Hello, I a journalist and I'm researching an article on thought leadership in HR. Anybody got any idea who the big thinkers are these days? The big ideas? 

I remember a few years ago people like Ulrich, Michael Porter and Charles Handy seemed to causing waves - at least in the HR press. Who has taken their place? Or are is it so much a case of all hands to the pumps that nobody has time to think about where they're going and why? 

 It's odd because in the publishing industry there is a huge amount of debate about where the industry is heading, the impact of the web, who are future customers are, what the business models are. Surely this isn't the only industry going through upheavals?

Probably tells you what you need to know about the state of the HR profession just now.... [:'(]

Noel, I rate David Guest (even though he once gave me a bollocking when I was a postgraduate student) for some of his stuff on the HR function and its impact. He's doing research at the moment on how far HR actually impacts on the performance of an organisation.

 http://www.kcl.ac.uk/schools/sspp/mgmt/hrmlb/about/people/guest

Rob Briner is doing some interesting work too. His stuff on Evidence-based HR (or the lack of it) is, as is usual for Rob, controversial and thought provoking.

 

Hi, it's interesting that people tend to think of Ulrich (HR structure but now in the leadership space), Porter (macro economics and strategy) and Handy (general management) as the classic 'big hitters'. It may fair that there seems less consensus around thought-leadership, but how about Nicholas Higgins at the International School of Human Capital Management? The School's journal, qualification and courses seem to be quite differentiated in terms of intellectual innovation and applied insight. Let me know what you think....

A couple of thoughts/themes. . Have a chat to David McLeod, of both Towers Perrin and Cass Business School. He's also doing some work for HMG on employee engagement/alignment and its relationship to TSR. Another theme would be how to manage change, and Veronica Hope-Hailey, also of CASS is leading a Consortium on that. Other themes are sometimes held quite quietly as they add to competitive advantage. The role of the top team in creating value is well researched, but little published. Try either DDI or Hay group for that - and read Michael Beer's stuff in HBR.

You might want to take a look at Rene Carayol http://www.carayol.com/site/home.php and Lynda Gratton http://www.lyndagratton.com/.

Carayol is a refreshingly different business guru -- very readable and what he says makes sense whether you agree with his ideas or not. Gratton talks a good talk but (in my opinion, anyway) often seems to be up and away in the world of academia, and thus too far removed from the reality of day-to-day business management to be totally credible.

Check 'em out and make up your own mind.

Thank you Captain S and the others who have responded to this thread. An interesting spread of organisational psychologists, academics, management guru types. And an interesting bunch of themes from evidence based HR to lean HR to engagementand change menagement. Will the recession change priorities?

I wonder if anybody has any views on which management thinkers on the global stage have the most interesting and relevant things to say about HR? What have been the important books of the last two to five years. Hey, why should I do my research when I've got you to do it for me - and better, probably... 

I'm not sure that there is any single book in the last 2-5 years that has earnt wide approval in HR on a truly global stage. Few of the academics/writers have a properly global profile, and those that are known outside their own country tend to be Americans trying to sell ideas that may/may not work in USA. I've worked on a global basis since 1989, and I can't think of anything "new" in the last 2-5 years that has really added value well beyond its own cultural assumptions. Some practice areas such as Diversity have moved forward, but aren't new and are not lead by a guru. Even David MacLeod's book on engagement/alignment is a UK presentation of US ideas from the 90's.

Some allegedly "global" folk still do not have the basics of Hofstede and Trompenaars.

I'm a bit disappointed by the lack of contributions to this..........any more ideas??

Apparently not, Dick, which I suppose tells us something in itself. Maybe the credit crunch isn't a time when people are interested in ideas but in a way that's the time when you might need ideas more than ever. There's a lot of talk about regaining the trust of employees, shareholders and customers in some circles.

Anyway, here is one possible source of some new thinking. Alain de Botton, the author of 'Status Anxiety' is about to publish a book called 'The Pleasures and Sorrows at Work'. He is a philosopher which is interesting. A lot of the thinking in recent decades seems to have come from psychologists??

Thanks for the thought. I'm not impressed with AdB. He's a multi-millionaire through inheritance, and none of the reviews I've read of his book make it sound interesting.

Some writers get to a certain age, with a decent amount of money and think it is OK to philosophise. Handy, the ex-LBS guy did that.

We all know that the answer to all that stuff is 42.

I heard him speak a few years ago - to launch his book about travel - and was impressed at the time. I have since bought two of his books, neither of which I finished,. And I can, and do, read pretty much everything. He seems to pick good topics, but then isn't able to do much with them.

OK Dick, I'm going to get back on the case. Speaking to a colleague earlier we agreed that the thing to do maybe was to look at who is influencing business and management in general and what the implications are for HR. I used to find Handy inspiring but I'm not sure if any of his predictions have really come about and the big things that have in the last decade (such as what we're doing right now - ie social media) he didn't see coming.

I think the next stage of my quest will be to check out the various HR blogs and see who they're name checking.

I'm not sure I'd look too hard at HR. You'll end up with all those self-publicising Conference speakers. (Don't they have a job to do? - only kidding). There are 2 ex-HRDs worth talking to. The ex-HRD at Vodafone, now doing Strategy for them is one - you contact him. I don't know his name. The other who has made the same switch from HRD in to Group Strategy is at Anglo-American. I know him,  I'll talk to him. Deal?