HR Pulse

Talent management and positive organisational behaviour

What does it take in today’s competitive business environment to become a global player? Influential business leaders and authors increasingly believe that it is the human factor and that today’s environment requires the intensive development and management of intangible human or intellectual capital.

Gary Hamel, author of Competing for the Future, asserted unequivocally to his audience during an annual conference of human resources professionals, "People are all there is to an organisation". Successful leaders such as Jack Welch (General Electric) and Wayne Callaway (PepsiCo) spend half of their time on people. Bill Gates also has also been known to comment that the most important assets in his company walk out the door every night.

Traditionally, economic capital (both financial and tangible assets such as plant and equipment) received all the attention. So why the shift in focus? And why are human resources now seen as the source of competitive advantage? Compared to the traditional physical, structural, and financial resources, human resources are more inimitable by competitors, making it a much more sustainable source of competitive advantage.

The value created when human capital is aligned with corporate strategy and fully engaged in making the enterprise effective, has been researched extensively. Jeffrey Pfeffer pointed out in his book, The Human Equation, that about seven-eights of today’s organisations "just don’t get it" – what he has called the "the knowing-doing gap." The recognition and effective management of human capital can be a starting point for organisations to close the gap between what they know should be done and what they are currently doing.

The investment in human capital seems vital to the success and competitive advantage of organisations. However, the time has come to go beyond these types of assets and embrace "positive psychological capital”. Psychological capital has its roots in the emerging positive psychological movement that originated just a few years ago, when research psychologist Martin Seligman, challenged the field to change from a preoccupation with what is wrong and dysfunctional with people to what is right and good about them. Positive psychology is defined as "the scientific study of optimal human functioning. It aims to discover and promote the factors that allow individuals and communities to thrive".

Positive psychology has spurred the movement towards the field of positive organisational behaviour which is defined as the, "study and application of positively-oriented human resource strengths and psychological capacities that can be measured, developed, and effectively managed for performance improvement”. Positive organisational behaviour comprises positive psychological capacities which might include self-efficacy/confidence, hope, optimism and resiliency. These positive psychological capacities are collectively referred to as positive psychological capital. Unlike positive psychology, that emphasises factors such as positive personality traits and individual differences, positive organisational behaviour focuses on state-like (as opposed to dispositional, fixed, and trait-like) variables that can be developed within organisational members through workplace interventions and proactive management. Moreover, positive organisational behaviour incorporates only psychological states that are validly measurable, that can result in performance improvement. In other words, interventions can be developed for enhancing managers’ and employees’ confidence, hope and optimism.

The ability to measure human contribution to the organisation in subtly distinct ways makes positive organisational capital a key contributor to the competitive advantage and bottom line impact of organisations. Positive psychological capital can be invested in and managed and, unlike traditional financial capital and tangible assets, this can be done at a relatively low monetary cost.

The principal contribution of positive organisational behaviour lies in the fact that the approach is, by nature, generative. It eschews pursuit of the root of dysfunction, looks instead for the root of distinction, and seeks to build that distinctive strength as a sustainable asset.

Each affective state contributes to positive psychological capital in its own distinct way. For example, confidence provides for openness to challenges and a willingness to expend effort on the pursuit of a goal (perhaps because of the expected return on investment).

Hope provides the goals and desires to attain those goals (implying a link to motivation), as well as planning or strategic response to enable the attainment of those goals. Given these distinctions, it becomes easier to see the advantage that a measure of positive psychological capital offers in developing a more thorough estimate of the value of an organisation.

That human resources are critical to organisations for the achievement of sustainable competitive advantage in today’s global economy cannot be questioned. However, with few notable exceptions, human resources have been only given lip service, and are not yet treated as a capital investment. Organisations need to recognise the necessity to refine and advance the newly-proposed positive psychological capital. In moving beyond human capital to positive psychological capital, the full force of the importance of the human factor can be better recognised and used in meeting the tremendous challenges faced by organisations now and in the future.

Author: Dedre Lemmer.