Encyclopedia of Leadership

3.5

STRATEGIC RESOURCING: DEFININGHIGH-VALUE

WORK FOR SERVICE GROUPS

Inspired by Jon Younger, Randy Stott, and Norm Smallwood.

More and more, organizations expect their internal service groups to compete for work with-

in their own organizations against the very best external service providers. Thus, it’s essential

that internal service groups have a clear and focused business strategy. This demands a pro-

found sense of clarity about what they do (and don’t do) and how their service contributes to

the success of the organization. This tool will help your service group understand where it

needs to concentrate its time and energy.

Sharpen your group’s strategy by organizing the services you provide into the following

four categories.

High Value-Added: Work that is key to the current and future success of the orga-

nization.

Business Necessity: Necessary work, but not core to organizational success (e.g.,

expense reports).

Unique: Work that must be staffed internally because it is proprietary to

your organization, or for reasons of security, government regu-

lation, policy, and so on.

Generic: Work that could be provided by other internal or external ser-

vice groups.

THE STRATEGIC RESOURCING MODEL

Contribution to Organizational Strategy

As a partialexample, a Human Resources group in a large organization saw their strategy

as:

82 SECTION 3 TOOLS FORSTRATEGICTHINKING

Market Actively

Be the best!

Broker and Coach

Find and work with the

best in class.

Maintain Efficiently

Keep it running effectively.

Contract Out

Find providers of worry-free

service and monitor them.

High Value-Added Business Necessity

Technology

and
Expertise

Unique—

Must Be Done by

Your Service

Group

Generic—

Can Be Done

by Others