By Liz Ryan

I returned from lunch recently to find a note on my monitor: "Call this reporter about a story on hiring."

The fellow was writing about hard-to-close job candidates and wanted to hear tales of how far employers will go to land a must-hire recruit. I shared a story about the panic that occurred once when such a person wavered -- and the six-figure sign-up bonus that got him over the hump. "Ah, the boom times!" I reminisced."Something like that, where the dollars are so big -- usually it's out of HR's hands, and the CFO makes the decision," remarked the reporter.

That jolted me out of my reverie. Here we go again, I thought. The juiceless human resources theme.

DANGEROUS TREND.  Recently in this column, I wrote about the problem of disrespected HR leaders -- and heard from 50 or so BusinessWeek Online readers who had stories of frustration over the low position HR occupies on the corporate totem pole (see BW Online, 6/1/05, "Why HR Gets No Respect").

Not one reader disagreed that human resources is in a dismal state. Increasingly, companies are outsourcing routine HR functions. Others are going further and exiling HR from top executive circles -- a dangerous trend, in my opinion.

The response to my earlier column was energetic, prompting me to wonder: "If all of these smart, dynamic, articulate HR people are around, why do I run into so many lackluster HR folks in U.S. companies?" Several readers pointed to the answer: Fear.

SCARE TACTICS.  Remember the old adage about sales? There are two things that will motivate a customer to buy, it goes: There's fear, and there's greed, and fear is stronger than greed. Unfortunately, fear affects a lot more than sales.

The desire to build a strong, healthy, nimble, and innovative corporate culture may burn in a CEO's breast. But in the clinch, if he has to choose between empowering people and controlling them, he's often going to pick the latter, because he's afraid not to.

Sending smart people forth to accomplish great things is wonderful in theory. But in an era of quarterly report cards and intolerance of tepid results, fear-based management is expedient. You may not feel good about managing people by scaring them, but it works -- however briefly.

REIGN OF TERROR.  So the CEO's fears -- fear of losing control, fear of missing the numbers -- reverberates through the ranks. Employees become risk-averse in environments where making a false move can get them fired.

A manager's subtext in such situations becomes: Better not cross me! In unhealthy organizations, this sentiment gets expressed overtly, as in, "The district manager is coming in from Cleveland, and you guys need to be afraid."

When a culture is fear-driven, HR turns to dog meat. No forthright HR person should stay in such a job: The ones who will stay won't make things right. There's no brass band for the Minister of Culture when the culture is twisted and political. In that environment, an HR person is lucky to shove through a new dental plan.

TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES.  In the notes my column prompted, a number of HR consultants and researchers described software that can illustrate the connections between various HR initiatives and increased profits or reduced costs. With such tools, it's possible to make the case that building a stronger leadership team or installing true performance management is good for business. I wish I could approve of that approach to selling HR initiatives. But I can't. Here's why.Consider another cost center that is often dumped on -- marketing. Your marketing chief will make an impassioned argument for enhancements to the Web site, a direct-mail campaign, focus groups, and an ambitious trade show program. He'll only get some of what he wants, but you don't see him trotting out analytical tools to prove the links between the investment in marketing initiatives A, B, and C, and improved financial results. He just makes his case and sits down.

Why do we, as HR people, keep turning to crutches? "But see here, companies that invested in 'Succession Planning' were 13 times more likely to meet their financial goals." Where are the impassioned HR leaders who will look an executive team in the eye and say: "We do not have our bench in place. We are now going to develop leaders for the next two decades." Period.

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