Human investment management: raise the level by capitalising human.

Abstract

This was a difficult book to write. The reader is also expected to feel the twinge. But, someone has to crack it and let the humans get the honour they deserve. It took me almost a lifetime to learn and five years to write. I am not going to stop here. It is a warning. But, readers do not have to bother too much about an assault of the readership kind. I am pretty old, very old. No, I didn’t do schooling with Julius or jointly dated Cleo. I let her have him (no choice). He was much senior. This is not a study about the different types of humans, but a study that emphasises a human will have different types of humans, including a protean human, in him or her and, therefore, managing a human can be better done by investing them as capital humans in an activity for maximum returns. Why? Read the book. First, I must caution the readers that this is not a textbook, except for me. This book is meant for those who have read textbooks. Doesn’t matter how long back it was. Human management is not a new subject. It has been there since the beginning of it all. It has taken various shapes, turns and patterns, more so with the advent of the idea of management in its formal avatar in the 1990s. All through, making a human work for another was the ideated or believed concept, whereas, in reality, it was about supervising a person directly or indirectly in an activity assigned to him or her towards a desired result. No human works for another human; everyone performs activities gaining benefits to the identified human system. The performing human is within this system. Differentiation is only for explanation. The idea of human management changed radically since the early days. Changes occur every moment driven by competition. But, the idea still remains in select and limited layers of the concept of human management stratified like fossils of different periods. Work in a job environment is one of the activities humans get engaged in at some period in life. Managing or supervising a person engaged in an assigned activity is also an activity performed by another human at a different level—managing people. Managing people for the overall social benefit under exclusive responsibility towards the society as a whole becomes governance in the modern parlance. There too management ideology and the concepts do not change. They get extended competitively towards the society from the limited perspective of the organisation and ideated profit maximisation, though such responsibilities can be reversed towards profit and organisational sustainability. Behind all these are the capital humans with activity investment values. This book attempts to look into this idea. The study about capital human takes a major diversion from the accepted and continuing path of human resource management, erstwhile personnel management, at least in principle for now. The idea of human management is examined from a different perspective without commenting on the existing path and procedures in relative terms. Every approach is good if it leads towards the end objective. The productivity that is attained at the end of a human activity is what counts ultimately, which is not exactly a statement of end justifies means. The intrinsic value of a human can be utilised for the final result by maximising it as the ends—the end result. The procedure for maximising contributes towards the means. Here I am not causal for something new demolishing the old order, but indulging repeatedly in a self-effacing dialogue with the readers on managing human differently based on trials and experiences of many years while in my job environment and even out of it in the intermediary and external environments. Great scholars and other knowledge people of yore had postulated and espoused the identity of human beings in all kinds of environments, the work environment included. It continues today. This book is a minor add on to the findings of the great scholars of the past on the subject. Today the question of ‘Who am I?’ or ‘Who are we?’ doesn’t have much relevance. We know. We know that we are a unique form of life at least to the extent that we do not have to repeat such questions. Still the mysteries of life and death and shackles of life between them are intriguing to the humans, as if by default, as necessities for continuing life. The book is not on philosophy. It is also not on the theory of the unknown or everything, but about knowledge factors that may throw some light to get a bit more out of an activity assigned to a human in the work environment. That is all about it. It is on human management, where an individual is not considered a resource, but someone who optimises resources for getting the desired results. In this process, I have no intention to demolish the present order. The intention is to ideate a deviation which could also be an inclusion in dealing with humans in a work environment, whatever the nature of the activity may be. It is already mentioned that this was not conceived as a textbook. There are no case studies for students to practise. But, progressively, it turns out to be a reading supplement to those who manage humans. That means everybody, not just designated human resource managers. This is written with the expectation that it will help all those who are interested in the subject of managing human and the human system. This is to apprise them about the individual human and his or her transformations with respect to time. More than that, I am optimistic of receiving contributions and comments from the learned readers on the subject. It will help me to learn further. The subject will always remain too fragile for the simple reason that it is a human who has to manage a human, a very complex masterpiece of life. This is only an attempt, thereby incomplete as a final text. There are no shattering formulations or conclusions. The author expects the reader to read, pause, ignite the mind, continue and contribute.