Talent Management - December 2008 - (Page 4)

[from the editor] by Mike Prokopeak W W Don’t Worry Be Happy , hile it may be one of the world’s smallest and most isolated countries, Bhutan is a geopolitical trailblazer. The remote Asian country, tucked high into the rugged Himalayas between India and Tibet, is a real-life Shangri-La of soaring mountain peaks, roaring rivers and deep forests unspoiled by widespread development. Its people devoutly follow the same Buddhist traditions they have for a thousand years. But change has come to Bhutan. While the United States marked a historic presidential election last widespread poverty and illiteracy, the new king’s father, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, responded with a bold plan for modernization that redeﬁned the meaning of progress. His idea: measure prosperity not simply in economic output, but in the well-being of the nation’s people. He adopted a name for this idea: the Gross National Happiness. The four pillars of Gross National Happiness are sustainable development, environmental protection, cultural preservation and good governance. of 178 countries, the highest ranking of any Asian country and the only country in the top 20 with a low gross domestic product. As we enter a worldwide period of rapid economic and political change — a time that will see our organizations challenged from both inside and out — we too must reassess our strengths, prepare a plan for an uncertain future and embrace innovative ways to move forward. Much like Bhutan’s leaders, we as talent managers are charged with growing the prosperity of our organizations while stewarding the organization’s most important resource: its people. The four pillars of Gross National Happiness raise interesting questions that can have real impact on our organizations. We’ll be exploring other innovative ideas for creating the organization of the future at our signature industry event, Talent Management Magazine’s Strategies 2009. The three-day conference, themed “Innovation to Impact,” takes place from Feb. 23-25 at The Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel in Southern California. At the event, you’ll hear from leading thinkers such as author and Professor John Boudreau of the University of Southern California, Linda Sharkey of Hewlett-Packard and innovation expert Scott Anthony, as well as some of the industry’s top analysts. For a full agenda, visit www.talentmgt.com/events. It’s a time of change fraught with signiﬁcant challenges, but it’s also an opportunity to transform our organizations for a better future. While the United States marked a historic presidential election, the eyes of 600,000 people on the other side of the world were turned toward another transformational ﬁgure. month, the eyes of 600,000 Bhutanese citizens were turned toward another transformational ﬁgure. On Nov. 6, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck was coronated as the ﬁfth king of the remote Asian country. While a coronation hardly sounds like a momentous break from the past, this particular event marked the consummation of a movement that ripples beyond Bhutan’s mountain borders. If you haven’t heard of Bhutan before, it’s not because you didn’t pay attention in high school geography. It’s more likely due to the fact that the tiny country was, until a few short decades ago, deliberately closed off to the outside world for more than a thousand years. That is until the country’s king embarked on an ambitious modernization plan. Until the 1960s, Bhutan had no electricity, no cars and no roads to drive them on, no telephones and not even a postal service. Faced with the resulting From a Western perspective, the idea sounds innovative, intriguing, inspiring, impractical and impossibly naive all at the same time. But the king did not intend it as an empty symbolic gesture. When he voluntarily abdicated and handed the crown over to his 28year-old Oxford-educated son in November, the country marked the end of an absolute monarchy and the beginning of a constitutional monarchy. The new democratically elected government faces many challenges in carrying out the Gross National Happiness, namely how to sustainably grow and modernize a country without fraying the country’s social fabric. Results so far are largely positive. The rate of illiteracy has dropped, infant mortality has gone down and the economy has grown rapidly. And the population reports that it feels, by and large, happy. A 2007 University of Leicester study ranked Bhutan eighth happiest out Mike Prokopeak Editorial Director mikep@talentmgt.com December 2008 4 talent management magazine www.talentmgt.com http://www.talentmgt.com/events http://www.talentmgt.com

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Talent Management - December 2008 Editor's Letter Contents Human Performance Leading Edge Foundations Recruitment & Retention Assessment & Evaluation Compensation & Benefits Performance Management Learning & Development Succession Planning Insight Dashboard Application Advertiser's Index Editorial Resources Full Potential

Talent Management - December 2008

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