So Much Discussion Today Impacts HR

Author: Dave Crisp

25 Nov

I had a chance to hear speaker/consultant David Hurst today discuss his book Crisis & Renewal about how organizations need to change continuously to stay competitive and productive. As with many intense presentations it will take some time to get his points in perspective, but the implications for Human Resources (HR) and how people lead and manage organizations are clearly important to get a grip on.

Coincidentally I’m also re-reading The Toyota Way and see some interesting contrasts and parallels. Both agree that you need to create a sense of crisis to keep people forging forward in organizations. Sounds bit like "burning platform," which I’ve always objected to.

In Hurst’s view he likens the necessary crisis to the choice in forestry management of making controlled burns to eliminate dead underbrush or trying to avoid fires entirely – which only allows deadwood to pile up and ensure a monstrous, uncontrolled fire at some point in future. Toyota decided to pursue a sensible long term strategy – to build a car that was 40% more fuel efficient in five years or so. Then a new CEO moved the target to 100% great efficiency and cut development time to 18 months. That created a "crisis" for the team to be sure, but one which the company had some clear reasons to believe was possible.

In a sense you could say the choice to develop the hybrid Prius early (and incidentally get a huge jump on the market and grab an 80% share out of the gate) was a ‘controlled fire’ within Toyota’s ability to manage rather than waiting for the ultimate melt-down that we’re likely to see at some of the big 3.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Books, Business/Strategy, Leaders of the Future, Learning Organization

Great to see casual press pick up on HR skills

Author: Dave Crisp

23 Nov

Reading everything in sight as usual I happened to run across three articles on the same page of a store promotional publication no less on the subject of Human Resources (HR) and people skills. It’s great to s Nov/Dec 2008 Costco Connection for Canada ee to see such stuff making its way into mainstream press of any sort. The more people read and know about how to handle such things the better. It was just a bit of surprise to come across it where it was November’s Costco Connection for Canada (page 13 if you’re looking for it).

One article talks about how to retain staff, advice as it happens from a fellow speaker, sales guru Jeff Mowatt. To help employees stay engaged by finding the interesting parts of even a dull job, he likens this to the Japanese Tea Ceremony, where the details become interesting even in a supposedly mundane event. By so doing, you keep them excited about what they can do for the customer of the job even when many people would find the work by itself boring.

In another, another fellow speaker, Steven Little, encourages rewarding oneself for basic achievements that take work – in his case, a milkshake for getting himself to a distant speaking engagement. And then he proceeds to casually outline five keys to effective leadership in organizations as an added bonus.

Then Berlitz Canada offers advice on adding key skills that improve your thinking and career options simultaneously – no surprise this would be learning another language, a bit obvious, but nonetheless very true.

More and more we see popular press picking up bits that in years past would have appeared only in management magazines. Today every employee wants and needs to know about the skills involved not only in managing their own success, but what would help organizations they’re involved in, too. The great value of this is that it makes managing more transparent for everyone, demystifies it and shows the links between what’s good for the individual as well as the organization at the same time.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Building A Career, Business/Strategy, Coaching Others, Human Resources (HR)

A Year of Trends In HR Coming Together

Author: Dave Crisp

17 Nov

In January I was lucky to convince iconoclastic Henry Mintzberg to speak to the HR think tank I volunteer for (Strategic Capability Network) through a friend, David Creelman, who keeps up with a wide range of management and HR (Human Resources) guru’s. Henry’s presentation showcased a new program he’s been developing as an antidote to his complaints about MBAs (as in his book: Managers not MBAs). It’s called “Coaching Ourselves.” The idea is to get managers together in small groups to walk through a PowerPoint handout that guides them to ask questions about a particular management topic they’re interested in. Mintzberg’s organization develops the PowerPoint guides for a variety of topics so groups can select the Mintzberg's Coaching Ourselves site topics relevant to them at the moment – just in time learning, action learning and self-guided learning rolled into one. It’s a great idea, which I think will develop a great following over time, no doubt with lots of imitators.

That was January. Since then speaker after speaker has pointed out that Gen Y (and piggybacking on them, all the other generations now at work) want more autonomy, more discussion, more input into strategy development, to be listened to more by their managers and senior executives, to have a real hand in what’s going on.

True, there’s always an overtone of “they don’t want to pay their dues,” but what is becoming increasingly clear as we all think about that is that no one ever wanted to pay dues. When we started out, that’s just the way it was. Bosses could insist that we trudge along in humdrum jobs “paying our dues” and waiting till we were promoted to have any say in what went on. Now with instant communication keeping every employee a lot more in the loop and allowing everyone to be heard whether senior management expects it or not, there is simply no holding back the ideas that flow from more and more employees.

What’s truly new is that many Gen Y staff don’t have to hang around if they don’t want to. Mom and Dad are willing to put up with them moving back home. Mortgages and babies don’t hang over their heads to the same extent they did with the Boomers, who inevitably had to shut up and go along.

Now not only Gen Y, but many workers have more independence. Being out of work isn’t the disaster it was 40 years ago. We tell executives to get used to interruptions and 4 to 5 month job searches periodically due to re-organizations and lay-offs. Today it’s part of normal career progression. And all this comes at a time when, despite economic setbacks we still believe there will be a shortage of good managers and leaders well into the future, so we have to learn to cater to their desires in order to keep as many as we can and attract the best of the others. Many companies have started to figure this out and so are far more willing to listen… and listening is most of what it takes to develop a new, better kind of leadership.

Over the course of this past year there’s been remarkable progress toward a “tipping point” where more and more companies realize they need new coaching-style leaders. I’m just going through the 10 or so reviews I’ve written over the year on forward-thinking HR practices and strategies plus tons of stuff I’ve read and realizing every single thought leader has urged pretty much the same solutions. Still, we continue hear arguments about details – whether we need this or that Talent Management System, which is the best Performance Appraisal method or Succession Planning program and so forth.

While we’re debating the nuts and bolts, though, we need to recall there is now very broad and clear consensus on what makes HR work best – carefully integrated practices and styles throughout the organization’s people programs, not piecemeal fixes – all directed at involving, listening to and engaging all levels of staff and management to retain the best and attract more like them. In the midst of complexity we’re finally beginning to find simplicity – points on which pretty soon everyone will agree. Remarkable what can evolve in a year once the ball is rolling.

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Filed under: 5 Skills - Instant Leadership, Business/Strategy, Coaching Issues, Coaching Yourself, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future

Are times really changing for HR?

Author: Dave Crisp

16 Nov

Listening to Kevin Cashman this week on the update of his well-known leadership book offered a chance to reflect on the extent to which the climate in which HR (Human Resources) operates is changing… or isn’t. Interesting that Cashman’s writing retains its Zen flavor, something one might think wouldn’t sell well in the corporate world, but he’s been consistent for more than ten years now.

Cashman updated his book to include more research and case studies that confirm the value of its recommendations – that to create change, a leader must first change him or herself. It’s a message more leaders need to hear. In fact, in my piece for Canadian HR Reporter, I make the point that this is why there are so many bad leaders, a question we constantly hear. A leader who thinks their role is to tell others to change, but has no intention or expectation of changing themselves is a bad leader and there are lots.

Cashman’s point with the update is there are many companies beginning to notice this principle and use it to hire or promote better CEOs who in turn create and lead better executive teams, who in turn lead more effectively for results. The problem is that “many” is a relative term. Where before there might have been a handful of such companies, now there are twice or three times as many – still a handful compared to the vast number of organizations out there.

Listening to Cashman and knowing he’s been stumping the world at conference after conference for years makes one wonder how many of have to push this message out before it becomes everyday stuff for leaders in organizations. Somewhere there is a tipping point, to borrow Malcolm Gladwell’s book title and concept. It can’t come too soon for all the people who continue to struggle in companies that haven’t picked up on this message.

As it happens, it’s my pleasure to MC a Gladwell book launch event shortly after his new book, Outliers, hits the shelves finally next Tuesday. I’m grateful to have this opportunity to finally meet him as well as hear directly what he has to say. Of course, I’ll be posting about it shortly after that.

Times are really changing for leadership and HR when such information is absorbed so readily and more people seek to put it to use. How Outliers is received will be the next measure of how much.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Books, Coaching over Command Leadership, Coaching Yourself, Fix The Jerks, Leaders of the Future

Can Human Resources (HR) Be Creative?

Author: Dave Crisp

7 Nov

Presenting this week to a class of MBAs taking an HR overview course, I had a chance to ask them what they were doing and why. Several mentioned they’d taken HR undergrad, but switched to marketing. I asked why. One said, “HR seemed to be all policies and rules. Marketing is more creative.” I chuckled, but I could see heads nodding around the room. I couldn’t let that go.

HR, done right, means figuring out with people what to do to make them more effective in the varied and challenging situations they encounter daily. It shouldn’t be about consulting the policy manual and telling them what the rules are. If that’s all it is, you can be sure we’ll soon see “Why We Hate HR 2″ written with even more negative accusations that the original.

Nothing, absolutely nothing is more creative than trying to figure out individuals’ idiosyncrasies and what strategies they can pursue to get what they want while ensuring everyone else has a shot at their goals, too. Rules truly are made, if not to be broken, at least bent, stretched, modified, turned to everyone’s advantage. And HR is the primary place that should occur. How else can we keep some sort of logic and balance in the midst of constant surging forward?

I purposely chose HR because I thought it was the greatest creative challenge, not the least and certainly not less than marketing, which always seems to boil down to trial and error based on focus groups and surveys. Sure there’s creativity in the pieces – the art, ideas, copy-writing and so forth, but mostly they evolve from earlier attempts and testing new materials. The elements of HR are often more constrained – union rules, CEOs orders, financial requirements, etc., but being hemmed in makes the challenge of finding a creative solution even greater.

In most non-HR situations there’s usually time to test. With HR, you rarely have that luxury. You need solutions today or tomorrow. You need a true sense of what makes people tick… and the variations that exist in your particular culture, organization, unit, team and more. Figuring out how to align all that for everyone’s benefit is, to say the least, the most complex sort of challenge we ever face… so much so that many people just ignore it because they can’t face the creative struggle it often requires. So tell me you like marketing because it has rules, concepts or patterns that can evolve and room for new ideas, but don’t tell me it’s more that way than HR. It’s may not be your chosen field; you don’t have an aptitude for it, but not ‘uncreative.’ If that’s what we leave people with as an impression of HR, we deserve all the condemnation we’ve been getting.

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