It is Carnival of HR time again, this time hosted by Doug Shaw over at Stop Doing Dumb Things to Customers. This time, the categories are:
1. Fireworks of HR
2. Conference Tales
3. Other Crap You Can’t Be Bothered to Catagorise
So head on over and see what all the bloggers are writing about. Great stuff from David Goddin, Robin Schooling, Ben Eubanks, Steve Browne, me (ahem), and many others.
I’ve got punk rock and HR on the brain this week, so let’s build on it. A little while back, Laurie Ruettimann over at The Cynical Girl ran a great post on 5 Lessons from Henry Rollins. Tons of great stuff in there (go read it!), but the lesson that really stuck with me was “Don’t be a workaholic, be a workslut.”
As Laurie says:
Henry Rollins works hard, but he doesn’t have one job that defines him. He speaks, he writes and he plays music. He works in media, he travels and he volunteers. He doesn’t say no to opportunities that can lead to more opportunities. What’s the alternative? Sit at home and let your muscles (and your brain) atrophy?
I love this. As a jack of all trades with too many interests and too short of attention span, I’ve struggled with being defined by one job, one category, one field. How freeing to open things up and embrace it all!
We tend to over-define ourselves through our jobs and under-define ourselves through our interests and passions. Remember, there is no such thing as work/life balance. There is only Life and work is but one (significant) component of it. Every aspect of our life is a potential outlet for our passions and interests.
Some (including me) will point out there are opportunity costs to everything you say “yes” to so you need to be selective. Absolutely. But how much fun is it to be engaged it things that really jazz you. Being too focused on any one thing creates burnout – you tire of it. Slipping back and forth between interests builds stimulation and ideas and recharges. Exercise provides a great example: if you only do one exercise you set yourself up for injury, boredom, lack of interest, and diminishing returns. But if you keep changing it up, the routine stays fresh, challenging, invigorating, and your results don’t plateau.
My 11 year old daughter recently demonstrated all this beautifully (and made me feel like a no talent slacker). The world will need to step it up in a big way if we’re going to keep up with her. I recently mentioned that she wrote a short book for National Novel Writing Month last year and she’s back at it for this year. Saturday morning, I got up at 6:30 and she was already typing away before she had to get ready to compete in a horse show where she won High Point for the day and the season before leaving to go do a final evening performance in a school play (where she also sold several copies of her book to other kids) before coming home and getting in trouble for staying up too late working on the new book. Start to finish, it was a 16+ hour day of focused effort. An unusually long day for her, but a great demonstration of how to be successful in several arenas without becoming overly defined by any one.
What do I take from my daughter, Henry Rollins, and Laurie’s insights?
1. Passion is the heart to motivation. I could never-in-a-million-years get anyone to put forth the effort my daughter does willingly and without a paycheck.
2. Having several interests is good. Over-commitment is a real risk, but mixing it up keeps the spark alive. When we’re tiring of one thing we can fluidly shift to another. Also, creativity, innovation, and inspiration are ignited when we pull disparate concepts together (some refer to this as being at the intersections of ideas). From my experience, the most innovative people have wide ranging interests and experiences to pull from.
3. There is a huge difference between saying yes to all things asked of you and saying yes to the things that excite you. The first prevents you from doing the things you’re passionate about; the second keeps you focused on them.
4. You never know where the opportunity is going to come from. Pour enough passionate effort into the world and it will come back – even if it’s not from where you expect it. Name one other punk with Henry Rollins’ longevity, credibility, and vibrancy.
5. Define yourself before the world does it for you. Authenticity is a doubled edged sword, but a key advantage when used well. When we allow others to define us by their narrow perspective of who they think we are, we get typecast and stuck. Look at all the musicians, writers, and actors unable to move beyond their past success. They are damned to recreate the past over and over and over.
6. All work and no play is no good at all. But when we can hit the sweet spot of working really stinkin’ hard on “play” – our areas of passion – really amazing things can happen. I use the phrase “play bigger” to describe this. Changing the world, denting the universe, being the difference we want to see in the world is hard work and big fun.
The title of this post is Punk Rock HR Worksluts, so how can we apply these lessons to HR?
1. How broadly have you let HR in your company be defined? Are you the “payroll people” or the “policy police” or are you the place employees and leaders go to make better decisions about careers and leadership? Do people only see you when they have been called to HR (ugh!) or is HR a strong and continual presence throughout the company? Is HR involved in non-HR committees and task forces (you know, beyond the Christmas party) or is HR isolated, barricaded, siloed, and remote?
2. Do you like HR; are you passionate about it? Were you drawn to it or did you just sort of end up here? Are you passionate about people and business or did you just need a job and HR seemed as good as any?
3. Can you understand and talk all aspects of the business? You don’t need to be a CFO, but can you understand the income statement? Does the marketing strategy make sense? Can you explain your company’s core business and competitive advantage? Do you know the most important company goals for next year (and how your job supports them)?
4. What projects are coming up that you are really excited about? What new skills are you fired up about learning? What are you actively doing to make next year 2X better than this one?
5. Who shows up at work – you or the plastic worker drone persona so many of us have perfected? Are you playing safe or playing to win?
6. As an HR professional, do you like you? Are you proud of who you are, what you do, and how you do it?
Your thoughts?
Why conferences?
Are you going to a conference this year? Why?
No really, why? As an HR professional, why are you taking time out of your life to go? Is it because you’re a professional and professionals go to conferences because other professionals go to conferences? Is it because you need to keep up on your certifications? Is it because you have no other opportunity to talk to vendors? Is it because you feel it is the best or most cost effective way to keep up with the field? Is it because you really need a three day drinking binge? Is it because your company pays for you to go? Why go?
How will you decide which conference to attend? Location? Price? The keynote speaker(s)? The size of the conference? Reputation? Theme? Topics?
I have a confession to make: I haven’t been a huge fan of conferences. My sense is that conferences have often been more about the status quo, rubbing elbows, and comparing merit badges. The organizers play it safe and stay (far!) away from controversy, have a known keynote, offer professional/educational credit to justify the employer paying for it, and make sure that everyone has a pleasant time. It seemed less about advancing the field than celebrating where it is right now.
So what about those who see the status quo as a very low bar? Where do those who want to create, innovate, and push the boundaries go? What’s available for those who simultaneously love Human Resources and ask, ask, and ask again those tough and awkward questions about how to make it truly better – those who want to tear it down, shake it up, and create something meaningful and powerful?
This fall I went to a conference for the first time in probably six years and discovered the world changed while I wasn’t looking. More and more options seem to be springing up. Unconferences, small non-traditional conferences, conferences that are re-thinking the model. Conferences I’d be excited to attend.
Conferencepalooza
Back in the day, before blogs, there were ‘zines. ‘Zines (short for “fan magazines”) existed on the edges of the music world. Self-published, they ranged from a few pages slapped together at Kinko’s to actual magazines with (sort of) national presence like Maximum Rock ‘n Roll and Flipside. This was a place where the status quo was kicked, the unknown could voice their opinion, and those who hadn’t quite made it yet were first introduced to the world. If you knew who Nirvana, Soundgarden, or Rage Against the Machine were prior to ’91 you were likely reading ‘zines.
Did HR have the equivalent? It amuses me to think of the contrarians, innovators, and boundary pushers sitting around the office after everyone has gone home and creating crudely photocopied flyers and ‘zines with tips, editorials, best practices, rants, and ads for HR seminars being held in someone’s basement or an old warehouse. It makes me smile to think of the DIY punk spirit infusing the old model uptight bureaucratic world of “personnel”. And in its own weird way, I think it has.
Today, we meet the misfits, the voices in the wilderness, and those screaming out for better through social media. In its own way, social media has turned the punk rock misfits of HR into rock star thought leaders. Thanks to social media it’s easier than ever before to know of and about the people who are pushing the boundaries and asking “why?” and “what is possible?” It’s bringing legitimacy and momentum to innovation and change.
I suspect that’s really changing the conference model to look more like a music festival than a conference. An event where the lineup matters at least as much as the topics. A place where the new, exciting, loud, and challenging are brought together. A place where there is the main stage big names and the side stage up and comers. A place where people are there because they really dig HR and want to feel it, enjoy it, and do it better.
Social media has made rock stars of thought leaders, but it’s also humanized them. Made them accessible. Through their blogs, tweets, comments, and postings, it feels like we really know the person. We probably have a good sense of their family situation, their jobs, their hobbies, favorite books, etc. It feels like we really know them. As though they are old friends we just haven’t met. I want to go to conferences where, not only can I see my heros, but I can talk and interact and share ideas and just hang out with them.
The golden question of conferences
Until this year, every conference I attended was paid from of my own pocket. I suffered both the cost of the conference and the loss in billable hours. When I’m losing money two ways, whatever I’m spending it on better have a very high return on investment.
Consequently, that has become my standard for conferences: would I pay my own way without hesitation? Does it provide so much value for me that I would burn up vacation days to go? Would I be as excited to pay for it as I would be to buy tickets to see my favorite bands? Would I get on an airplane to go? Would I make apologies to my family while I was packing my bags? Would I enthusiastically inconvenience myself in several ways and on several levels to attend?
HR mosh pit
What makes me excited to open my wallet? I want speakers whose ideas challenge me to rethink and think again. I want participants who are enthusiastic, passionate, and are creating so much Awesome-with-a-capital-A for the world that I’m inspired to raise my own game. I want to be so fired up and enthused that I’m hassling my boss and team with all the ideas pouring out of my head before lunch on the first day. I want speakers and presenters who want to rub elbows and learn from me as much as I learn from them.
I don’t want to have safe, neatly packaged thoughts handed to me while I look on and clap politely as though I were at a niece’s piano recital. I want to mix it up in a chaotic stage diving, slam dancing, mosh pit of HR ideas, philosophies, innovations, maybe-could-be’s, and practicality. [Have I pushed the analogy too far yet?] I don’t want to be a passive attendee, I want to be an active participant.
Tomorrow is today
I’m clearly not alone and that has me looking forward to 2013 in a big way. Lots of great conferences, big and small, out there with more springing up all the time. Let’s talk, question, push boundaries, and #playbigger.
Which conferences are you most excited about?
I hear HR describe itself as a business partner, internal consultant, and key support function. Listen to me long enough and I’ll start talking about HR as an untapped competitive advantage. We like to describe ourselves though the value we bring.
But, so what… Is all our self-description just wishful affirmations or an accurate description of our value? How do our customers think about HR? How would they describe our central purpose? Business partner or bureaucratic roadblock? Competitive catalyst or necessary evil? At the hub of organizational performance or rule driven box checkers?
Let’s push it further: what would it take for a leader/company to be proud of its HR department? What would HR have to be and do for our company’s key leaders brag to their peers: “Things are great and a big part of it is our HR department. Our people are our advantage and HR has been instrumental in helping energize this company. They’ve found, developed, and helped us keep some phenomenal people. Our managers see them as a great resource to help make better decisions. I don’t see how we could have done it without them.”
I’m crazy/stupid/naïve/wishful/hopeful enough to believe it could happen. What’s it going to take?
Networking for the sake of networking comes off as crassly self-serving. It tends to feel vapid and hollow and more than a little creepy. Building relationships because it’s fun, useful, and mutually beneficial is a whole ‘nother story.
Business equals people equals business. Can’t get around it. Business gets done through, for, and by people. Period. We can deny it and struggle and wonder OR we can recognize and embrace it. Want to be better at business; want to get more done? Get better with people. Build stronger relationships.
That’s where Social Gravity by Joe Gerstandt and Jason Lauritsen comes in. Ultimately, Social Gravity is less about networks and more about “authentic, mutually beneficial relationships.” As the authors say in the introduction: “What you know helps you play the game, and who you know helps you change the game.”
We all know that who you know matters, but most of us spend our time resenting it rather than doing something about it. Section 1” …It’s Not What You Know…” focuses on reminding us of the importance of relationships, the difference they make in getting things done, the need for high quality relationships, and the distinction between using social media as a tool to enhance relationships vs confusing likes and follows with actual relationships. Relationships have power and how we harness and use that power makes a tremendous difference.
Us humans generally get in our own way by either overcomplicating things or trying to get long-term success through shortcuts. Section 2 “Discover the Laws of Social Gravity” delves in to the areas that most networking advice seems to miss completely. The authors expand on taking the long-term approach to building relationships, being open to connecting with others, being our real and authentic selves, and contributing our time and effort in meaningful ways. These are all important, obvious, common sense ways to meet great people and build mutually beneficial relationships. They are also generally ignored and dismissed by those in the throes of networking frenzy who prefer the whitebread, fast food, business-card-trading shortcuts. It’s shifting from style to substance, from activity to results, from superficial to meaningful, from networking to relationship building. And that’s a powerful shift.
Throughout the book, Joe and Jason share real life examples of how relationships have affected their lives. Most striking are the small things that lead to huge differences. From Joe finding a key person within his company by connecting with someone from outside the company to Jason’s connections not helping him move to (my favorite) Jason’s hairstylist meeting and eventually marrying Joe after two unrelated groups of friends met up one Saturday night. Relationships, big and small, change lives.
As I look back on my own life, many of my most important relationships seem to have started almost by chance. Many of the most important events were due to my relationships with others. Great opportunities came from key people vouching for me or putting me in touch those who could help. Sometimes it was intentional, but often it wasn’t. For me, Social Gravity is a reminder and blueprint for helping me be more deliberate and effective in connecting with others. To do what I already know how to do, but do it more consistently and intentionally and do it better.
Relationships matter.
[Flashback Friday: this was originally posted on June 29, 2012. Enjoy!]
Beige sells. Average sells. Vanilla sells. The comfort of conformity sells. Meeting most of the needs of most people builds big businesses.
All the marketing books tell us we need to differentiate our products and stand out. Build that brand image. And then 95% of businesses try to stand out by fitting in. The word “innovation” is thrown around these days as the holy grail of business success, yet from the customers’ point of view it often just means:we’re as leading edge as all our competitors.
Similarly, there’s a lot of talk of authenticity lately. We’re told we need to be authentic leaders keepin’ it real while we bring out the authentic best in our teams so we can sell authentic products to our authentic customers. A nice thought, but a hard sell. There are very real social and business costs to being authentic. The biggest is that some people will not like you, some people will reject you. So we try to be “authentic” in a way that everyone likes. (hint: that doesn’t work)
Being all things to all people is the fastest, most direct route to mediocrity. Vanilla products sell because they fit the needs of the most people, but no one is passionate about vanilla. It becomes a commodity. They buy your vanilla product today, but there’s nothing to keep them from replacing it with a competitor’s vanilla product. When you have a commodity you are only competing on price.
Being all things to all people creates a bigger customer pool. But we forget that it also attracts more competitors. I recall an interview with an actress years ago. She had some acting success as a teenager, but her appearance was non-Hollywood so she was only considered for a few parts. Wanting more parts, she had plastic surgery done, bleached her hair, and voilà she now looked just like every other wannabe actress. She blended in and faded away.
Here’s my test for authenticity: Are you willing to turn down business because what’s being asked is not what you’re best at? Are you willing to turn down 1,000 potential customers who are kind of interested in your product or service so that you can focus on the 100 customers that are deeply interested?
As an individual are you willing to turn down or leave a job that doesn’t fit who you are and how you want to affect the world? Are you willing to be known for your uniqueness? Are you willing to be known for who you are? Are you willing to define yourself and bring every ounce of greatness, passion, and soul to your work?
You don’t have to, you know. And I don’t fault anyone who doesn’t. Authentic has risks. Different has risks. Standing out has risks.
But so does blending in. So does being average, beige, mediocre. No person or business will ever attain greatness by being one of a million. It’s only done by being one in a million.
[Today’s flashback is a short piece I originally posted on September 5, 2011. Enjoy!]
I was watching Chris Rock’s “Kill the Messenger” the other night and was really struck by one of his comments. I’m paraphrasing, but he basically said that you know you have a career when there’s never enough time. You look at your watch and it’s already after 5pm so you plan on coming in early the next day. With a job, there’s too much time. You look at your watch and it’s just after 9am and the day stretches out ahead.
Absolutely brilliant! It doesn’t matter if you’re overpaid or underpaid, hourly or salaried, educated or uneducated, or what field you’re in or company you work for: if there’s never enough time to accomplish all that you’re excited about getting done, you have a career; if time is your enemy, you have a job. There’s a lot of people with college degrees in high paying jobs and there’s a lot of people just getting by (for now) who are forging their career.
So, what’s the scoop? Do you have a job or a career? If you have a job, what would it take to get a career?
Conventional wisdom holds that: Profit = Income – Expense. Formulas don’t get much simpler than that. Increasing income or reducing expenses increases profits. Intuitively, that sounds right and LOTS of business decisions are made on this basis. Stock analysts and the companies that pander to them love this formula. Announce significant expense reductions (perhaps through massive layoffs) and stock prices jump up in anticipation of the profits to come.
The problem is, this formula is nice in textbooks but a gross oversimplification in the real world. It pretends there is no relationship between income and expense and makes the implicit assumption that the other variable is being held constant. But that’s not how it works. The real interpretation of this formula is this: Increasing income while holding expenses the same OR reducing expenses while holding income the same increases profits.
Income and expense are connected in a very real way and cannot be completely isolated. Why? Income is determined by your customers, not by you. Let’s play with some “what ifs”:
What if you cut your inventory on hand to zero? Your overhead costs would drop tremendously. You’d save a ton of money and your profits would go through the roof, right? Nope. Your customers would get torqued off that you had nothing in stock and they’d go shop elsewhere. Cutting expenses cut income.
What about maintenance expenses? You’ll save a bundle by “deferring maintenance” for a year or two. Bingo! Except you’re going to have a hard time convincing your best customers to shop in a dingy, dirty, broken down building. They go across the street to your competitor’s modern, bright, clean store. Cutting expenses cut income.
What if you laid off all your employees? No salaries or benefits to pay – there’s a major expense gone. Big time profits, yes? No. Without employees to help customers it won’t be long before there aren’t customers. Cutting expenses cut income.
What if you just forced all your employees to take a pay cut or cut benefits? You’ll save some money then, oh yeah! Um, well, no. Disgruntled employees don’t take care of the customers. Your best employees have other options and they leave. Your customers are now consistently receiving poor service. Wait, I mean your former customers. Cutting expenses cut income.
What if you invest heavily in technology and facilities that make shopping easier, convenient, pleasurable, and more fun for the customer? What if you spend more to find, hire, train, and reward outstanding customer service driven employees? Is it possible that increasing expenses could actually increase income? Only if the variables of income and expense are in some ways interconnected.
It’s worth saying again:
Expenses and income are often directly connected. They are not independent variables because your customers determine your income, not you. Customers have choices of who they give their money to so income can never be assumed to be constant. If you cut expenses in ways that negatively affect the customer, your income will go down. Likewise, if you increase expenses in ways that positively affect the customer, your income may go up.
Some expenses are worth reducing, but all expenses are not equal. Choose wisely.
Normally, if you want to find out what your company could do better you need to hire big dollar consultants who will come in and talk to the employees you’ve been ignoring conduct an extensive analysis and provide you with a lengthy report complete with graphs describing what you need to do different.
But that’s expensive and time consuming. So, in today’s post, I’m piloting the Diagnosis of Organization and Human resources (DOH!). This diagnostic tool will analyze your organization and highlight five areas that are, ahem, “opportunities for improvement”. Given the beta nature of this tool, it’s not 100% accurate yet, but I think you’ll find it remarkably close. Give it a minute to run and this diagnostic will provide you with a customized summary specific to your organization.
(It’s working, give it time… give it time…)
If you put your ear up to the screen you can hear the computering electrons working their magic in the background. [it sounds like: whirr whirr whirr]
(Give it time… give it time…)
Done! Scroll down for your customized summary analysis.
Customized Summary Analysis Results of Your Organization:
Your organization fails at: can optimize performance by focusing on:
1. Communication. Seriously, does anyone in your company talk to anyone else? Between the silos, walls, moats, and fiefdoms how do you get anything accomplished? Communicate occasionally and you’ll be amazed at the improvements. No, your passive aggressive emails that cc the everyone in the company do not count as “communication”. Back away from the keyboard and pick up the phone. Better yet, go talk to people face to face.
2. Customer Service. Consider the possibility that not blatantly offending the customer isn’t the same as providing great service. Even being better at customer service than your competition isn’t really enough because that isn’t really a high bar to beat. Try this: make a list of the five companies you will go out of your way to do business with. It’s probably less than half a dozen. Why is the list so short? Because while many companies can do inoffensive, vanilla-bland customer service, very, very few can do great customer service. Remember: better than bad doesn’t equal good.
3. Innovation. Yes, your company wants to be known as innovative, but your company punishes risk taking, frowns on anything different, and dogmatically enforces the status quo. “Innovation” is left to the seasoned senior managers who know how things ought to be done.
4. Diversity. Your organization treats diversity as a compliance issue instead of a way to benefit from many, many perspectives and ideas. Oh, and the lack of diversity is killing your “innovation” efforts.
5. Leadership. Your managers try hard and mean well, but most of them have never been taught how to lead. While there are a few standouts, many have trouble holding people accountable, a few (and you know who they are) are on a power trip, and the rest are doing ok, but just ok. “Sink or swim” is not a development strategy and flavor of the month training doesn’t teach anyone anything but cynicism. Your managers deserve better.
Bonus: As a thank you for trying out this diagnostic tool, we’re including an extra area of opportunity:
6. Hiring. Companies live or die on the quality of their employees and your hiring process is haphazard, misunderstood by some, ignored by others, and ineffective even on the best of days.
Analysis Summary:
Face it, your organization is in rough shape. The only thing keeping the doors open is that your competition has the exact same their own growth opportunities. The good news is that most of your challenges are very fixable: Improve your hiring process, focus on developing your current and future leaders, hire people who look and think differently (and listen to them), make customer service a top priority, and communicate to keep everyone connected and prevent isolation.
Yes, I’m in a smart aleck mood this morning. Although I make this stuff sound obviously simple, I know it’s not easy. There’s a reason many/most companies face these challenges. There is also a great advantage that goes to the companies that get it figured out.
Your thoughts?
fool (with a plan) 