The New Human Capital Strategy: Improving the Value of Your Most Important Investment—Year after Year

Foreword

Have you ever thought, after reading something, “That makes so much sense! Why didn’t I think of this before?” In my experience, this is the hallmark of almost every path-breaking book. Its author somehow is able to examine in a fresh or different light, a problem that has vexed us for a very long time, exposing the flaws in how we previously had framed the problem so that the solution becomes clear.

This was my experience when I read an early draft of Brad Hall’s book, The New Human Capital Strategy. Brad points out a number of ironies in the way most of us manage our people that, once he has pointed them out, seem at best nonsensical—just filled with contradictions. A platitude of management is that people are every organization’s most ...