Book Review

Catalyse power up your people ecosystem

by Krish Shankar
Book Review: Catalyse - Power up your People Ecosystem
Overview
• The Book reviewed by world’s renowned business leaders
• 13 chapters, each chapter has key takeaways
• Each chapter tells about area of present concern and also suggests
actions taken to address the concern
• The Book has many practical insights from various organisations
• The Book will be a great tool for business leaders to understand how
to leverage their people power
• It provides right recipe required for tomorrow’s workplace which will
be steady yet agile, efficient yet resilient and balances both human
and digital
Book Review: Catalyse - Power up your People Ecosystem
• Chapter 1 : Changes required for survival
• Changes is everywhere and it is accelerating
• Average age of companies could be 12 years by 2027 from 60 years
from 1950
• Fast changing technology, automation, sustainable environment,
people mindset
• Chapter 2 :Value creation for all stakeholders for the purpose of
business
• Long term view of all stakeholders is essential
• Sustainable value creation for longer period
Book Review: Catalyse - Power up your People Ecosystem
• Chapter 3: Leveraging people potential
• EI like happiness, pride, compassion and gratitude is a tool for
creating positive behavior
• Looking at 3 core roles of people functions. Organisation designer and
advocate, right talent and culture and collective emotion
• Chapter 4: Building fair and equitable process
• Fair and inclusive practice is the foundation of any organisation
• Fairness : distributive justice, procedural justice and interactional
justice
• Inclusive practice : Complying of all regulations, takes care of people’s
expectations, unique culture
Book Review: Catalyse - Power up your People Ecosystem
• Chapter 5 : Building competitive cost structure
• Looking at two vectors: strategic perspective and efficacy perspective
• 4 key levers for employee cost structure : business model, salary levels,
staffing mix, overall productivity
• 3 key choices to make regarding salary : Overall salary positioning based on
strategy, pay mix different level, pay principles based on 5Ps
• Chapter 6: Finding right talent
• Effectiveness of a person in a job is function of talent, job design and team
climate
• Talent is function of skill, experience, behavior and mindset
• Job design is function of empowerment and linkages
• Recruitment and selection process
Book Review: Catalyse - Power up your People Ecosystem

• Chapter 7: Ensuring right execution

• Effecting execution is at the heart of every successful business
• Identify key initiatives or focus areas
• Limit of number of focus areas for a year
• Operational goal vs transformational objectives
• Company goal vs individual goal
• Chapter 8: Driving right behaviours for success
• Culture of clearly observable/experienced behaviours consistency
over time
• Intensity and consistency of set of behaviours across the organisation
• Behaviours and habits take time
Book Review: Catalyse - Power up your People Ecosystem

• Chapter 9: Building leadership and succession

• 5 Principles for leadership development
• Right talent requires SBEM1 and strength of internal/external networks
• Developing talent from on the job training, learning from others and
structured learning program. Ratio is to be changed from 70:20:10 to
50:30:20
• Chapter 10: Creating learning opportunity
• Identify capabilities to drive business: current vs future capability
• Social learning : role of emotions in learning and recall
• Perspective learning. Deep learning
• Position learning. Integrated leaning
1 - Skills, Behaviours, Experiences, Mindsets
Book Review: Catalyse - Power up your People Ecosystem

• Chapter 11: Getting your workforce at their best

• Emotion based approach engagement
• Core emotion for engagement : compassion, happiness, gratitude,
pride
• Elements that drive eangagement : having a great team and manager,
recognition, career and learning, psychological safety, fulfilling thr
purpose
• Key role of Leader : Inspire and train managers to engage people and
establish organisation routines to build right emotions
• Collective emotions of a team are a powerful driver to change
Book Review: Catalyse - Power up your People Ecosystem

• Chapter 12: Building and engaging a diverse workforce

• Future workforce will be diverse and multi generational
• Gender Diversity
• Inclusive culture : Grows diversity and leverages power of diversity
• Building diverse leadership team at all level
• Chapter 13: Realizing potential through purpose
• Purpose is the reason we are in business
• Bringing positive change or change for good
• Best alignment between purpose of organisation and individual
Conclusion
• People function, people processes and people strategy are the most
critical factors responsible for the growth and sustenance of any business
• There are many external factors, some of them unforeseen, that at times
try to thwart the functioning of a business. Unless the people function
adapts itself to the changing circumstances, the business would not
survive in the long run.
• Through this book, the author has attempted to share his valuable ideas
and real life experiences in order that the entire hierarchy of employees
of any organization succeed in bringing about transformation in their
business that would ensure sustained growth and development of their
organization as well as their individual growths.
Thank you
• The People Process
• The people process brings together the ideology and the core
values and ensure their alignment with people at all levels of the
organisation. This process exists by default in successful
organisations that have stood the test of time. But in relatively
younger entities and in those organisations that have not seen
the best of seasons, the way to implement this process is by
defining an Ideological Framework, applying the framework to
its core leadership teams, and then embedding the framework in
the entire organisation. These are like the sub-processes of the
people process.
• i.    Defining the Ideological Framework
• This involves defining the purpose of the organisation. Why it was
founded, and what it stands for, and what it will achieve during its
continued existence. This is followed by the set of core values that
will help the organisation move towards achieving its purpose.
The core values can be anything - customer satisfaction,
employee engagement, benefitting society, patriotism, honesty,
regulatory compliance, product / service quality, etc. However, it
is good to have a set of 3 – 6 values that reflect the organisation’s
purpose. The purpose and core values are defined in such a way,
that they will almost always remain unchanged.
• The framework also describes how the strategy and operations of the
organisation should align with the purpose and core values, and how
the top leaders should align with the framework. The framework will
include aspects related to communication of the purpose, the
envisioned leadership structure, core organisational structures,
responsibilities of leaders, guidelines for identifying people at board
or leadership levels, succession planning, guidelines for mergers and
acquisitions, etc. – all these would be in alignment with the purpose
and core values of the organisation. It also incorporates the
understanding that the position of leaders and followers are
interchangeable – i.e. leaders are required to be followers in some
situations and vice versa.
• The process also helps chunk down the purpose into manageable
objectives, essentially the end-to-end strategy and operational
processes – such as idea-to-offering, hire-to-retire, procure-to-
pay, market-to-order, etc. This is where the overlap of the people
process happens with the strategy and operations processes.
• The leadership framework itself can either be documented or
undocumented. But with so many communication channels
being available, a documented leadership framework would help
bring together all the necessary people aspects and build a
stronger system of management.
• ii.    Identifying and nurturing leaders
• This process implements the elements of the leadership framework upon the
senior leadership in the organisation. This is the actual process of looking out for
people who fit in with the organisational culture and philosophy on a longer term.
This process will initially be used by the founder and the core leadership group to
self-validate their alignment with the framework. People are generally not
‘recruited’ into these roles but are observed over time across business industries
and academic institutions. In reality, the chances of a core leadership team
becoming a cohesive group increases with the proximity of the individual members
over a prolonged time frame. The recruitment of senior leadership should vest in
the hands of the core members who are loyal to the ideological framework beyond
doubt. This includes even allowing investors in leadership position or as board
members who would be responsible for further identification of leaders.
• Irrespective of the differences in their leadership styles, their primary
focus would be on the organisational purpose and values. Ideally, the
process at this level creates a clear association between the person and
the ideology.

• This process can be used for identifying leaders up to any level, but the
intent of this is to focus it at such a level where minimum alignment or re-
alignment efforts is required to create an organisation-wide impact. This
is especially useful when a particular department or a geographical
location is found to be out of sync with the ideologies; and re-aligning the
leadership at that level can bring a positive and quick change in that
entire underlying system.
• Another key application for this is during mergers and
acquisitions – the process overlays the strategy with the
alignment of the merging or acquired entity (or in rare cases,
the acquiring entity because very few organisations who have
an ideological framework get acquired) and its leaders with the
purpose and values of the organisation. Acquiring or merging
with an organisation having a completely conflicting ideology
will cause serious and long-lasting damage to the functioning of
the joined-up organisation.
• iii.    Embedding the ideology across the organisation
• This is in essence the institutionalisation of the previous sub-
process. The whole doctrine of alignment with purpose and
values is now communicated and implemented widely at all
levels of the organisation. Every leader of a functional unit or
an end-to-end process would identify the next level of
leadership that aligns with the ideology framework. In large
companies, this requires implementation on a huge scale and
with a very robust governance.
• The liaison of senior leadership with Human Resource teams is very
crucial for this large-scale implementation. The recruitment of
people should be questioned at every level, and questions asked
against the ideology framework. Be it at the mid-leadership,
managerial or at the members / workers level, the focus of the
screening would be to check if their past work has been in a place
with similar ideologies. In fact, this also helps to identify people who
would have been misfits in their previous organisations because of
conflicting philosophies but are now a right fit. Their achievements
in meeting material targets would definitely be a plus, but the
alignment of purpose and values are the minimum standard.
• With advancement in technology, the people process can be
made more robust. Artificial intelligence and Natural Language
Processing capabilities can help bring people with ideological
similarities closer to one another through social media or
professional platforms. BPM and DM can help build robust
systems to maintain and implement the ideology framework on
a large scale quickly. Analytics and Machine Learning can help
identify deviations from the purpose and values, and RPA for
taking necessary corrective actions.
• Conclusion
• The people process has been in practice for centuries in successful
organisations, be they commercial or non-profit / social.
Unfortunately, it is also the reason for the success for many age-old
criminal organisations and unethical practices in newer
organisations. It is the same process but applied with negative
ideologies and values. Most organisations are a mixture of both, and
hence drag along till they meet their inevitable end – sooner than
later. Organisations without a philosophy or ideology on one end
create an imbalance of wealth among their people, where only a few
individuals make money, while on the other end result in bankruptcy.
• The people process appears to be idealistic,
but it can be used pragmatically to enable
the organisation to co-exist with its
customers, employees, community,
shareholders, environment, etc. for a very
long time.
• What Is A People Strategy?
• A people strategy is your organisation’s prioritised people
plan. The way you think about and set into motion ways to
attract, develop, retain, and generally inspire your workforce.
At its core, a people strategy is designed to inspire and
achieve widespread, company-wide alignment on goals that
concern its most important asset: people.
• What Do You Do With A People Strategy?
• Much like any other business or organisational strategy, a
people strategy underpins and enables your business to be
successful. More specifically, though, it is built to drive
employee engagement, productivity, and most of all, retention
of your high-performing or high-potential employees.
• Think of it as a roadmap for helping your business grow, based
on the talent you have, the talent you will eventually need to
have, squared with the talent you want to attract and the
talent you want to retain.
• How Does People Strategy Relate To Business Strategy?
• Businesses strategise in great detail when it comes to their
product, their target market, and the personas they want to
speak to and engage with. A people strategy does the same
thing, but internally. That’s why it is so critical because the lack of
a people strategy can damage the overall business strategy.
• On the other hand, when you have a people strategy that is well-
articulated and understood, it can feed into the overall business
strategy and power it. That’s because developing your employees
and making them the best they can be has a direct impact on
business outcomes, full stop.
• Are People Strategy And HR Strategy The Same Thing?
• The difference between people strategy and HR strategy is a matter of
scope. While an HR of People Team will develop and operationalise a
people strategy, it is a document or plan that applies to every facet of
the organisation. That means that a people strategy will focus on far-
reaching topics, like development, growth, feedback and diversity,
equality and inclusion.
• An HR strategy, often informed by business goals, is far more focused
on the ways HR teams work. This might include things like recruiting, 
onboarding, database management, and more administrative tasks. So,
while a people strategy will still inform what goes on here, they have a
more of a distinct top-down relationship.
• What is the difference between a people and HR strategy?

• 
• A people strategy focuses on the people within an organization and
how they add value to the company, which is people-centric.
• On the other hand, an HR strategy focuses on the systems and
processes that support people management. It is a process-centric,
more operational focus, and defines how HR will support the business
goals.
• Why is it important to have a people strategy?

• 
• A people strategy helps deliver overall company goals by ensuring the right people are in
the right place and that the right resources – development, benefits, salary, tools – are
available to them. It works in the same way as any other functional strategy would work.
• By creating a people strategy, an organization automatically places people at the center
of its operation. This drives employee engagement, supports productivity, and
encourages employee retention.
• Without a people strategy, a business risks poor alignment between teams, duplicating
work, and emphasizing the wrong priorities. Not only will this impact productivity and
the customer experience, but it also damages the employee experience , leading to poor
performance, wellbeing issues, and higher employee turnover.
• Empowered employees are driven employees 

• A people strategy ensures that employees have the right tools and
resources to do their jobs. When people are engaged and feel like they are
part of something important, they are more likely to work harder and be
more productive.
• 
• Engagement leads to loyalty

• Happy employees are more likely to stay with an organization, reducing

the cost and time associated with recruiting and training new people.
According to one study, it can cost up to 6 times an employee’s salary to
find and train a replacement.
• People strategy drives culture 
• The people within an organization define its culture. A people strategy
ensures that the right people are hired and developed to support the
company’s culture and values.
• 
• The right people in the right place 
• A people strategy helps ensure that an organization has the right
people, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time. This
alignment of people and roles drives productivity and helps an
organization meet its goals.
• People strategy attracts the best talent 
A people-centric organization is more attractive to job seekers than
focusing solely on profit. By having a people strategy, an organization
can attract the best talent and retain them for longer.
 
• Good people management is good for business 
• According to a study by the Institute for Employment Studies, good
people management practices can improve an organization’s
performance by up to 15%.
How can you create a people strategy?
• Building a people strategy is less daunting than it might at first appear. It is,
after all, just a matter of aligning your team with what your business
objectives in order to succeed. The first step is to understand what your
business goals are and then match these with the right people's capabilities.
• The next step is to put in place the processes and systems that will support
people management, such as talent acquisition, performance management,
and learning and development
• Finally, it is essential to communicate your people strategies throughout the
organization to know its ambitions and how they can contribute.
• There is no ‘right’ way to create a people strategy, but the general approach
should include the following elements:
 How can you create a people strategy?
• 1. Establish the company vision
• By doing this, it is clear what the employees needs to deliver. This could be in line with the company’s overall goals
or specific goals in a certain area, for example, growth in new markets.
• Understanding long, mid, and short-term goals provide the context under which the workforce must operate.
• 
• 2. Understand people capabilities
• To populate the workforce with the right people, it is important to understand what people are capable of and what
they want from their job.
• This can be done through people analytics, such as using data to identify employee engagement or performance
trends.
• 
• 3. Define people processes
• Once the right people are in place, it is necessary to have the right processes in place to manage them effectively.
• This includes recruitment and onboarding, performance management, talent development and exit processes, HR
strategy in general.
How can you create a people strategy?
• 4. Be clear on KPIs
• An organization's success is ultimately measured by how well it performs against specific Key Performance
Indicators (KPIs). Defining these early on will help to focus the people strategy.
• The KPIs for the people strategy should be influenced by the broader company vision and set the direction for
what the people strategy should achieve.
• Financial objectives inform decisions such as L&D budgets, investment for star talent, and workforce
productivity goals.
• 
• 5. Identify gaps and solutions
• With the vision in place, an organization must identify where it needs to change in order to achieve those goals.
This is done by looking at the people within the company and understanding their capabilities in relation to the
goals.
• Once gaps are identified, solutions must be put in place in order to fill these gaps. This includes designing
processes, putting in place tools, and recruiting talent.
• From staffing numbers to specific skill sets, identifying gaps and establishing how these gaps will be filled is
essential in people strategy.
How can you create a people strategy?

6. Take feedback on board

The best people strategies are those which have been created in collaboration
with line managers and functional heads. By using their insight and
experience, the people strategy can be adapted to take into account real-life
factors that may otherwise not be considered.
 
7. Monitor and measure
• As with all strategies, a people strategy is a living document. It should be
regularly reviewed to ensure it remains current in the face of a changing
employment market and operating environment.
• Measuring the success of the tactics used in the people strategy will identify
opportunities to further improve the strategy.
Why should you care about your company’s people strategy?

•  A people strategy is important because it provides a framework for how an

organization will manage its people. It sets out the company’s vision for its workforce
and how this will be achieved. Without a people strategy, an organization risks making
decisions in silos, leading to inconsistencies and a lack of clarity on people
management.
• A people strategy is also important because it can help an organization identify and fill
gaps in its workforce. Finally, by taking feedback on board and monitoring and
measuring the people strategy, an organization can remain effective.
• Caring about your company’s people strategy shows that you care about the people in
your business. As the lifeblood of any organization, a skilled, healthy, and well-
rewarded workforce will produce better results and cost less in the long term. A strong
people strategy is an investment in the future success of your organization.
Elements of a future-proof people strategy 
 
• In order to be future-proof, a people strategy must be adaptable and responsive to change. It should also
be aligned with the company’s business strategy.
• The people strategy should also be built on data and insights. This will ensure that it is grounded in reality
and can adapt as the business environment changes. It is also important to ensure that the people strategy
is reviewed and updated on a regular basis. This will ensure that it remains relevant and responsive to
changes in the business.
• People strategy is important because it :
• Provides a framework for people management
• Helps to identify and fill gaps in the workforce
• Is adaptable and responsive to change
• Is aligned with the company’s business strategy
• Is based on data and insights
• Is reviewed and updated regularly.

• Finally, the people strategy must be communicated effectively to all stakeholders. This will ensure that
everyone is aware of the people strategy and buy-in to its implementation.
People Strategy
• What is a people strategy? Lots of HR people, myself included,
tend to over-use the word strategic. We know it is important, we
know it is fundamental to our own value as HR leaders but I’m
not sure we are always talking about the same thing. For me
there a number of essential elements to a people strategy; it’s in
service of a business strategy, it integrates all aspects of HR
practice and delivery, it has a medium to long term time
horizon and finally, it comes with a plan for execution. Let’s
look at each of those in turn:
• 1.     In service of a business strategy: HR doesn’t exist in a
vacuum and while best practice provides a guide, organizations
have their own unique people challenges based on their
competitive context. The HR function will only be really
credible when it understands the business strategy and in
particular how the organization’s people impact on strategy
delivery and can contribute to competitive success. I always
look to understand how people can be a competitive
differentiator, whether that is through skills, behaviours or org
design. 
• 2.     Integrating HR delivery: It’s no surprise that a useful maxim for
HR leaders attempting to build a people strategy is ‘the whole is
greater than the sum of the parts’. A people strategy requires an
internal coherence in HR delivery, the alignment of the key people
processes in the delivery of a consistent and compelling employee
experience. For example, the outcomes of the performance
management process should be consistent with reward outcomes.
Talent management outcomes should lead to clear individual
development priorities. I believe this requirement for internal
consistency in people practices holds true whether the business is
pursuing a differentiation strategy or a cost leadership strategy.
• 3.     Time horizon: ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’ or so the saying
goes and people strategies like the business strategies they
serve have multi-year time horizons. The people strategy
should provide a guide to in-year priorities for the business
and HR and a compass to navigate the unanticipated short-
term crises and setbacks that are a feature of most
organizations. Savvy HR teams will pull their operating
colleagues back to the strategic vision and ensure progress
towards it. 
• 4.     A plan for execution: No strategy is achieved without an
execution plan and people strategies are no exception. This for me
is about annual people plans, KPIs and ensuring a continued
alignment to the business strategy as it develops. I look to build
clear milestone-based annual people plans that enable progress
towards strategic goals. This could, for example, be
improvements in HR processes that are fundamental to the people
strategy or the acquisition of new capabilities. Ensuring that the
status of the people elements of the strategy are regularly
reviewed alongside the commercial and operational elements
will ensure a continued focus on the right people deliverables. 
• 1. Create a strong leadership presence
• 2. Focus on employee engagement : transparency, recognition,
accountability
• 3. Prioritize learning & development 
• 4. Supply advancement opportunities
• 5. Provide an inclusive environment at work
• 6. Implement employee feedback methods
• 7. Support the virtual/remote workplace
• 8. Demonstrate health & wellbeing awareness
• 9. Make it undeniable: When employees sense they are heard and supported
by management, they welcome the relationship their employer is offering. 
5 – Building competitive cost structures
• Product differentiation is the introduction of unique, distinctive
characteristics or features to a product to ensure a USP (unique selling
proposition) of the product. The differentiation enables a company to
achieve a competitive advantage over other companies offering similar
product substitutes.
• There are two ways a business can set themselves apart from the other
players in the market: through cost leadership or through product
differentiation. Product differentiation (or just differentiation) is a
marketing process of differentiating an offering (product or service) from
others in the market to make it more appealing to the target audience. It
involves defining the offering’s unique position in the market by explaining
the unique benefit it provides to the target group. (USP)
• Services differentiation is one strategy for improving
visibility in the marketplace. Services differentiation is a tool
to increase customer satisfaction and, potentially, sales. The
goal of services differentiation is to increase customer
engagement and purchasing. Find out what your customers
want and implement those specific strategies.
• Service differentiation is the design and delivery of a service
to have unique and valuable characteristics relative to other
services in the market.