Sunday, November 11, 2007

Academic Excellence Vs Executional Excellence

Human capital is the ultimate capital of a firm and it is reality.
In this highly competitive business environment it is really very difficult to get quality human capital who can deliver the goods or in other terms can deliver results which a firm desperately needs to satisfy all the stake holders of the firm.
One job of the HR Manager has to recruit the right person for a right job at the right time and at aright place. But more often he lands up with people who is a square peg in a round hole.
Absolutely the success of any business depends to a large extent on the quality of its staff and Manpower. Here the quality of human capital plays a pivotal role.
Take an example between two candidates, A and B.

Academic Excellence:
Candidate A: Through out his career he has got 90% Marks and academically and theoretically he is very sound.

Candidate B: Through out he career he has got 45% Marks and academically and theoretically he is poor.
( Both has passed from the same University and the same Exam)

Executional Excellence:
Candidate A: When in job Candidate A though he has through out his career he has got 90% Marks but can deliver only 45 % of his knowledge while executing a job that he has been assigned with, so arithmetically it comes to 40.5 % efficiency level.

Candidate B: Through out he career he has got 45% Marks and academically poor is given a job assignment can deliver 95% of his knowledge while executing the job, arithmetically it comes to 42.75% efficiency level.

Operational Effectiveness: In the case of Operational Effectiveness Candidate B out smart Candidate A.

Conducive Professional Environment: Suppose both has been selected in the firm .In a very conducive Professional Management environment both Candidate A & B can overcome their respective weakness and can convert that in to their strengths.

HR Manager has to choose one between Candidate A and B:

Now as a HR Manager whom to choose? Can you really write off Candidate B as he has got very poor marks in his College degree examination?

Recruitment and selection is the process has become more complex now a days, as Recruitments has always been a very expensive game now a days, some times betting on Candidate A it can be betting on a wrong horse who may or may not live up to the expectation.His execution excellence may not be as good as academic excellence.
Where as rejecting Candidate B can also be a monumental mistake, you lose out an executional talent who could have really benefited the firm.

It is really a Catch 22 situation for both the HR Manager and a well as the Functional Manager.

Your Comments please on the above case.

1 comment:

Abhik Das said...

Yes I really appreciate with your view. Even I had seen lots of my friends who were good students. They only knows book. But what I think is that, there are something called innovation...This is really required to sustain in any industry.
Even I could give a strong example of the great Sir Isaac Newton .I think he was also not a good student...but later on what he did……!!!!!
I will not go farther regarding this.
But what I tried to explain is that efficiency level is the main thing. We should go for the Candidate B.
It doesn’t mean that for this reason we left our study.
The main and simple thing is we should learn everything and now a days learning is not enough, implement the learning is more important and required also.