In almost every US company, the largest expense item is the people we employ. Consequently, they should represent our biggest asset.

In the 80's we referred to our people as associates and organized them under the heading of "Personnel". By the mid 1990's, we had begun developing team-based management concepts and began calling our people "Human Resources". Now, we're beginning to shift focus again and refer to "Human Capital". These are all heathy and worthwhile shifts in the way we perceive the people in our organization, but the words have no meaning unless they are accompanied by different ways of managing, training, developing and motivating these assets.