HR from the Outside In

1. HR's Business is the Business: Embrace the Outside-In Perspective

If you are not creating, making, or selling our products, you had better have a good reason for being here.

Beyond HR initiatives. HR professionals must shift their mindset from focusing solely on internal HR practices to understanding the external business context. This means comprehending the societal pressures, stakeholder expectations, and competitive strategies that drive the organization's success. It's about seeing the business through a window, not a mirror.

Three-tiered approach. To truly understand a business, HR must:

• Understand the context: Societal, technological, economic, political, environmental, and demographic trends.
• Understand the stakeholders: Customers, investors, communities, partners, line managers, and employees.
• Understand the business strategy: How the organization uniquely positions itself to serve stakeholders and build a competitive advantage.

Outside-in mindset. By grounding their work in the business, HR professionals can add meaningful and sustainable value. This approach shifts the emphasis in areas like placement, training, rewards, performance management, leadership, communication, and culture, ensuring alignment with external expectations.

2. Master the Six Paradoxes: Navigate HR's Complex Demands

HR functions will create real business value by taking an outside in approach.

Balancing act. Effective HR professionals must simultaneously deliver on multiple, often competing outcomes. These paradoxes define the criteria for HR success in the modern business landscape.

Six paradoxes:

• Outside and Inside: Connect external trends with internal HR practices.
• Business and People: Balance business needs with employee well-being.
• Organization and Individual: Manage the tensions between talent and teamwork.
• Process and Event: Weave separate events into cohesive, sustainable solutions.
• Future and Past: Learn from the past while adapting to future scenarios.
• Strategic and Administrative: Flawlessly process administrative work while generating information for strategic work.

Paradox mastery. By embracing these paradoxes, HR professionals can navigate the complexities of their role and contribute to sustainable organizational success. It's about "both/and" thinking, not "either/or."

3. Strategic Positioner: Shape the Business Landscape

HR functions will create real business value by taking an outside in approach.

Beyond business literacy. Strategic positioning goes beyond simply knowing the business financials. It involves actively shaping and positioning the business for success by understanding the global context, decoding customer expectations, and cocreating a strategic agenda.

Four phases of strategic positioning:

• Master the language and flow of business (finance).
• Recognize and deliver strategy and sources of competitive advantage.
• Understand and co-create with external stakeholders (customers, investors).
• Know and react to external business trends and context.

Proactive contribution. HR professionals acting as strategic positioners help place their organization in the business context in which they operate. Positioning here refers to formal products and services as well as informal reputation. Positioning focuses on creating the future as you recognize, anticipate, and take advantage of emerging trends.

4. Credible Activist: Earn Trust and Drive Change

You can’t argue with the data! HR from the Outside In is one of the most comprehensive studies ever completed on our function, and it clearly defines the “new model” for Human Resources.

Foundation of influence. Credibility comes from delivering results with integrity, building trusting relationships, and taking strong positions based on data and thoughtful opinions. Activism involves taking initiative and driving change to improve business performance.

Key elements of credible activism:

• Earning trust through results: Meeting commitments and displaying integrity.
• Influencing and relating to others: Building strong relationships and communicating effectively.
• Improving through self-awareness: Continuously developing functional and interpersonal skills.
• Shaping the HR profession: Contributing to the progress of the HR field.

The power of combination. It is the combination of credibility and activism that enables HR professionals to establish trusting relationships with line managers and other colleagues. Individuals who are credible but not activists may be admired for their insight and expertise, but they won’t have much impact. Those who are activists but not credible may have good ideas, but no one will pay much attention to them.

5. Capability Builder: Architect the Organization's Strengths

HR from the Outside In builds on solid and practical research, which is the basis for the HR competencies that we at Pfizer have adopted for our global HR workforce.

Beyond efficiency and design. Capability building focuses on defining, auditing, and investing in the organization's capacity to do what it needs to do in its current environment. It's about creating a distinct atmosphere that affects employees, customers, and investors.

Key actions for capability builders:

• Define organization capabilities: Identify what the organization is good at and known for.
• Audit organization capabilities: Assess the current state of key capabilities.
• Orchestrate organization capabilities: Invest in building and sustaining the identified capabilities.

The right mix. HR professionals should simultaneously assess and improve the flow of people in an organization, but they should also facilitate the creation and dissemination of an organization’s culture that encourages them to work together. People both shape and are shaped by the culture.

6. Change Champion: Lead and Sustain Transformation

This book is yet another shift for HR professionals from these authors.

Beyond initiating change. Effective HR professionals develop their organizations’ capacity for change and then translate that capacity into effective change processes and structures. They ensure a seamless integration of change processes that builds sustainable competitive advantage.

Key actions for change champions:

• Build the case for change: Based on market and business reality.
• Overcome resistance to change: By engaging key stakeholders in key decisions.
• Sustain change: By ensuring the availability of necessary resources.

Connecting past to future. HR professionals should connect the past to the future and anticipate and manage individual, initiative, and institutional change. It is not enough to initiate change; it is more important to sustain it.

7. HR Innovator and Integrator: Design Synergistic Solutions

This book is spot on, easy to read, and very practical. The core message is that HR is about creating business value. This is the only way to create a successful organization.

Beyond isolated activities. Effective HR professionals have the ability to innovate and integrate HR practices around a few critical business issues. The challenge is to make the HR whole more effective than the sum of its parts.

Key actions for HR innovators and integrators:

• Prioritize desired business results: Clearly and precisely.
• Conceptualize and operationalize organization capabilities: Powerfully.
• Align HR practices: To create and sustain the identified organizational capabilities.

Innovation and integration. HR professionals should ensure that desired business results are clearly and precisely prioritized, that the necessary organization capabilities are powerfully conceptualized and operationalized, and that the appropriate HR practices, processes, structures, and procedures are aligned to create and sustain the identified organizational capabilities.

8. Technology Proponent: Leverage Information for Strategic Advantage

The research is unmatched and the conclusions are something that every HR professional must understand and make part of their modus operandi. Well done.

Beyond administrative efficiency. High-performing HR professionals are now involved in two additional categories of technological application: applying social networking technology to help people stay connected with one another and increasing their role in the management of information.

Key actions for technology proponents:

• Improve utility of HR operations: Automate and streamline HR processes.
• Leverage social media tools: Connect employees and stakeholders.
• Connect people through technology: Manage the flow of strategic information.

Managing the message. In today’s information-intensive world, HR professionals in high-performing firms are becoming masters at managing the message. They are excelling at connecting stakeholders on the outside with people on the inside in meaningful ways through technology.

9. Own Your Development: Chart a Course for HR Excellence

HR from the Outside In is the best guide available for understanding what human resource executives should be doing and how to do it.

Beyond job descriptions. Individual HR professionals must learn and master skills and abilities to make sure that they are prepared for the future. When they demonstrate the right competencies, they are seen as both personally effective and true partners in driving business success.

Key steps for individual development:

• Own your career.
• Learn about yourself.
• Define your brand.
• Assess your strengths and weaknesses.
• Create opportunities for growth—from the outside in.
• Conduct projects and experiments.
• Follow up to build and reinforce awareness.

Continuous improvement. HR professionals should be committed to continuous learning and development, seeking feedback and actively working to improve their skills and knowledge.

10. Build an Effective HR Department: Focus on Key Priorities

This book gives HR a new lens through which to view our important roles as we further evolve. After reading this book, you will be convinced that HR is “the Business”!

Beyond individual competence. HR departments must also have the right vision and governance to deliver business success. This involves focusing on key priorities and allocating resources effectively.

Key priorities for HR departments:

• Create an HR business plan.
• Finalize your HR department organization.
• Provide good HR analytics.
• Do HR for HR—be a role model.

Strategic alignment. HR departments should be structured and managed in a way that aligns with the overall business strategy and supports the organization's goals.

11. The Future of HR: A Call to Action

The Human Resource Competency Study is definitely among the most authoritative research in human resource management.

Beyond the status quo. The HR profession is at a crossroads. To thrive in the future, HR professionals must embrace the outside-in perspective, master the six paradoxes, and develop the competencies needed to drive business success.

A call to action. This book provides a roadmap for HR professionals to make a difference in their organizations and in the world. By embracing the principles and practices outlined in this book, HR professionals can become true business partners and strategic leaders.

Continuing the journey. As the business landscape continues to evolve, HR professionals must remain agile and adaptable, continuously learning and growing to meet the challenges of the future.

Last updated: February 8, 2025