Stuck in the Here and Now

Your briefcase is bulging, your e-mail inbox is filled to capacity, and the silent vibration of your cell phone reminds you that your day isn't over yet. In today's business environment, it's easy to become over- whelmed with urgency.

But busy executives - HR included - need to get beyond today's agenda and devote more time to contemplating the future, according to Vijay Govindarajan of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. In a keynote address to the Society for Human Resource Management's Strategic HR Conference in October 2005, Govindarajan shared his thoughts about HR's role in what might be termed 'future think' - let go of some of the past, manage the present, but spend more time in creating the future, because that is where strategy lies (Bates, 2005).

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