Edward Lawler

Human Resource & Organizational Effectiveness Expert

BIG IDEAS

• Built to Change
  Organizations can be built to change. They don’t have to go through traumatic episodic change events if they are properly designed. In an environment that changes slowly it is reasonable to build organizations for stability, execution and reliable performance. But the world is changing rapidly and in ways that are hard to predict. The implication of this for the way organizations need to perform is clear. They need to be agile, they need to be adaptable, and they need to move quickly. Traditional organizations simply cannot do this even if they have a well designed change capability built into them. What is needed is an organization that is designed to change. Organizations that are designed to change are structured so that members have close contact with the environment, reward systems that reward change and shared leadership models that allow and encourage individuals to respond to environmental change. The future promises more and more rapid change and unless organizations want to be victims, they have to become more adaptable, flexible and innovative.
• The Talent Imperative
  For decades, managers have been saying that talent is important and in some cases the most valuable asset that organizations have. But the reality is that they rarely recognize this in their behavior. As a result, most organizations are not designed to use talent as a source of competitive advantage. More and more organizations are focused on treating people right and that is a good thing. Competitive advantage based on talent requires having good people and having good people requires treating them right. But, that is not enough. Organization must change to be more talent centric. Talent centric organizations use talent as a true source of competitive advantage. From the board down, talent centric organizations are designed around human capital. Among many other features, they need a board that has expertise in human capital management and, of course, an information system that provides metrics and analytics on the kind of talent the organization has and its financial impact of how it is utilized.
• Human Capital Management
  All too often the human resources departments in large corporations are bogged down in administration and paper shuffling. They protest that they want to be more of a strategic partner, but Lawler’s research has shown that over several decades it has failed to move in this direction. The result is that it does not add the kind of value it can and should in today’s talent critical business environment. Lawler points out a number of things that need to be done in the HR function to make it a higher value added activity. These include staffing it with the most capable people, outsourcing HR transactional work, creating web-based information systems that allow for effective talent management and succession planning, structuring the department so that it is involved in business planning and strategic decisions, and last, but certainly not least, being sure it has access to the board.
• Management 3.0
  It’s time for a new approach to organizing and managing complex organizations. The first half of the 20th century saw the development of the traditional bureaucratic organizational model. It allowed General Motors, AT&T, IBM and a host of other large complex organizations to perform well. The weaknesses of this approach led to a new management approach that thrived in the 70’s and 80’s (Management 2.0) It emphasized employee participation, total quality management, self-managing work teams, and a host of other management features that were intended to involve employees more in the work and increase their engagement. It fit well during an era when organizations were looking for ways to get more value out of their human capital and improve the quality of the products and responsiveness of their services.
  
  But it is time for a new approach to management–Management 3.0. This new approach does not need to reject all of Management 1.0 and 2.0–quite to the contrary. It needs to build on them, but it also needs to recognize the realities of the kind of work that is being done in developed countries today as well as the impact of information technology. It needs to take advantage of the ability of people to self-organize via the web, and create and manage complex work processes in a virtual organization environment. It also needs to focus heavily on human capital and how it is developed, managed, and allocated. Yes, it needs to emphasize leadership, but not leadership at the top. The leadership model needs to be a shared one that develops strategic direction and is continuously responsive to rapidly changing external environment. The details of what Management 3.0 will look like are still being developed, but it is clear it is coming.

SNAPSHOT BIO

Edward E. Lawler III is Distinguished Professor of Business at the University of Southern California Marshall School of Business and founder and director of the University's Center for Effective Organizations (CEO). CEO has been recognized by Fortune and other publications as one of the country's leading management research organizations.

Professor Lawler has been honored as a major contributor to theory, research, and practice in the fields of human resources management, compensation, organizational development, and organizational effectiveness.

BusinessWeek has proclaimed Lawler one of the top six gurus in the field of management, and Human Resource Executive called him one of HR's most influential people. Workforce magazine identified him as one of the 25 visionaries who have shaped today's workplace over the past century. National television appearances include The Today Show, CNN, MSNBC, and CNBC.

Professor Lawler is the author and co-author of 36 books. His most recent work, Built to Change: How to Achieve Sustained Organizational Effectiveness, co-authored with Christopher G. Worley, is a groundbreaking book that shows how organizations can be "built to change" so they can last and succeed in today's global economy.

Professor Lawler is the recipient of many awards including SHRM's Michael R. Losey award for which he was the first recipient. He is also a consultant to many governments and corporations including the majority of the Fortune 100.

A Closer Look at Edward

FOCUS AREAS
What's on Ed's current research agenda?

Organizational Change:  For the last decade Ed has focused on organizational change.  His work resulted in the book Built to Change and Ed continues to explore what makes organizations changeable.  The challenge is to make organizations more responsive to their external environment in a continuous change mode. This is the only way that they can avoid the painful and often dysfunctional outcomes that occur when organizations go through transformation change or as it sometimes called episodic change. 

With an increasing rate of change in the environment there is no question that organizations need to change faster and more effectively.  This runs directly into the consistent finding that large scale episodic change has a high failure rate.  Of the numerous reasons why change efforts fail perhaps the most straightforward one is that they are trying to change something that was designed to be an immovable, highly efficient, stable object.  In other words, an organization that is designed not to change.

Corporate Boards:  Another long-standing research program that Ed continues to invest considerable time in concerns corporate boards.  Ed has done corporate board studies in cooperation with Korn Ferry, Mercer Delta and currently Heidrick & Struggles.  Most of his work has involved surveys of board members and has led to numerous publications.  The surveys have looked at issues ranging from sustainability to executive compensation.  The result of these studies have received regular press coverage and have resulted in multiple articles in the Harvard Business Review and leading magazines targeted at corporate directors.  My research on boards continues. The 2008 survey focuses particularly on sustainability and talent management.

Evolution of the HR Function:  A third major research area that Ed has been involved in for over twenty years is the evolution of the HR function.  This series of studies looks carefully and in-depth at the HR function in major corporations.  A survey is done every three years and the results are published in a book.  The 2007 study was done in combination with John Boudreau and funded in part by the Human Resource Planning Society.  It is Ed's intention to continue this survey with a 2010 version. 

He quickly summarize them as follows:  In the face of massive change in the business environment the HR function in large corporations seems to remain amazingly stable.  It wants to be a strategic partner; it wants to be a business partner, but it remains firmly focused on the transactional and administrative side of HR.  Needless to say, as a result it’s not creating the kind of value in corporations that it can.

In addition to these three main research areas, Ed continues to do studies on his long-term interests:  performance management, compensation, talent management, and organization design.

ENGAGEMENTS
How have other organizations utilized Ed's expertise, and what's ahead on his schedule?

During the last several decades Ed has given talks to many professional organizations as well as for such conference organizers as Linkage, The Conference Board and Concours.  He has also given numerous talks for HR organizations including SHRM, ASTD, and HRPS.

In the near future Ed has trips scheduled to Singapore for a large government conference on talent management as well as a trip to London to talk to the HR-50.  He's done numerous internal workshops and programs for major US corporations.  Ed's upcoming agenda includes talks for IBM, a global financial services institution, and a Dubai based business.

OUTREACH
What are Ed's pressing questions, and on which topics does he seek your feedback?

Ed is always looking for ideas about how we can create (design) organizations that combine good financial performance with meeting the needs of their members.  Tied to this is his interest in organizational change.