People and Culture Management: a seat at the table for adults

'Antifragility' is a concept developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb and which serves as the motto for his book Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, in what is one of the five compendiums of the brilliant pentateuch of the modern age called Incerto. Taleb defines antifragility as the property of certain systems or entities that go beyond robustness. That is, they not only resist shocks, but benefit from them, becoming stronger.

The path taken by the Human Resources function over the last few decades is a case in point. Let's not forget: for several decades of the last century, the function dealt with eminently administrative issues, being essentially a hygiene factor from which the company, even if begrudgingly, could not extricate itself. The advances in the study of the impact of motivational factors on productivity, such as the Hawthorne Studies by Elton Mayo et al, although important, were far from constituting a body of knowledge associated with the People Management function, and even further from occupying a central place in a business's strategy.

At the turn of the 20th century into the 21st, the discipline - then known as Human Resources Management - had already acquired its own doctrinal body and was approaching the table of grown-ups. However, it was often conveniently "swept" under Finance departments (or others with more or less creative names) and had no voice at the table of many of the more traditional administrations. What's more, it wasn't uncommon for HR professionals themselves to refer to the rest of the company as "the business", in an unfortunate unconscious choice of words that minimized them and placed them in an alien position that, well, removed them from the so-called central place in the business strategy.

Some twenty years on, the function is now known as People and Culture Management (with variations that are also more or less creative) and, after many shocks and tests of resistance that have made it stronger, it has finally taken a seat at the adults' table. Today, the function is commonly given strategic importance in the most competitive companies, as it is the guardian of culture and the bulwark of a form of leadership that impacts the entire company. It has multiplied transactional tasks across structures, delegating responsibilities to leaders (the first people managers). It's no wonder that the topic of 'People' comes third in the ranking of importance for CEOs in the Gartner Top CEO Priorities 2024 study. It's also no wonder that the subject is on the agendas of the most important business schools in the world, with programs entirely dedicated to it, or with a substantial share of dedicated content in the more general management courses.

That's why at Nova SBE Executive Education we created the Advanced People and Culture Management Program (PAGP) - an offer designed for managers who see people and business management as two sides of the same coin, and who think strategically, considering human and cultural variables in a holistic and systemic way, as another element for the company to gain competitiveness in a competitive market.

The recipe that makes these editions a success? We start with strategic thinking applied to people management, then go through the different disciplines and specialty areas of the function, until we end up with a capstone project of enormous practical applicability.

Business management was, is and always will be people management. The professionals who have dealt with this discipline over the years have made it stronger, in an example of antifragility, and have put it at the table of the grown-ups. The PAGP is a testimony to this history and the answer for brave managers who want to write the new pages of the future of People and Culture Management. Come and write them with us!