History has lessons to show us about HR

Author: Dave Crisp

10 Apr

Richard McLaughlin writing on the new Plexus community “Organizational Consultants Network quotes the venerable Marv Weisbord, expert on Organization Behavior, author of Productive Workplaces Revisited and that led me via search to the original Productive Workplaces on Amazon.

Reading their link to the “First Pages” of the older book is really worthwhile to make instantly clear the history of effective HR and OD and how early lessons apply directly today, ultimately explaining how smart financial leaders led us into the current mess.

Conclusion? McLaughlin quotes Weisbord. .from 1987! “The world is changing too fast for experts, and old-fashioned “problem-solving” no longer works. For the past forty years productive workplaces on several continents have been evolving another way entirely of thinking and acting. First, they have been moving away from problem-solving toward whole-systems improvement as the secret for solving great handfuls of problems at once. Second, they have been moving away from getting experts to fix systems toward having experts join everybody else in learning how to make improvements.”

Doesn’t that sound like social networking and The Wisdom of Crowds over command-and-control leadership? You bet! So why haven’t we arrived yet at the point where everyone understands this? I suppose double-entry bookkeeping wasn’t thoroughly accepted by 100% of business for its first hundred years either, though now you wouldn’t start into serious business management without such basic accounting.

McLaughlin goes on to link another excellent article by NYT’s Nicholas Kristof, illustrating how well-functioning groups should be able to out-do experts and ties it directly to today’s disasters. When will we finally learn these lessons and concentrate on leading in new ways?

PS: I love one of Kristof’s references to Berkeley’s Philip Tetlock (author of the 2005 book, Expert Political Judgment – which could have been subtitled ‘yeah, right’). Tetlock, he notes, uses the description “hedgehog” in a negative way. For me that illustrates balancing Jim Collins’ use of it in Good to Great to describe the positive need for focus, which in turn illustrates again the need for balance rather than too much of any one element of effective leadership. And in many cases balance only is achievable by including more people in the process of leadership.

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Filed under: 1 Balance - Judgment, 3 Strategic - Thinking, 5 Habits - Action, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future

Let’s Smack Ourselves Again

Author: Dave Crisp

9 Apr

Sigh. I posted the link to Dr. Beatty’s recent condemnation of HR (my earlier post) on HRM Today without much comment to see what would come in. Nevin Adams essentially summarizes Kris Dunn’s post on the Workforce Management Human Capitalist blog. Both feel if HR simply does a good job, those who really matter see and appreciate their contributions. I wish I could believe that, but I’ve seen a ton of HR people doing great jobs these last few years and still find even people close to them don’t see it, as evidenced by Kenneth J. Nessing’s reply on HRM Today.

Kenneth is an HR systems guy who says he totally agrees with Beatty that “HR fails to understand the real link between productivity and people.” Here’s someone who, like Beatty, presumably works with HR people in large organizations blandly continuing the stereotype and broad-brushing ‘all’ HR.

My point? If HR doesn’t start to stand up and correct these mistaken, but all-day-every-day, comments we will truly be the failures so many already take for granted. It’s because of such standard assumptions that HR has such an uphill battle for budget, resources, great people and ‘a seat at the table.’ It’s fine that some individuals have spectacularly overcome these, but we’re doing a disservice to other professionals in our field if we don’t speak up whenever and wherever this myth is propagated.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Fix The Jerks, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future

Webinar: the Continuing Leadership Crisis

Author: Dave Crisp

7 Apr

Colleagues at the Human Capital Institute asked if I would present a webinar with them on whether the ‘leadership crisis is over’ or not. Yes, I would; no it’s not! Not by a long shot. here’s the write up:

Next Human Capital Institute Webcast on Talent Acquisition –
Title:   Is the Leadership Hiring Problem Over?
When:    Tuesday, Apr 21 2009 / 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM ET
Presented By:    Dave Crisp , CEO , Crisp Strategies
Fee: Free – on a first come, first serve basis
While the economy may have extended the projected leadership gap for a short time as many Boomers un-retire, employers will still face labor shortages in many areas of their companies, most notably among their executive team. Why? Generation X, those employees with the next amount of experience on the job, are a smaller population and just don’t have enough people to fill the seats being vacated by Boomers.
So how should an organization prepare itself for this gap? The strategies include operating leaner organizations with less management, dramatically improving Boomer hiring techniques and vigorous leadership development practices to "grow" younger workers. Discovering which approach- or developing a new one- will be the focus of this webcast.

So, for anyone interested in HR and Talent Management, registration is here.

The genesis of this, of course, is the many knee-jerk reactions some observers inevitably have to any crisis. For some current job losses seem to mean it’s a buyers market, the hiring crunch is over. With so many out of work, they reason, companies can hire whomever they need, maybe even at bargain basement prices. The fact is it’s harder than ever to get leaders who can help bail us out of this mess.

We need more leaders, not only due to retirements (and, yes, some of those are being postponed, but only temporarily), but also because flatter, widely dispersed organizations and the need for more innovation require more people with leadership skills than ever before. People are available, but the right skills aren’t.

This is one of many assumptions people leap to in times of distress. We’ve commented on some others – like believing that now we need financial wizards to save us. They got us into the mess, don’t forget, so why would we think they’ll fix it?

Another mistake is thinking ‘in tough times we need tough leaders.’ This one isn’t entirely wrong, just dangerously misinterpreted by many. The problem is in the word tough. We’re right enough to say ‘when the going gets tough, the tough get going,’ but tough has many meanings. Look at Hitler versus Churchill. Both tough. Hitler was admired by many before the War. in the US, in England, sadly in Germany. very widely because he took tough steps to bail his country out of the Depression. Observers failed to pay much attention to his methods, however. When the inevitable resulted, we needed a different type of toughness to overcome this earlier mistake.

Good people can be tough, too, but in today’s crisis there is a tendency once again to look at the wrong kind of ‘tough guys’ who undertake dramatic layoffs and cut programs, who ‘make the tough decisions.’ Well, let’s not forget that sometimes the tough decisions are to support your people when it costs something to do it. What makes leadership a challenge is that you have to constantly weigh difficult choices and try to make the best ones, not necessarily popular with your audience and not necessarily just penalizing the less powerful players.

What appears ‘tough’ to one, may in fact be the easy choice, what everyone else is doing. Leadership is taking all the factors into account, including how short term this recession might be in retrospect, and choosing the higher path, not just the expedient one. A number of CEOs have made the effort to save cost without layoffs, choosing instead to offer leaves, unpaid vacation extensions, time-sharing of reduced hours, re-assignment to training or neglected maintenance tasks and so forth, to name only a few options.

We have to hope that facing a crisis is always taken as a chance for everyone to learn greater leadership skills by pitching in to save each other. People rise to the occasion and come up with creative solutions if they are supported and encouraged. Those who unnecessarily lay off instead will be the losers in the long run as they discover the leadership hiring crisis is far from over!

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Filed under: Current Affairs, Leaders of the Future, Learning Organization

Alternatives to Hating HR (1)

Author: Dave Crisp

6 Apr

A ping-back on my recent post introduced me to John Sumser’s very interesting blog, specifically linking more comments about Dick Beatty’s diatribe against “HR.” I believe in the value of debate so I’m happy to link both good and bad opinions out there. Jon is certainly more constructive and he’s rounded up a number who are as well. However, it’s still not enough for me.

There are currently two opinions commonly published about HR. First, that most people in it are useless, especially at understanding, justifying their cost/value or contributing to results in their organizations. Second, the growing alternative view, like much of what Jon collected, that while most HR people are useless, it’s neither entirely their fault nor true of all since some actually reach the level of valuable, measured proof of strategic contribution.

I argue there’s a third view that we should hear a lot more about. that HR is making a valuable contribution almost everywhere, but only to the extent they’re allowed, assisted and supported by the rest of the team. (Try running your organization without any.) Consider that HR is largely doing what it is told and empowered to do by more senior organization leaders who control what HR is paid (typically less than most functions), who’s appointed (qualified. or not), what it’s entitled to do (mostly essential administrative stuff with a smattering of more strategic items ‘if there’s time’) and who listens when HR has something to contribute.

Instead of solving these problems, most people seem content to stand back and blame HR for not ‘proving its value’ as if there isn’t already a mountain of scientific evidence showing that the impact of doing HR well is enormous (Pfeffer’s work offers great examples). We should be talking about how to focus what we know can be done to fit our specific organizations not blaming the guys in the middle who are striving to do what they can with the resources they’re given. Pile on is not constructive.

I’ll expand later, but for now let’s make one thing clear. Try appointing a junior accountant as CFO and then encouraging your managers to ignore what she or he ’suggests’ if they feel they have a better idea. Of course things would come crashing down in less than a fiscal year. CFO dictates aren’t ’suggestions’ and are invariably backed up by CEOs and armies of accounting staff policing the rules daily. But with HR issues, people are so adaptable they put up with and take orders from blatantly bad leaders as well as good, the former being tolerated for years, often encouraged and even promoted because they ‘get the numbers.’

Most people continue to produce as faithfully as they can at least for a while till something better comes along and they cover poor performance of those around and above them up to a point. Financial lapses aren’t so self-repairing. Let me say for the record, if HR had similar rule-enforcing support bad managers wouldn’t be tolerated, let alone promoted. That would certainly make measurement of HR practices a lot easier, too, by enabling a much more consistent application of HR strategies than the hit or miss hodgepodge we normally see.

Now HR could never and should never strive to operate via pure enforcement. Human situations are simply too varied. By its nature HR has to work through other leaders in the organization and ideally help develop them to be the best possible. Nevertheless, clear HR values guidelines would help insist that leaders act with good will, positive reinforcement and other basic effective leadership practices. Needless to say perhaps, HR can’t be the body enforcing those values. As Archimedes said, “Give me a lever long enough and a place to stand and I’ll move the world.” Let’s help HR with the tools and measures instead of suggesting they ought to make them all up by themselves. Help make HR part of the team or spend the rest of your declining performance time questioning why they can’t perform.

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Filed under: 2 Positive - Feelings, 3 Strategic - Thinking, Business/Strategy, Fix The Jerks, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future

What’s Wrong In Human Resources?

Author: Dave Crisp

5 Apr

By now I’ve had a solid opportunity to mull over what struck me as so outrageous about Rutgers’s Dick Beatty’s comments noted in my earlier post and the “typical” HR responses to it of ‘he must have some sort of point’ (if I can say that without falling into the same trap of over-generalizing). This is a good illustration of what makes HR the toughest job in every organization and why we need and deserve better support from those close to the field like Dr. Beatty.

What I mean is HR sits in the middle of controversy by its very nature. I was fascinated yesterday to read two seemingly opposing views of using the Internet ‘for fun’ while at work. Richard Proctor of APL Borealis (who sell blocking software) argues it’s a six-hour a week productivity time-waster (seemingly confirmed by articles such as this from a Gallup study) that should be blocked while a study from University of Melbourne finds those using it at work average 9% greater productivity. The truth almost certainly blends the two points of view as you can hear in the Melbourne professor’s comments:

Notice that many of the figures are likely in the ballpark: 14% are addicted and would benefit by having at least some, maybe all, sites blocked, but on average there’s greater productivity overall from allowing people to use the Internet casually at work. Coker cites millions of dollars ‘wasted’ on blocking and appeals for understanding the ‘psychological’ factors that lead to productivity.

If you’re HR, working for a CEO or CFO with a clear point of view on this, you’re likely not going to waste much energy debating beyond tabling both sides of the argument. Many knee-jerk reactions will go one way or the other absolutely and we know which level of the organization chart dictates which way wins.

And yet this, of course, is an HR problem, right? This is about people and productivity. Once decided, no one’s going to argue with the CEO, but they’ll blame “HR” for not standing up for what’s ‘right’ (their opposing view, whichever that is). Both will have ‘numbers’ on their side and accuse HR of being oblivious to facts and incapable with measurement. We’re a convenient whipping boy for frustrated human beings.

HR on the other hand will do its best to mediate, to argue for compromise. and turn the issue back where it belongs – onto managers who are on the spot, who can lead productivity by getting people effectively engaged in getting results and dealing with slackers whatever it takes (and sometimes, yes, it does take offering distractions to clear the mind where in others it requires a strong management hand). Managers alone are in the best position to observe who’s addicted and slipping into a productivity-wasting pattern versus those who are really producing and need the distractions. No HR solution ‘fixes’ this challenge once and for all. It requires day-to-day leadership from every manager at every level.

Is it any wonder HR is criticized by managers who’d rather have an easy solution of blocking rather than have to manage addicted employees and employees who resent big brother cutting them off from Facebook and Twitter? That’s a lot of people who probably realize at some level HR is in an no-win position, but still rationalize their need to blame someone.

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Filed under: 1 Balance - Judgment, Business/Strategy, Communicating Effectively, Fix The Jerks, Human Resources (HR), Time Management

Archive for April, 2009

History has lessons to show us about HR

Let’s Smack Ourselves Again

Webinar: the Continuing Leadership Crisis

Alternatives to Hating HR (1)

What’s Wrong In Human Resources?

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