Human Capital

You win with people…to succeed, organizations need to take a proactive stance in understanding how to capitalize on and  to figure out how work will best be done in the future. A key strategy item is to architect what your workforce should look like…and to make this happen.

Winning necessitates considerable focus on ‘people strategy.’ Our key questions:

  • How do we help reset organizations for a talent-led breakthrough ?
  • How do we make sure the right people with the right capabilities are in the right positions ?
  • Can we  strategically and culturally align talent to match needs and diverse operations?
  • How do we manage a global workforce?

Acumen Thinks Through Unity Of Command/Control/Effort

As A Guiding Organizing Principle

Unity of Command

  • Clear Reporting Structure.
  • Clear understanding of Matrix vs. Line Authorities.
  • Empowerments clearly defined and reinforced.

Unity of Control

  • Purpose of each organization and span of control is clear
  • Organizations, departments, functions, and responsibilities are understood and aligned across the organization.
  • Competition or ambiguity between organizations is eliminated.

Unity of Effort

  • Everyone Pulling in the Same Direction
  • Organizational and Individual goals are aligned
  • Priorities clear, cross-company, aligned between departments and programs

Designing the Organizational Model

Organization design does not need to be complex. It needs to work.

  • We start with Vison and goals: What are we trying to accomplish? How do organizations interact? What differentiating capabilities allow us to deliver the future state value proposition? What does the organization look like now? How does is evolve over the next two to five years?
  • We consider Culture: Are we a magnet for top talent? Are leaders empowered, enthusiastic, and working to full potential? Do we have the bench needed for the future? Do we have a culture and a fire to win and grow?
  • We carefully map how work gets done – and analyze human (vs systems) effectiveness. We look at every work-center in the organization to ascertain efficiency, effectiveness and capacity.
  • We tackle the root cause to unlock ‘joined up’ potential when business units fail to work well with their peer business units. The answer is most often a combination of unintended messaging from leaders, misaligned goals and metrics, long-standing culture and an inability to eliminate ‘blockers’ in the organization.

Culture Shift

Acumen defines culture shift as ‘human capital transformation’; a fundamental change in effectiveness that penetrates deep into an institutions heart and mindset.  

Leader Effectiveness

Acumen develops a leader profile with Boards and CEOs and then assesses the degree that the company ‘walks the talk’  

Incentives and Rewards

Acumen works with CEOs to design rewards programs to drive organizational goals. We analyze the way companies assign top talent to understand if employees are motivated and rewarded to take on the toughest – but usually the most important – assignments.

Bringing It All Together

Acumen integrates people, processes and systems to match vision and aspiration