Victoria Ward recently emailed a bunch of people to ask the question "What do you reckon the best pithy read on social capital is?" and like many a web conversation, what started off with a simple question, quickly turned into an interesting exchange on a related but tangential topic!
It was so good to see that people like Madelyn Blair, Seth Kahan and Steve Denning HATE the way that people are referred to as "human capital" or "human resources" and the like. I have been gently ranting about this for some years and I back searched my blog and came up with this post from May 2003 People are people - not things!.
In the email exchange, Steve Denning captures the issue well:
There are thus two deep streams in management in today.
They are like oil and water. We can pretend that they are just evolutions or developments or nuances or verbal nitpicks and that it would be divisive to draw sharp distinctions between them.
But the reality is that these two ways of interacting with the world are incompatible and don't have much to say to each other.
One stream is about turning into people into things--human resources, human capital, social capital--which can be manipulated as things to produce goods and services (MORE THINGS) or profits (MONEY) for the organization and its shareholders. A dispiriting activity for all involved.
The other stream is about inspiring people (i.e (PEOPLE) doing work to generate continuing delight for clients and customers (also known as PEOPLE).
One is a simple linear activity under the control of management. And if it isn't under their control, the object is to get it under their control, as soon as possible.
The other is a complex undertaking in which only successive approximations can make progress to the goal. No one is in control. It is an interaction, a conversation, a joint voyage of discovery. The aim is delight. Generating that is more fun than fun.
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