavior.  Many thought leaders, including yours truly, have been claiming for decades that the only way out of the “nuke HR” syndrome is to acquire the business skills, knowledge and attitudes of their customers; management.  Yet, too many of them continue to wallow in self-pity and blame management for HR’s inability to deliver and demonstrate financial value.  They continue to buy software packages in the vain hope of changing reality.  It is like painting a car under the hallucination that this will improve its speed and mileage.

The message one more time is: Stop patching an old pseudo-strategy and face reality: the new normal.  By the way, just what is HR’s strategic management model?  What are its constituents and form?  Activity is not a strategy.  A strategy is based on a clear view of the market, a coordinated plan for sustainable growth, synchronized processes and a performance measurement system.

Management is rapidly picking up predictive analytics as the new strategic lever.  Where is HR; still tracking transactions of the past and reporting cost rather than value opportunity?  Give up the ossified belief that HR is different.  People management is as central to organizational success as is financial management.  Get up to speed on predictive analytics or spend another decade acting like Rodney Dangerfield.  I know you don’t like to hear this, but someone has to have the guts to tell you the truth. 

2010 is not like 2000 or even 2008.

Dr Jac