Month: July 2013

can’t wait for ILSHRM13

August 19 and 20th. Chicago, Illinois. ILSHRM13. BOOM!

This is the event I’ve been looking forward to all summer. The folks at Illinois SHRM have put together a tremendous line up of speakers and I’m really excited about attending. Daniel Crosby’s keynote has the fantastic title: “You’re Not That Great: A Motivational Speech”. Dwane Lay is doing both a keynote and a concurrent session – I’ve seen him a couple of times and he’s always entertainingly thought provoking (or is that thought provokingly entertaining?). Kris Dunn and Laurie Ruettimann were two of the first bloggers I followed and inspired me to start blogging myself. For me it’ll be worth the trip to Chicago just to see them present.

In the concurrent sessions, there’s Doug Shaw, Paul Hebert, Susan Avello, and so many more. All folks with strong reputations for thinking differently and bringing new perspectives to the issues we all face. I haven’t seen Paul or Susan present (yet) but I’m a big fan of Doug’s take on HR and business and his down to earth presentation style. Attend his session if you can.

I’ll be there too. This year, my boss and co-conspirator Cheryl Gochis and I have been on a world tour*, speaking at several different conferences. I don’t want to brag too much about our skills, but I’m confident we are the only speakers who have used a life-size cardboard cutout of Chewbacca to make a point about employee engagement.

In Chicago, we’re presenting two concurrent sessions: “Creating Culture Change on Cruise Control” and “HR: Simplifier or Complicator”. No Chewbacca this time around but we’re ready to bring our energy, passion, and perhaps a different take on HR.  I like to believe that the company I work for does HR different than many companies and it’s fantastic fun to share what’s worked for us (and what hasn’t), learn from all the participants, and meet people who are trying to move the field forward. No matter how good I think we’re doing, there is always so much to discover and so many ways to raise our own game even more.

So What Are Our Presentations About?

Changing cultures is difficult – really difficult – so the “Creating Culture Change on Cruise Control” session looks at ways we can leverage existing HR processes to make that change easier. Cruise control isn’t autopilot and it’s doesn’t make the journey instantaneous. We still have to steer, but cruise control lets us make steady progress uphill, downhill, around corners, while allowing us to focus on more important aspects of the drive.

The “HR: Simplifier or Complicator” session is based on the idea that people are either simplifiers who make it easier to get work done and accelerate results or are barriers who complicate and slow things down with drama, politics, and “War and Peace” sized policy books. Laws, regulations, and human nature are complicated enough so we look at some ways that HR can help cut through all that and be a simplifier. A little bit of fair warning for you: it’s at 7:30am on Tuesday, we’ll be ready to rock full force, and we like plenty of interaction, so this will not be a session to ease you into the morning. Get up, get your coffee, and get excited.

Say “Hi”.

If you are attending the conference, please find me and say “hi”. One of the best parts about conferences is meeting new people and kicking around ideas.

See you there!

 

 

 

*World tour in the sense that we’ve spoken at different places on the world, not necessarily around the world. A subtle difference to be sure.

 

real world mission statements

What would happen if company mission statements were a summary of how the company actually operates instead of the all too common collection of socially acceptable phrases strung together by a committee? Perhaps we’d see more like:

  • We leverage short-term relationships to extract maximum value from customers.
  • Myopically focusing on quarterly results at the expense of long-term stability.
  • All of our decisions and actions are based on a simple premise: If you don’t own stock in this company, we don’t care about you.
  • We sell cheap crap. You should buy lots.
  • Boldly facing the future by continuing to do what worked in 1978.
  • We say we value diversity but vehemently oppose people and ideas different than our status quo.
  • We fear change and are lobbying hard to enact regulations that will limit our need to adjust to new business models.

What did I miss?

[Thanks to David D’Souza (@dds180 and ddsouzadotcom.wordpress.com) for inspiring this post and starting the list!]

authenticity and vulnerability

On my mind this morning:

  • Is there a difference between authenticity and vulnerability?
  • What’s the line between the two? Can you have one without the other? Can you be authentic without being vulnerable? Can you be vulnerable, but not authentic?
  • Why are both considered so important, yet both seemingly so rare (or did I just answer that question?)?
  • If they are rare, does that mean we are operating most of the time from a point of defensive falseness?
  • How does this fit in with the concepts of honesty and integrity? Few would define themselves as liars, but how many can say they are fully authentic? How do we account for that gap?

What thinks you?

 

real world champion

What I do today matters. What I do every day matters more. Our reputations, our relationships, our lives are the sum total reflection of every decision, action, and event.

Observation shows it’s pretty easy to live an OK life. Get to work on time, pay your bills around the due date, say “please” and “thank you”, give other people the respect and courtesy you’d like to receive, don’t commit felonies, etc. Nail the basics and an average life is yours without too much effort. You probably won’t have a fulfilling life but you won’t be too miserable either.

The jump from OK to fantastic appears much more difficult. When we look at those we admire, words like “focus”, “discipline”, “integrity”, “unique”, “dedication”, “enthusiasm”, “responsibility”, “honor”, “vision”, and “purpose” start coming to mind. No one creates excellent results in any aspect of their lives with a mediocre mindset or average actions.

Interestingly, few people declare that what they want most in the world is to be mediocre. Few dream of average. Seldom do children hope to grow up and become dull normal. What if we stopped thinking about just getting through life and started thinking about becoming champions in our lives?

It probably feels weird to even answer. Seriously though, what does “champion” mean in the areas of life most important to you? What would it take to be a champion parent, spouse, or friend? What does being a champion salesperson, manager, HR pro, teacher, etc. look like? How does becoming a champion change how you think about your day?

Moving beyond ordinary requires asking better questions of ourselves. “How can I find a job I like?” is a much different question than “How can I become one of the best in my field?” “How can I argue less with my kids?” is not the same as “How can I build a close and enduring relationship with my kids?” Likewise, “Why am I fat?” produces different answers than “What do I need to do to get fit?”

Being champion requires applying what we already know (and learning all we can as we go along) with consistent, focused effort. It means risking failure – oddly if we give it our all and it doesn’t work out we tend to think of that as more of a failure than if we don’t try at all (LIE!) It means breaking free of the herd and finding our own vision and our own destiny. And that probably doesn’t fit in well with those content with marginal.

Champions design their lives so every aspect supports what they are creating. One of the biggest challenges you will face in being a champion is simply that most of the effort isn’t very sexy or fun. In the movies we see a cool three minute montage with an upbeat song when the hero takes control of their lives and turns thing around. In real life, it requires continual, unceasing effort. It means getting up when you don’t want to get up, taking action when it would be easier not to, having uncomfortable conversations that you’d really rather avoid, and standing out when you’d rather fit in.

So we try in fits and starts, but one effort, one time, one day doesn’t do much for us. Johny Hendricks, one of the very best mixed martial artists summed it up: “If I’m going to be a champion, I’ve got to act like a champion every day.”

Starting today.