Frederick Al-Rashidi, Human Asset Growth Officer (in 2009, Vice President of Human Resources): "So many of us forget that in the not-so-distant past the human asset growth function was regarded as a dumping ground for nonperformers and that any role in 'human resources,' as it was known then, was a dead-end job. As I read my predecessor's letter, I was amazed to find that her role centered on recruiting, along with maintaining salary compensation bracket tables that she herself confessed were unbalanced and inequitable. Her staff seems to have been obsessed with cajoling managers to do performance appraisals of their employees.

"In contrast, human asset growth executives today are among the biggest influencers of shareholder wealth creation. For example, at our annual shareholders meeting, I'm always the kickoff speaker. The investor community now knows that the quality and learning growth rate of our employees and partners are the primary determinants of our company's success.

"Our custom career paths, co-developed with our employees, have given our productivity improvements a jolt. Our analytical human capital management software system is invaluable in detecting the slightest risk of losing a valued employee and enables us to mitigate that risk with the correct action. Employee retention is absolutely critical, given the value of the intellectual property that resides in the brains of our knowledge workers.

"And employee performance appraisal? Fortunately, that's all institutionalized under our Chief Performance Officer's scorecard and dashboard systems and bonus incentive program."

Vanida Bhirombhakdi, the Chief (in 2009, the Chief Executive Officer): "I like being called the Chief. The dictionary definition is 'a leader and person in command.' My predecessor seems to have been more enamored of the term 'executive.' I'm not sure he understood that this role has two main responsibilities: First, setting the strategic direction -- answering the question, 'Where do we want to go?' And second, providing vision, inspiration, and an environment for employees' and trading partners' learning and growth.

"My predecessor's letter kept insisting on the need for 'excellence.' But leadership is not about hollow words; it's about enabling performance management decision-making. While the decision about 'Where do we want to go?' is my responsibility, our managers and employees must answer a different question: 'How will we get there?'

"My struggle is to maintain a balance, so that we're constantly getting smarter and healthier. To get smarter, I ensure that we maintain our fabulous 'culture of metrics.' We are very quantitative here. To get healthier, I focus on employee morale and customer relationships. Happy people are productive people. Happy customers buy more from us.

"It was interesting to me that there was no letter in the time capsule to our Chief Partner Relationship Officer. My guess is that back then, the attitude was 'never trust a supplier or vendor; always try to squeeze them.' The thinking was that if you drove a partner out of business, you could always find another one. Of course, that kind of attitude died out in the 2020s. Nowadays, business is all about partners and the value they can bring."

He was the lead author of the acclaimed An ABC Manager's Primer (ISBN 0-86641-220-4), sponsored by the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA). His Activity-Based Cost Management: An Executive's Guide (ISBN 0-471-44328-X) recently ranked as the best-selling book of 151 titles on the topic. His other books include Activity-Based Cost Management: Making It Work (ISBN 0-7863-0740-4) and Activity-Based Cost Management in Government (ISBN 1-056726-110-8). His latest books are Performance Management: Finding the Missing Pieces to Close the Intelligence Gap (ISBN 0-471-57690-5) and Performance Management: Integrating Strategy Execution, Methodologies, Risk, and Analytics (ISBN 978-0-470-44998-1).

Cokins participates and serves on a number of committees, including CAM-I, the Supply Chain Council, the International Federation of Accountants (IFAC), and the Institute of Management Accountants. He is a member of the Journal of Cost Management Editorial Advisory Board.

Gary Cokins, CPIM
SAS
gary.cokins@sas.com
919-531-2012
http://blogs.sas.com/cokins