The 21st century Human Resources function: it's the talent, stupid! Identifying and developing talent, one person at a time, becomes our defining challenge

The HR function has evolved through many roles over the last hundred years and it must continue to evolve. Broad-reaching conceptualizations like Strategic Business Partner and Change Agent help us understand the function overall but obscure the reality that unless Human Resources gets better at understanding the individual human that is our namesake, then our promise will not be fully realized. If we deal only with programs and processes, then we never touch what is ultimately our greatest strategic differentiator: The talent inherent in each person, one individual at a time. Imagine the power in helping to maximize the individual's contribution to the organization's goals and to the individual's own personal mission in life. We will not get there through the competency model approach nor through an endless quest to develop weaknesses. We can get there through a more complete understanding of a person's talents and a better process for matching talent with roles.

"It's the economy, stupid!" This advice was powerful enough, apparently, to get at least one U.S. President in recent history elected. When Clinton's election strategy tried to address every issue at a 50,000-foot level, it was ineffective. When he narrowed his focus to the economy, he won.

Every HR leader should take a leaf out of this strategy playbook. Yes, HR has many accountabilities, ranging from Strategic Partner, to Change Agent, to Administrative Expert, to Employee Champion, as David Ulrich described in his recent book, The HR Champions (Harvard Business School Press, 1997). But these accountabilities exist at the 50,000-foot level. They are theoretical abstractions. And, if you're not careful, these abstractions obscure the fact that the success or failure of every HR initiative hinges on the answer to one very practical question: What is the best way to increase one person's performance? Your answer to this question affects every HR process: Recruitment, Selection, Performance Appraisal, Performance Management, Compensation, Career Pathing, Training Needs Assessment, and Succession Planning.

In this article we argue that many of us in HR have come to ignore this question. We have designed complex "totally integrated systems," but we have lost sight of the fact that HR's most basic challenge is to help one particular person increase his or her performance. To be successful in the future we must restore our focus on the unique talents of each individual employee, and on the right way to transform these talents into lasting performance. We must build all of our tools, processes, and initiatives around the right answer to that simple practical question: What is the best way to increase one person's performance? We must put the "human" back into human resources.

One Wrong Answer and Three Flawed Assumptions

During the past decade many organizations have attempted to implement a "totally integrated human resource management system." Although each organization's system will have its idiosyncrasies, most systems will contain the following elements (a six-step process):

1. The organization develops an approach to define the behavioral competencies expected of each key role.

2. The organization designs interviewing systems...