Carrots and Sticks

The reason why I believe that the root of the current crisis lies in HR practices is very simple - look at all the people you have worked with during all these years, tell me who have been rewarded with carrots and who were\are getting beaten up by sticks? I believe that the recruitment and rewards systems at most big corporations were\are designed to encourage people to get the kind of 'success' they enjoyed till not so long ago. In one his recent posts, Tom Peters asks for a sense of service, sacrifice, equity or honor amongst corporate honchos. I believe that HR organization in most corporations do not regard these as key attributes for doing any level of job. Those CEOs that we are vilifying today rose through the ranks by demonstrating the kind of behavior that gets rewarded in the corporate world, and so are their seconds or thirds in command. In short, the corporations are getting what they asked for. Recent events may temper this behavior for a while but not for long unless you overhaul these practices.