Entrepreneurship versus Leadership

Author: Dave Crisp

22 Jan

In the usual cacophony of competing claims about these issues it’s great to read a piece that is simple, concise and clear. Coaches Rich Russakoff and Mary Goodman nailed it in an article for CBS Money Sense (link below).

Entrepreneurs, they say, are ‘lone wolf’ visionaries who make grand, risky promises they often can’t keep, thus letting people down as many or more times than they hit it big. Leaders, on the other hand (effective ones at least) work through and as part of teams. The good ones are ‘humble’ as Jim Collins observed because they recognize everyone contributes and they are just one among many. Although they may be ‘lead dog,’ a dog is still one of the dogs.

From this succinct description, you can draw a number of observations. Who wants to be a dog if you can be a wolf? Just in that seemingly silly comparison alone is captured a key reason why we revere the knight on the white horse CEO who is expected to ride in and fix everything – knights, like wolves, are seen as lone operators. Isn’t it odd how we create these metaphors, ignoring that wolves typically hunt in packs? No matter, it’s that image of greater aggressiveness and ‘doing exactly what you want without limitations of cooperating with others’ that we focus on. In reality knights needed elaborate teams to make them successful, dress them and get them on their horses, too, yet we bypass that in our thinking.

The only thing I disagreed with in this article is the characterization of Steve Jobs as one of the rare people who could meld both entrepreneurship and leadership successfully. Without beating this too hard, if you read some of the biographical material about Jobs, you soon see a pretty pure entrepreneur. Ultimately he returned to Apple, the company he founded, where he had to be fired previously due to his lack of cooperation, let alone effective leadership. Was he a better leader on his return or had he simply learned finally to let others handle such ‘details’ while he continued to drive the entrepreneurial promises of tinier, consumer-friendly machines to be delivered on deadlines no one else thought possible? Being first in the market is definitely an entrepreneur’s

dream and promise they may not be able to keep, not necessarily a leadership vision. Luckily Jobs later tenure at Apple was heading an already seasoned team.

So should we be duped by Jobs spectacular success into honoring entrepreneurship over leadership? Or does it have to be one or the other?

In my own career I once led a startup where we attempted to build a leadership team to support and further the entrepreneurial vision and style of one individual who had a gift for deal-making. It would have worked well even after we discovered he’d lied to us about the profitability of many new, large clients we were setting up with. Within a year or so of learning the truth we could have made them profitable, but in his drive to be the lone wolf, mister entrepreneur kept reporting to the CEO above us that our operation would lose money because ‘those guys in the lead’ had allowed non-profitable clients to be taken on. Get the picture? It didn’t matter we were his colleagues and, so he kept assuring us, friends. He was willing to shaft us so he could be seen as the honest one when the CEO asked him how things were going. It didn’t matter we took on those clients because of his wild lies to us about big profits, nor could he trust that we’d catch up and fix things so they worked. Ultimately we couldn’t survive in a turbulent environment. Talk about the frog and the scorpion.

Personally I’d rather seek effective leaders in the top spot who have the courage and risk-taking ability to promote the ideas of subordinates who have an entrepreneurial streak than try to work with an entrepreneur in the top spot who can countermand the common sense solutions his leadership team attempts to put in place. But you see the conundrum. Whichever is the top boss needs a team that includes the other skill set. It is indeed rare to find any one person with both although I do agree with Russakoff and Goodman when they include Kelleher of Southwest Air and Walton of Walmart.

It seems futile to spend much time looking for the extremely rare combination in one person. Better to spend it building succession plans that put the right mix together, with the right person at the top. and, ideally, a team of people who understand their strengths and weaknesses and how to help everyone function productively together. As always we will never be perfect, so erring one way or the other is the norm and not fatal as long as one can recognize and fix mistakes.

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Filed under: 1 Balance - Judgment, Business/Strategy, Coaching Issues, Fix The Jerks, Leaders of the Future, Learning Organization

Measurement and Analytics: Neglected HR Strategies?

Author: Dave Crisp

15 Jan

More than half a dozen items crossed my screen within two days on HR analytics or metrics – that’s a rate of more than one a day – so is it right to suggest it’s a neglected strategy? It appears a lot more people now are getting excited about what this offers, but the caution is these ‘most people’ don’t seem to include HR. There are even several articles mentioning measurement and analytics in the current issue of Canadian HR Reporter, which is why I included it as a key future trend in my own article there.

The recent parade was led off with no less than analytics guru Thomas H. Davenport, who now operates as Research Director at the International Institute, offering a teleconference on their evolving ideas. Their web site asks who is moving into the lead for analytics in organizations – the CEO or the CFO? That should signal a warning to HR, which is also echoed in CHRR. Tom admittedly has always been an analytics guy first and focused on HR topics second, but when you review his list of books HR is never far from the center, from early work on re-engineering through a recent release on making smarter decisions, they have a people-overtone – managing knowledge in the organization, “The Attention Economy” and how to get better performance from knowledge workers. So why is the CHRO not on the list to own some piece of analytics in organizations?

The answer has to be that in almost all cases, HR is getting a late start on the band-wagon. CFOs deal with numbers from day 1. So, too, do IT departments, the other functional group that is mentioned far more often than HR. But we manage the most interesting issues that aren’t as clear or straight forward as budget numbers or widgets rolling off the line. Where analytics can really shine in offering truly new insight ought to be in exactly those fuzzy human areas where it isn’t clear on the surface what people will or should do.

Unfortunately HR departments are rarely staffed with even a single individual who really understands the use of analytics. At best the function may have someone dedicated to pulling reports from the many systems from which HR needs data – how many do we have in our pension plan, what are their total contributions, what’s the headcount by business unit that we should be monitoring and limiting? These sorts of ‘analytics’ questions almost don’t qualify for the name. They are just counting.

Google, as noted in several posts, makes it clear they don’t put a single HR policy change on the table for discussion without extensive numerical evaluation. Is that the other extreme? Perhaps, but we’ve known for a long time that executives in the business are frustrated not having such information as part of the decision-making process on HR issues. We have a responsibility to get that information for them in a digestible form if we expect to be included in every business discussion. From professors John Boudreau to Dave Ulrich, the message is clear – get with the program if you expect to be recognized for contributions.

Also on trend, the Grapevine site for HR and Talent Managers comments on Engineering HR Business Partners (the underlying idea? Analytics). Rebecca Shockley of IBM discusses building an analytics-friendly culture. At a macro level McBassi & Company continues to pound away at measuring the overall value of HR elements to a business and various ways to measure. For their part HRPA continues to develop and promote its Metrics Service through which organizations can share benchmarking data – not advanced analytics, but potentially base comparisons that might help make data more meaningful (not sure how well they’re doing, but they put on lots of demos). Lots of direct vendors are in the game, too, of course, such as SAP offering a white paper in infrastructure for analytics in CIO online magazine. A further bit of overview is offered by SmartData Collective on what sorts of things are under discussion, such as “Big Data.” I could go on since a bunch more arrived in the days between drafting and editing this.

All this would be useful information for HR, if one ignored research experts, i4CP’s, finding that only 1/5 or organizations use HR analytics. A significant part of that problem has to lie with us in HR not pulling the data together or making it digestible for other executives. It’s one challenge to calculate, it’s another to make it understandable. All this takes practice to learn to do well and that takes time. With all the advice out there on the need, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of directly applicable analysis on exactly what HR should do. Opinions abound, but practical examples are rarer. Until practicing HR pros start discovering and sharing the truly valuable ways to put data together, anyone working on this in HR is going to be developing new ideas in creative ways that may not always work.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Business/Strategy, Current Affairs, Human Resources (HR), Learning Organization

Jim Collins Returns With More On Leadership

Author: Dave Crisp

8 Jan

It’s been nine years since Collins’ excellent book on leadership, Good to Great. That followed the successful “Built to Last” that he said he should have written to second, dealing as it did with the strength provided by values that arise from great leadership. Now it’s Great by Choice with Morten T. Hansen of Berkeley – on organization strategy more than leadership.

This book is going to be far more controversial since he hasn’t fully updated his list of successful companies despite the surface reversals of organizations that exemplified success or lack of it in Good to Great. IBM, for instance, doesn’t look so superior to Apple as it did in 2002, in fact, almost the reverse. if you ignore the likelihood that IBM will sustain well and Apple may not find more fad items to keep ahead with.

Some reviewers find the reversal of fortunes casts overpowering doubt on the new book’s conclusions. Logically it should cast just as much in retrospect over Good to Great. If the top companies then didn’t last sufficiently perhaps that theory was flawed, too. We all praised it immensely and most reviewers haven’t mentioned this and likely won’t want to admit they were wrong before. They’ll merely slam the new work.

We put too much emphasis on short term results. Both books build on so much common logic I can accept circumstances change and shift companies’ fortunes up and down without invalidating the general principles. In fact, this up and down seesawing reinforces many of the points in both – not surprising since many conclusions are the same and lead to similar strategic advice. The subtitle, “Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck–Why Some Thrive Despite Them All,” certainly recognizes forces beyond anyone’s control have to be understood. Neither fully answers the question Collins admitted ducking in Good to Great: can individuals develop the skills they suggested? In this one he notes we can at least apply effective strategies if not change our own behavior or predict exactly how we will impact.

The first part of the book usefully debunks common myths about leadership and strategy. They find successful companies, hence their leaders, are no more or less risk-takers that average and no more or less visionary. So does that invalidate Good to Great? Not likely. Leaders still make the decisions that work and it still takes a certain type of leader to be humble enough to recognize luck’s role.

He finds successful companies are not so much less innovative as they tend to press forward fewer innovations than less successful companies, which means they may have as many ideas, but develop them more carefully. The same with speed as agility – they move more slowly on average, starting small and building carefully and solidly before picking up speed, which may end up being faster in the long run. That’s definitely different from the ‘speedy’ advice usually given that motivates so many CEOs to push ‘flavor of the month’ as fast as they can. This struck a note when I read the title of the ING Direct CEO’s newest book mentioned in my last post – Rock, Then Roll – start solidly, then and only then build speed is how it hit me. Collins and Hansen go further with related suggestions.

Following up they find successful companies tend to start with less radical change to meet changing circumstances – quite the opposite, they may dig in and stick to proven values. By doing these things they generate more luck – which fits with the concept that luck occurs when preparation meets opportunity. Each new changed environment generates about as many opportunities as it shuts down old paradigms. Yes, you have to operate differently day-to-day, but if your overall strategies and values are sound, they should work in both up and down circumstances. something that certainly revealed weaknesses in a great many organizations. As they say, it’s what you do with the luck you get since everyone is exposed to the forces of luck. Whether you feel it’s good or bad often depends on how prepared you are. Great by Choice definitely emphasizes such choices and more.

One thing that stands out for me is that the advice really hasn’t changed from the earlier books despite the impact of the continuing recessionary economics we face. Their new message – those who develop effective leadership cultures and behaviors will thrive and sustain themselves through difficult luck and times when those occur. Whether we carp over their particular examples, this makes a lot of sense as we look across the economy generally. Some operators always emerge stronger rather than weaker because they were better prepared and positioned themselves for down as well as up times.

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

Being Good – Fundamental to Better Leadership?

Author: Dave Crisp

1 Jan

Holidays provide change and time to reflect whether one intends to or not. This season various reports seemed to reinforce just how complicated human differences are. No two of us are alike, so the task of coming up with strategies that work reliably in varied situations with any consistency could be difficult. The chief leadership puzzle also popped up again in conversation – not ‘what is leadership’ or ‘does effective leadership make a difference?’ We know the answers to those. What we don’t know is why so many leaders don’t adopt the proven keys that make one leader so much more effective than others.

One answer seems to be that we find ‘nice guys’ not very leader-like, so we hesitate to emulate them. Instances to explore this question come to light constantly. A high profile example arrived in a newsletter pointing to an interview in Forbes of ING Direct CEO Arkadi Kuhlmann who has just written his second book of leadership wisdom called Rock, Then Roll: The Secrets of Culture-Driven Leadership, which Forbes says “gathers nuggets of information distributed to ING Direct’s employees over Kuhlmann’s ten years with ING Direct,” the second of his books to do so.

Mr. Kuhlman is a fabulous Canadian success story not many know much about. An RBC VP at age 33 he took on the challenge of developing online banking for Dutch-owned bank and financial company ING and made the new venture amazingly successful, both in the Canada and the US and several other countries internationally. I happen to know what an uphill battle he must have had within ING from recent coaching with another Canadian sub of theirs which found them almost impossible to deal with – never allowing the sub to make decisions and delaying giving permission needed to operate, exactly opposite to Mr. Kuhlman’s style.

As a result of these different approaches to leadership ING overall needed a $13 billion bail-out from the Dutch government, while one way to pay it back has been to sell Mr. Kuhlman and his super-successful ING Direct to Capital One for $9 billion. Those numbers make the value of effective leadership pretty clear. If you’re wondering whether ING head office will be reading Mr. Kuhlman’s books, I can guess almost certainly they will pay no attention to them despite his success versus their failure.

Mr. Kuhlman, before anything else, promotes an empowerment culture and what he calls ‘culture-driven leadership.’ That means creating a culture in which everyone potentially leads and no one waits on the CEO or anyone else to lay out orders. It is also a great affirmation of the principle that an excellent leader can carve out a highly effective culture in his or her segment of a company that otherwise is downright hostile to it. But will an old-line bank move from command and control culture to this? Not likely in our lifetimes.

The only hesitation I have recommending Kuhlman’s books is he hands out 302 leadership messages in them and another 46 since that latest one. From his interview I think the themes are likely pretty clear, but none of us is capable of digesting, let alone putting into practice, 348 bits of advice, especially when you recognize they fit a particular set of circumstances that you may never encounter again. Inspirational undoubtedly, but workable?

Oddly, a more usable description of similar, but literally on-the-ground ‘nice guy’ leadership is an analysis of Denver Bronco’s quarterback Tim Tebow’s style (also in Forbes). The highly religious Mr. Tebow has become quite controversial as a result of his very public devotional behavior on the field, but he’s simply one more unique individual with unique style. It’s hard to argue with his practical success as a leader, which Kevin Kruse (author of the recent book, We: How to Increase Performance and Profits Through Full Engagement helps us get a handle on.

Without much of a stretch it seems clear these are examples of similar approaches especially in intent, albeit in very different situations where specific details inevitably have to vary. I tend to like Kruse’s descriptions better because they get at more directly what I believe are the five key core concepts without confusing them with too many specific examples – being positive with everyone, but dealing honestly with challenges, bringing the unique pieces together in balance (together meaning ‘we’ over ‘me’ just as Kuhlman insists in his culture-driven model), keeping focused on delivering results. Both promote starting small and persisting to build momentum. and both provide excellent, but very different examples of all this working effectively. Surface differences, similar principles.

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Filed under: 2 Positive - Feelings, Business/Strategy, Coaching over Command Leadership, Fix The Jerks, How Simplicity Works, Leaders of the Future

How Virtual Leadership Differs

Author: Dave Crisp

18 Dec

More discussion has surfaced recently about managing virtual teams and workers. Clearly this is a growing reality in many organizations. In many cases it will have snuck up on us as more people are equipped with computers and communication software both at home and remote office locations. It poses some challenges.

A number of years ago this tended to mean one or two workers working the majority of their time from home or another off-site location (car, hotel room, temporary office). Sorting out best principles evolved so now many organizations have explicit guidelines for this.

In a real sense, a leader might be in charge of a number of employees working remotely, which by definition was a virtual team, but the emphasis tended to be on rules for the employees. Measurement systems that a leader might use to judge productivity tended to be secondary, but important. It was assumed leaders would keep in touch frequently as most seemed a bit skeptical anyway and could be counted on to want to keep close tabs on workers.

As time passed technology made most of us capable of working remotely at least part time with few special arrangements. It also enabled more people to tie into virtual meetings via various types of collaboration programs and online tools. The emphasis shifted away from remote workers as special cases that had to be monitored to an assumption that entire teams might be assembled from workers who are located somewhere other than where the leader is or teams in one location being led by a leader located somewhere else. Technology enabled ‘somewhere else’ to mean literally anywhere on the planet, so rules about attending weekly in-office meetings often no longer fit.

The literature filled with new concerns such as people working at home on off hours. Some unions are even bargaining for on-call premiums for anyone who carries a company cell phone especially since these are now small computers with email and more. But beyond that leadership questions have been multiplying for more complex situations.

Some excellent guides exist now for leaders of true virtual teams such as Jon Wagner’s 3^rd edition, just published with Russ Milland, “The Building Effective Virtual and Remote Teams Handbook” (note: although I haven’t met Jon as far as I recall, he’s a fellow member of Strategic Capability Network). How should leaders behave differently (or should they) if they rarely meet team members and conduct full group meetings and routine one-on-ones via technology? These guys have experience and have studied what works best, but can busy managers really implement 160+ pages of advice?

Other ways of looking at similar concerns and some of the newer evolving technologies and methods that one could consider are captured by Kyle Lagunas, the HR Analyst at Software Advice in a recent article. In his blog post, he discusses the challenges of managing with an “open door” or a version of the much recommended “managing by walking around” when dealing with virtual teams.

Suffice it to say the complete solution almost certainly hasn’t been written yet, nor have all the questions been discovered. It would be nice to think office politics can be overcome with effective processes, clearly set out, but human nature being what it is what happens when a group of employees conspire to rid themselves of an unwanted virtual leader or when individuals plot to become the favorite or divert the project or more? With a growing emphasis discussed in earlier HR Strategy posts about the need for managers to learn to confront each other and argue constructively to get disagreements out in the open, the chances for misunderstandings, shunning of people we don’t find congenial or cooperative and all those other natural, but naturally disruptive behaviors would seem to find greater latitude to cause trouble or at least tremendous inefficiency and ineffectiveness.

Maybe we need a few realistic novels or screenplays about the pitfalls, dangers and solutions as well as sound advice that not everyone will have the time or skill to implement. I’m sure there’s also a huge opportunity for some comedy in all this – “The (Virtual) Office” perhaps.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Business/Strategy, Coaching over Command Leadership, Fix The Jerks, Leaders of the Future

Ed Lawler: Time for a Reset in HR

Author: Dave Crisp

11 Dec

HRPA’s roundup of news continues to be interesting. They included a link to HR professor/guru Ed Lawler’s recent article in Forbes, which in turn is widely read among senior executives. I agree with Lawler and think his views are not only worthy of attention, but essential for HR people to know these are key messages going to senior executives from such highly respected sources.

Although critical and recommending change in HR, he is constructive – also recommending commensurate compensation, and – perhaps more importantly – highlighting the distinction that is rarely made in articles complaining about HR (like the old “Why We Hate HR” from Fast Company, which is still a teaching tool in some very high level HR courses and still draws comment even in Fast Company. The latter, by the way, is a very solid talent-management based commentary on HR strategy as it’s evolving.

Lawler’s ultimate point is the theme that HR is merely administration surfaces again and again for a reason- but one which has a solution. Lawler doesn’t make the link, but we can see the parallel in finance. He argues HR should be regarded as having two distinct levels or divisions – one handling highly administrative tasks needed to be done by someone to keep organizations going. This isn’t to say these are simple, easy or unimportant, but they aren’t the whole story. The other level or division needs to be concerned with more strategic solutions – organization effectiveness, which is far more intangible, takes time and is often short-changed when busy HR people get bogged down in the admin duties.

Think finance divided into Accounting and Business Strategy – Controllership and CFO roles, which admittedly are sometimes combined in smaller organizations. Even when combined, however, we need to recognize clearly the differences and we are helped if we distinguish between the wrongly maligned ‘bean counters,’ whose jobs are nonetheless essential, and the financial strategists in our organizations.

Admin versus strategic roles are often lumped together by complainers who dislike financial or HR controls that were set up as part of a strategy at one point. It’s human to personalize a gatekeeper as the author of a ‘stupid’ rule, but there are virtually no articles suggesting the companies try to run entirely without finance people or that they completely outsource finance. Most organizations would rather have the bean counting end of finance in-house actually, where they can argue and improve procedures they don’t like than outsource to an inflexible, lock step system that doesn’t quite fit their organization.

This is so much the case that you probably haven’t even heard much about financial outsourcing apart from occasional admin items such as payroll or basic bookkeeping. Few suggest finance be outsourced entirely and let line managers set their own strategies, yet we continually hear this question or “threat” about HR. The answer is, of course you can outsource whatever you want, but outsourcing HR is more than sending out benefits admin and letting managers decide who can have promotions, days off, special pay increases or be fired on their own. Promote the wrong people through expediency or favoritism and you have a formula for destroying the very engagement you want HR to strategize for.

By keeping in mind the distinction between admin and strategic principles, we give gatekeepers in HR the opportunity to seem more logical. They aren’t preventing a pay increase to be petty, nor because they fail to understand good people need bigger rewards. Unfortunately some in the admin roles leave the impression they are personally making the decisions about what’s “right” or “wrong,” leaving a trail of line managers who feel they have “tangled” with HR too many times and just want to be rid of them. What we need is everyone to understand the strategies and that includes gatekeeping HR staff who have to explain at the lowest level why they can accede to every individual’s personal desires of the moment.

Oddly finance doesn’t seem to suffer this personalization except perhaps in the way people feel about them when their travel expenses are refused. But in the end that’s just money and generally not a lot of it, not highly emotional questions like whether I get paid for a sick day for taking my kid to the hospital. With every one of these situations involving different facts, the myriad of possible answers and long-lasting frustration is far greater and more delicate than ‘you can’t charge that new tie because you spilled gravy on it.’ Do we really want to outsource such HR decisions to a lock step process or would it make sense to use such complex questions to improve policies over time in keeping with a long term culture strategy?

Internally we have a greater challenge in educating HR gatekeepers about how to communicate such decisions and refer people to the strategy level when they simply don’t understand the explanation. HR has to be the best communication department in the organization to prevent these sorts of frustrations from festering. Keeping both eyes on both admin and strategy, but recognizing the difference, is crucial.

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Filed under: 3 Strategic - Thinking, Business/Strategy, Communicating Effectively, Human Resources (HR)

Time to Put HR Under a Microscope?

Author: Dave Crisp

27 Nov

OK, if you follow HR issues at all you have to read an article with that title and the tag line: ‘we have to drive the HR professionals into making more strategic decisions’ (that’s the clip HRPA’s daily headline newsletter posted).

In short, CFO magazine published this report a week or so ago that makes one a bit dizzy. It aims to summarize a presentation given by the CEO of Taleo (the Talent Management software company) at a US Conference Board event on Human Capital Metrics. The report seems to be an effort to pull out the highlights, which include a blast at companies using too many contract workers (getting less engaged employees) and the need to localize HR programs when operating globally rather than ‘drop in an American or Australian solution consultant’ into China, for instance. In the latter case, the reason pulled out by the reporter is ‘you need a local person who speaks the language and understands the cost structure.’ Admittedly these are among the reasons for wanting local help, but surely from an HR view, there are quite a few others – understand the culture, the local HR regulations, what motivates local people and more. By this time you can see a mish mash of partial ideas and wording shaping up.

From here we launch into a clip of comments about the need to use social media better, emphasizing that referrals result in employees who typically stay longer.

So far I’m following the reporter, a little buzzed by the quick shifts, but still puzzling about the title ‘HR under microscope’ and waiting for the major criticism. I’m guessing the headline is due to an editor creating something to sell. But no, there’s more.

An interesting segue takes us through an interesting comment that HR can’t be more than an administrative function if it runs on a staffing ratio of 1 HR pro to 350 employees when (in the CEO’s reported opinion) it started at more like 1:60.

Then the blast arrives. Asking reasonably whether HR at these large ratios can be expected to know more about talent than the manager of 10 people, it concludes: “Yet in exit interviews, employees say the number one reason why they leave is that they [don't like] their manager. It doesn’t make sense. We have to drive the HR professional into making more strategic decisions.” Wouldn’t logic suggest from this we need to convince senior management teams to make more strategic decisions about how to staff HR?

Wow. I’m not sure what the point is here, but given that it made it into the tag line for the article, I’m sure it must seem important. Let’s see – HR doesn’t have the resources to get properly close to talent issues, so it falls to managers who are doing a lousy job. In some way that doesn’t make sense so we have to drive – great concept there: “drive” HR professionals to make more strategic decisions. Would that be strategic decisions to hire themselves more staff? Is that their fault? Or is it that perhaps they really could create a better environment at their 350:1 skinny department ratios if they just tried harder? Or am I being paranoid?

All this ignores analyses from years back that HR staff ratios vary greatly due to the structure of the organization as well as sheer volume decisions (you typically need more HR per employee if you have 600 units spread geographically than if you have all, say, 25,000 employees under one roof like a big plant). But of course what really catches everyone is the facile move to turn this into blame for HR’s lack of strategic decision-making. Get the whip, let’s drive ‘em. By this point I’m not sure exactly who said what, but the result certainly seems to have ended up twisted in a familiar way. Sorry we can’t score one for CFO Magazine’s effort to make an ally of HR and mitigate inter-departmental silos. Except for the punch lines it sounded for a minute there like we were on the right track.

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Filed under: Business/Strategy, Coaching over Command Leadership, Fix The Jerks, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future

Job Security is a Two-way Commitment

Author: Dave Crisp

23 Oct

While it’s true that organizations benefit from creating an environment in which jobs are relatively more secure than in other organizations, the story doesn’t end there. To achieve maximum security an employee has to be flexible and prepared to transfer to other roles or departments where their services are needed in the event of a downturn.

The two elements fit nicely together. Transferrable, prepared employees are the most valuable to any business. They don’t have to be jacks-of-all-trades, but they will be looking at what else they could be doing that the company needs and what skills they need to develop to do that. Good bosses will be identifying such employees routinely as those who could take on more or different roles and encouraging them to prepare, to try them out through cross-department projects and assignments.

Clearly this breaks down if any element, the employee, the boss or the organization, refuses to participate in such a program. But that’s how some companies come to have great reputations for protecting, nurturing and promoting their employees and some employees come to have great reputations for being ready to take on tasks the company needs.

All this is even more important as the pace of change and innovation continue to accelerate. Yes, it’s still possible to find organizations that don’t change. much. But even government, which used to be counted on never to change much at all is faced with having to keep up with changing expectations of the public for new and better services. Just take a look at how many things can now be done via the Internet and are often done better, faster, cheaper and with fewer staff. Imagine what happens to staff numbers in particular departments.

A close relation worked for many years in the cataloguing section of the National Library. In time his personal interests motivated him to study data base management and move to the computer systems site of the department where he survived quite nicely through a number of downsizings. Cataloguing just isn’t done by hand much any longer.

Not everyone has to move into IT for safety. In fact, IT can have considerable turnover as well when new systems and approaches are introduced, so it would be foolish to assume it always represents a safe haven. The plan for individuals needs to be that they keep an eye open for other things they could do and request opportunities to learn and take on some of those types of work so they’re ready when things change.

Everyone, in other words, should participate in the on-going growth and change that every organization must foster in order to ensure it survives and thrives. Not paying attention may leave you high and dry when change overtakes your type of work. Are you ready?

That goes for HR as well. The move toward measuring results and managing HR by measurement, for instance, seems to be catching many HR professionals flat-footed. When a shift in employment numbers comes within HR, it won’t wash to say, “I don’t know much about computers, I joined HR to work with people.” There’s nothing wrong with doing both and nothing stopping anyone from becoming more computer literate as systems become easier to use and understand.

These are skills you can work on even at home or in spare time in various ways. Everyone benefits as more and more HR managers develop a more sophisticated understanding of what capabilities exist for enhancing current HR practices even if many of those individuals are never called upon to actually tap a keystroke on any program. In fact, if you aspire to be the boss in an HR function, at least understanding such capabilities is quickly becoming an absolute necessity. Yet how many HR people do you talk to who have “learning more about systems” on their development plan?

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Filed under: 1 Balance - Judgment, Business/Strategy, Coaching Yourself, Happiness, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future

What HR Information is Strategic?

Author: Dave Crisp

9 Oct

My move toward more writing has been noticed! I know because suddenly emails are flooding in for all sorts of new publications. I enjoy reading and news releases are mostly short and pithy, so for now I’m not overwhelmed or annoyed, just somewhat puzzled.

For every useful item that lands in the inbox, there are about five that make me wonder who thinks this will be of interest to someone they often address as “Dear HR Strategist.” (Thanks to Canadian HR Reporter, that’s my label at the moment and one I’m honored to aspire to.) About half of these make me wonder why they think anyone at all would be interested.

Cases in point – one entitled “Employees’ Poor Emotional Wellbeing Is Obstacle to Wellness Efforts.” No, really? There are stats to prove it, sort of: “40% of employees say an emotional or physical problem has interfered with normal activities..” Yup, when I get a cold or flu, it sometimes interferes with stuff. If I had an emotional problem that might well too, though I might not know what was happening or be willing or able to report it. Wonder what they were hoping for with this factoid. The same survey shows unhealthy habits among sizable segments: “34% of employees consume one or less fruits and vegetables a day.” Maybe of more direct concern at work: “Only 16% get enough sleep.”

What HR strategies should I promote for these? I can report my intentions to be a good leader caused me more than once to ask a team member if they were sleeping OK, but I have to admit it never occurred to me to ask about their fruit and vegetable consumption. Lest I be unfair just quoting teasers, let me add the objective is to point out emotional problems may lead to poor wellness habits, so wellness programs without a component to help with mental/emotional issues may be less successful – a laudable aim.

Another opens with the dangerous headline: “Canadian Employers Not Doing Enough to Keep Employees Happy.” Bosses are justly suspicious of trying “make employees happy.” It goes on to say about a third of both Boomers and Gen Y feel employers should do more to address their concerns. Not a surprise. and clearly related to the endless surveys showing 65% to 80% or more of employees are varying degrees of disengaged. Surprisingly their attached press release expands on this to say 75% of Gen Y and 82% of Boomers are satisfied with their jobs. and yet 40% of the young group couldn’t get jobs in their preferred fields and 33% are planning a job change soon and 60% are working for money not enjoyment. So. they’re not as happy as they’d like, but they’re highly satisfied, but not in their preferred fields and thinking of moving. What’s the right strategy for this?

I’m a huge believer in two key observations. First, human beings are constantly subject to contradictory feelings, wants and needs. making it difficult to articulate a consistent direction. We want autonomy at work, but lots of feedback on how we’re doing, clear direction and support, but not micromanaging. These are contradictions we can understand and work with. Need I go on. We are contradictory beings and that makes life and HR interesting and challenging, but we can shape strategies on these.

Second, we develop innovations, both strategic and tactical by facing such contradictions squarely, so calling them out clearly can be helpful. My puzzling is about how to sort out useful contradictions from such ‘teaser’ factoids and headlines that may not reflect anything like the actual meaning of the reports they purport to summarize. Often it seems more likely the confusion such reports create, but don’t specifically try to resolve just makes strategic innovation more difficult. If a dozen readers can develop even more than a dozen interpretations of the study by picking and choosing from the supposed highlights, what use can we really make of it?

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Filed under: 2 Positive - Feelings, Business/Strategy, Happiness, How Simplicity Works, Human Resources (HR), Leaders of the Future

HR Career Strategic Advice

Author: Dave Crisp

2 Oct

To go from macro to micro sometimes frames a question well. Recent posts discussed a massive issue: US political people-strategy, and then organizational level HR strategy, so now it seems only fair to get this down to a personal level and see if helps perspective.

Alan Collins operates a site called Success in HR and recently offered 20 Brutally Blunt Career Tips to Ponder.. One stood out for me – one that wasn’t even among those he highlights, but which is what I see missing in so many careers:

“The time for creating your new HR career is not the day you get downsized or when you decide it’s time to move on. You need to plan this months in advance. This planning is mainly because you need to grow your network first..”

Emphatically, the first part is correct, except I’d say “years” not “months.”

I’m not so sure how most people would interpret the networking part. I wasn’t a great networker so maybe that would have turned my ‘years’ into ‘months,’ but I have to say I relied on trying to do the job better than anyone else wherever I could (including better strategies for whatever needed to be done). and on keeping an eye on a strategy for myself and making choices whenever any arose that fit its general outlines. That way I’d have success stories to tell if and when opportunity arose. I’m a firm believer in the old saying: luck happens when preparation meets opportunity. I can wait, but I want to be ready. What you get ready for is where you end up. if you’re keeping your eyes open and volunteer when you see a chance at that sort of work.

The very essence of strategy as an approach is what most people miss. You won’t get to the end result if you don’t have an idea of what it might be, but a loose idea that leaves some flexibility for variety in getting there. The problem most people seem to encounter is they get frustrated, become negative about themselves and cease pursuing their strategy as soon as they don’t see immediate progress to some specific result. It takes a certain kind of confidence to tell yourself, I will work toward being the best HR person ‘somewhere’ one day whether I get much proof along the way or not.

As a sub-strategy I began to keep an eye out for interesting and remunerative problem situations. To get better at HR meant looking for challenges where HR seemed difficult and moving consistently toward industries and sectors where there was more pay. (I came from a poor family and always knew I had only myself to count on – creating a mixture of risk averse, wanting never to be out of work, yet strategically preferring higher paying, somewhat riskier positions). In time, I became continually ‘ready to move’ in case the worst happened, but equally ‘ready to take on a bigger challenge.’ The result was promotions and moves to progressively more challenging roles, learning more constantly and eventually funding the coveted ‘freedom 55′ without actually planning when to become VP or asking for raises except in one obvious case where the job doubled in size.

To me, strategy is this ‘always getting ready for something bigger in your chosen area.’ Today, organizations prize innovation, which comes down to exactly the same thing. And U.S. political strategy? The same. Are they “getting ready for something better” – no – it’s more a case of “getting ours” as if we exist in some zero sum game where winners only get what they can take from losers. That’s what happens if you believe you’ve arrived and can only go downhill if you let ‘those people’ get more. That’s why so many successful companies and cultures ultimately fail. Reasonable prudence is fine. If it becomes cutting everyone else’s expenses so your immediate income goes up, with no investment in future growth, you have a guaranteed disaster waiting to happen. Strategy has to be about waiting. and preparing. with both eyes open, yes, but being able to wait till preparation enables seizing opportunity. That’s what the marshmallow experiment with kids is all about!

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