Business Growth doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It occurs because resources have been leveraged – through development or acquisition and then unleashed to create added value. Arguably for most companies the most important resource is Human Capital. The people that actually make things happen. It is the perhaps the most important of the 4Ps that make up HyperLeverage – People, Planning, Performance and Progress.

Without the right human capital it is almost impossible to plan for, perform and achieve progress.

And what is human capital? How do we measure it, acquire it, nourish it, and grow it?

How is it used properly as a tool for fuel business growth?

Simply put, Human Capital is the potential value to a business realized through the unleashing the performance, knowledge and experience of a company’s employees and leaders. Even as we develop advanced technology to replace many of the processes that humans used to do, we need to utilize our human capital even more.

It is the history of transition from human toil to human intellect that has defined the advances in our civilizations, commerce and business endeavors.

So you might ask if human capital is so important to growth, then why do so many businesses misuse it, abuse it or do such a poor job of nourishing it?

Perhaps it is the transient nature of our society that has led to degradation in the value of Human Capital in many businesses. Since growth is a forward time related process, many businesses and employees as well just don’t have the time horizon necessary to capitalize on their Human Capital. Creating the work environment that unlocks the potential of a company’s employee base takes time to develop. Investing in the continuous training and education of a workforce is expensive and risky. It means spending monies on a soft asset that a company can’t really put on its balance sheet.

The challenge then becomes how to create a business in which there is a system in which human capital can be developed, nurtured and ultimately tapped in a way that creates tangible assets and added value to a company. Human Capital is potential energy that can and should be converted into the measurable and accountable assets of business; inventory, sales, profits and goodwill.

The future poses some daunting challenges as well as opportunities for businesses because of the increasing importance of artificial intelligence, robotics and other technologies that will transform the type of Human Capital we need. Byron Reese, author of The Fourth Age – Smart Robots, Conscious Computers and the Future of Humanity presents a framework on how we should think about the complex web of topics we will be soon be facing from machine consciousness, automation, creative computers, AI and more.

As we enter into a period of increasing uncertainty about when we will enter an economic slowdown or even a full blown recession, it is instructive for business leaders to recognize that the path through choppy waters is through HyperLeveraging the untapped capabilities of their workforce and not through downsizing. Human Capital is a core generator of business growth.