The ROI of Human Capital: Measuring the Economic Value of Employee Performance, Second Edition

146 THE ROI OF HUMAN CAPITAL

term because customers stop buying. All that notwithstand-

ing, the pathways outlined in Figure 5-1 essentially describe

the natural model.

Note that there are arrows running horizontally within

the functional and human capital processes. These are an

illustration of the natural interaction among groups and ac-

tivities. I called it collaboration in my study of the practices

of exceptional companies.

1

The top performers achieve their

preeminence through internal partnering in a common

cause. Collaboration is one of the many platitudes that the

mediocre espouse but don’t practice. For the best of the

best, it is not a platitude. Richard Kovacevich, the CEO of

Wells Fargo Bank, called it integration and was very explicit

about ...