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.

There’s that magic word “or” again. John Haggerty was lamenting this week on Workforce Management that  most of the HR people he meets lately are “business partners” – generalists who sit in the business next to business leaders and help them implement general HR solutions. He asks whether we shouldn’t expect these individuals to be specialists in at least one of the HR “silos” – compensation, benefits, labor relations, etc.

You probably know my take on “or” by now. It should almost always be “and.” Yes, generalists should have a specialty… and specialists should also be generalists. No matter how long they’ve worked in their specialty, no matter how much time they spend on it and intend to spend on it in the future, they should NOT fail to review what they do and propose in generalist terms. Will the average line manager understand and value what they’re suggesting, will the business “in general” benefit?

The reason HR is often perceived as isolated from the rest of the business is exactly this problem. Generalists sitting in the business side with line managers in viewing most of what comes from central “centers of excellence” as we now call them as being too ivory tower oriented, not workable in the real world. Specialists on the other hand tear their hair out wondering why the line never adopts programs fully (and then complains they don’t work).

But isn’t this a challenge in almost every area of a business. The marketers don’t want to step over to get experience in HR. After all they know for a fact that marketing is much more important and so that’s where they want to spend all their time. They complain those finance guys limit their budgets because they don’t understand. But the finance guys don’t want to get any experience in marketing and certainly not in HR because, after all, finance is the ultimate key to the business… right… sigh.

So let’s hear it for specialists who are also generalists and generalists who have a specialty. I mean for real, not simply some silo’d wonk who thinks they understand the business better than the people who work at it day to day or vice versa. At some point in every career, people need at least a bit of experience in both… or very good empathy and imaginations to understand what it’s like to walk in the other person’s shoes. Being one or the other simply isn’t effective; we need to think “both.”

In a surprising reversal of its own prior rulings, Canadian employees will now over time gain stronger rights to bargain and probably to strike to get their way. HR practitioners and leaders take note: this won’t happen overnight, but employees in general will slowly gain considerably more say in organizations where they may have been ignored before. As Canada “internationalizes” its labor laws, so will the US in time.

Many have argued unions have served their purpose and are no longer needed in our modern era because employees have all the rights they should expect. Yet bullying, arbitrary terminations and capricious management decisions continue to occur in most organizations.

I’m relatively a conservative who would sometimes take a dim view of this. However there is no doubt, not a shadow, that there is still room for employees to be increasingly involved in decisions and management of organizations. How this happens will be very important. This ruling allows it to evolve over a long period of time, through lengthy and expensive court challenges that will define a further new era in employee involvement. Although costly for the few “bad actors” who will be involved directly, this way of staging change “slowly, but surely” should actually prove beneficial, far better than some sudden leap to new legislation.

Whatever your view on this, you might want to take a look at this article by Queen’s law professor, Kevin Banks, which concisely explains how the Canadian Supreme Court has determined to open up labor laws to further, perhaps endless, challenges that unions can now undertake to extend worker rights.

The upshot is to give added impetus to what HR managers have been saying for decades – you get the unions you deserve if you act poorly, and you prevent third party involvement if you proactively ensure your employees are involved, engaged and consulted. This will slowly drive less HR-conscious companies to get with the program and start involving people more broadly. Stats show this actually pays off in far superior results, but if that carrot hasn’t provided enough incentive, this will certainly continue the “stick” threat toward much deeper and more complete implementation of effective practices.

HR Lacking in Accountability?

A national newspaper’s management tips column picked up a dubious McKinsey finding on HR accountability I noticed a few weeks ago, but ignored. McKinsey has reasons for publishing such findings – they sell HR consulting. It doesn’t hurt them to remind clients they need to pay attention to their HR accountabilities. But when a widely-read paper flogs the same information without comment, I’m moved to comment on the lack.

Let’s not appear to bash HR without evaluating the comments in light of other facts. In this case the study noted 64% of line managers felt HR was not held accountable for Talent Management initiatives while only 36% of HR managers agreed.

How should we compare this? I suggest two ways. First, against other departments: Marketing Today on-line reports a study by the CMO Council that “less than 20% of top technology marketers surveyed had developed ‘meaningful, comprehensive measures and metrics for their marketing organizations’” …and “The last major study on marketing ROI found that 68% of marketers were unable to determine the ROI of their initiatives.” Sounds at least as damning to me… and far worse than the oft-quoted John Wanamaker comment that ‘we know we waste half of what we spend on advertising; we just don’t know which half.’

Second I’d say we should compare those opinions of HR with what appear to be facts highlighted by other recent studies such as this from Workforce Management: “One-third of U.S. companies do not have workforce contingency plans in place, according to a recent survey by Watson Wyatt Worldwide [despite growing concerns]. Of those companies that say they have contingency plans in place, more than half say those plans center around layoffs, while an additional 46 percent say their plan is “to restructure their organizations.” I doubt that HR came up with most of those plans without direction by the way. Planning layoffs isn’t typically HR’s first choice.

If you think beneath these last two reports you’ll quickly see the blame falls not solely with the functions by any means, but with the organizations as a whole – companies need to develop ways to measure their Marketing and HR departments and results. The idea that it is somehow purely HR’s fault they aren’t held accountable or that this gives them an unusual ‘out’ is implied, but not backed up. I dare say more line mangers than Marketing managers see the lack of Marketing’s accountability in many companies. So what? HR is likely quite willing to take accountability if anyone can agree on measures.

I have no quarrel with continued insistence that measuring results is essential. What’s annoying is the implication that it must be somehow resolved solely by HR when in fact this is an incredibly important facet of overall management of all operations – one that depends on teamwork, not finger pointing, the former being unfortunately sorely lacking in many organizations.

Yes… and no. Many HR professionals believe protecting employees is one of their duties. That is true in a large sense, but it is rarely easy to protect individuals in specific situations, at least, not without their help and cooperation, which frequently is lacking.

It will be interesting to see what action Norway’s SAS airlines takes now that  public bullying of older pilots by young ones who want them to retire (to reduce possible layoffs) has received world wide attention (example - Canadian HR Reporter).   Workplace Violence News quotes a study by the global-oriented Employment Law Alliance which found almost half of all employees at one time or another have been bullied by a boss. 50% of those bosses and 84% of the victims are women, suggesting bullying is equally distributed, but victimhood belongs to those at least  perceived to be in the weaker position.

Fortunately today there are lots of resources for bullied individuals who care to search. I like the Robert Mueller’s BullyingBosses.com for one, but there are lots and it helps to read several before deciding what to do.

The key, inevitably, begins with the victim sad to say. SAS is a relatively typical example - a company alerted months ago, yet  to date unwilling or unable to manage effective solutions. In the past they’ve stood out as a good employer with some great HR strategies. But bullying is particularly challenging to address.

Of course it should have started long ago with a Harassment Prevention policy clearly posted and consistently managed. That would make it easy to fire the s.o.b. who posted suggestions for harassing older pilots by freezing them out of social activities. It would also set them on the path of finding and having the police charge those who reportedly are talking about breaking legs and worse. There is no excuse and should be zero tolerance for such outrages – a case where zero tolerance makes total sense.

Most bullying is not so overt, however, or at least it is not so visible to management. Most bullies would likely be happy to bully everyone, but don’t because some people are immune for various reasons and so they settle on those who aren’t and who react. Most tire of persecuting those who shrug and ignore them. Their miserable behaviors are focused in limited areas on specific individuals. If companies have trouble helping victims, that’s even more true of surrounding co-workers who tend to offer advice quietly, but probably correctly want to stay out of the direct line of fire.

If it is so easy to say “just ignore them” why do so many victims suffer repeated torture to the point of quitting or worse? There are as many answers as individuals involved, but first and foremost, people get rattled and don’t recognize the many actions they could take. Bullies, on the other hand, will inevitably apply their nasty side to someone, so the lowest tolerance individual, even if they’re reasonably good at ignoring the bully, will continually be subjected to unacceptable behavior. Ignoring only takes you so far.

The fact is this sort of behavior goes on constantly. HR can’t stamp it out totally any more than they can stamp out office romance. It’s human nature and will creep back in no matter how “zero tolerance” we say the policy is. We need to be careful about what we characterize as zero tolerance because there will always be ways around it, situations that fall through the cracks and individuals we can’t touch who will make a mockery of the concept.

The biggest challenge is we don’t prepare people effectively. Strong employees realize there are things they can do. Weaker ones will be basket cases before they’re discovered or complain loudly enough to be heard. By then it is usually too late to protect them. They have reached the point of quitting and do so either directly or indirectly by falling into long term illnesses, constructive dismissal or human rights retaliation.

What we need is a general sort of protective training that makes everyone, including bullies, aware there are always solutions to disrespect and bullying in all their subtle variations. But those solutions begin with people reaching out and seeking solutions and participating in working with the boss/bully to solve the behavior as opposed to waiting for it to break them down and then lashing out in whatever form they fall into. We need these systems in place long before instances of bullying start coming to our attention or we can’t “protect” individuals. The first defense will always be to help them be strong enough to work through solutions. That is unlikely to take root if they arrive already at wits end.

A steady stream of items reflecting progress in human resources arrives every week now. Momentum is picking up. Each step takes us further on the way to full recognition that HR is, in Jack Welch’s words, “the second most important job in any organization.”

Widely reported in the past week, major retail jewelry operator, Zale Corporation, promoted it’s EVP of HR, Legal and Corporate Strategy, Theo Killion, to President. Now you might expect as in years past this would be a legal expert serving as in-house counsel who makes deals and plans strategy from a legal-financial perspective and, oh yes, happens to have HR tucked under his wing. In this case Mr. Killion is a 30-year HR veteran who worked his way up to over-see the other jobs. HR is first in his background. Moreover he is tasked in part with continuing to promote diversity, which he personally exemplifies - a forward-looking strategy for results as well as doing the right thing.

Then the mail bag brought the latest “People & Strategy” - the journal of the Human Resource Planning Society - filled with a series of articles about CEO succession (and pay).

No great news on managing pay better I fear. Boards continue to struggle with the best ways to pay CEOs. Although the theory is firming up they should be paid for on-going performance once they’ve been attracted with a competitive base salary, the problem is how to measure the connection with performance. One article proposed a system that was then nearly universally dumped on by a half dozen experts.

So, what’s good on the horizon for the future?

As an aside, I hear from sources in various industries that top HR salaries are getting into the ozone, too, giving CFOs some concern they might be eclipsed pay-wise. The same group noted they are seeing more MBA students who have chosen the HR track in the belief this is where the action will be. They are right. Hopefully they are getting that advice from their MBA schools, too. The goal really isn’t to get paid well just for the money, but to see HR and what it does for organizations recognized and given the clout at least on a par with other senior roles.

The four main articles on succession were right on, backed up well, agreed on the same key points and made sense. What really stood out were two listing competencies for CEOs of the future - among them both explicitly emphasized a heavy dose of humility along with confidence - in balance. It was refreshing to see it clearly spelled out as a specific requirement!

CEOs need courage to take risks in rapidly changing environments and at the same time the ability to listen, absorb advice and ideas from others in the Board and the organization and meld all of that into best guesses. All this requires the humility to understand no one person has the ultimate right answer to any situation any more and Boards seem finally to be getting that. Complexity is the driving factor and makes the ability to assimilate diversity of opinion, knowledge and experience increasingly crucial.

And why is humility in a CEO such a gain for the HR perspective? For a dozen reasons including primarily that people work best when they are included, listened to and worked with cooperatively. HR struggles to promote this in vain in many organizations where the whims of individual leaders take precedence over team work and cooperation, where the majority of senior executives quite often follow the (bad) example of the CEO. With the right choice of CEO, having senior execs copy the new behavior would be a huge advance.

Again today I found myself giving a would-be human resources (HR) manager the same advice I give all job hunters - the new boss is the most important factor in any job you’re considering. A great boss can encourage you, give you projects, mentor, coach, guide and introduce you to a world of further possibilities. In other words, they can make your job exciting, worthwhile and a continual learning experience… or they can pigeon-hole you from day 1 and demand nothing, but routine, even menial results.

You can spot the good ones because they are alive, people with plans themselves for things that need to be or could be done that aren’t yet. They will talk about possibilities not only for you, but for themselves, their teams and the organization. You can feel them inviting you into the process. Others in the company will speak highly of them as coaches and cooperative supporters. Just ask around.

By contrast I very often get to hear (from people looking for new jobs) about current bosses who can’t imagine their report ever progressing. No one in their opinion is ever ready. They’ll consider hiring outside in almost every situation before looking at anyone internally… or they’ll constantly pick people they believe will simply follow orders. “Loyalty” plays big with the latter type. Cross them (ie: have a new idea they didn’t tell you to pursue) and you’re on the hit list forever. Bosses who aren’t interested in growing people abound. Which makes it easy to be a great boss.

The Human Capital Institute (whose Talent panel I sit on - full disclosure) has added several very interesting blogs including in my prime area of interest - leadership. The first real post raises the question of followership - what is it, how should it work, etc.?

This is typical of the growing interest in all thing Human Resources. These are perennial questions and will continue to be asked until we develop enough people who simply understand how leadership really works in their bones. Once the principles become a core part of everything we do in management, like the financial concept that income must exceed outgo, they will puzzle each new generation.

The blog refers us to a Harvard Working Knowledge item by Professor Emeritus, Jim Heskett, that is an relevant summary of what’s newly written about Followership, but it is the comments to that make it fascinating. I especially like the fourth one by Narasimhan Gopalan, VP, i-flex solutions, who observes that leadership and followership require the same qualities (and I would add skills).

Personally I prefer to use the term “supporters” rather than “followers.” The days of blind following are grinding slowly, but surely to an end. People think for themselves and are finding ways to act on those thoughts more than in the past. “Supporters” implies a leaders needs to nurture support, that it can be withdrawn at any sign of inconsistency or personal agenda and that the entire process is very much a two-way street. Leaders need supporters and supporters need leaders.

I especially like Narasimhan’s final comment which I thnk raises the most important question that hasn’t yet been well addressed. He says, ”Also, it is interesting to observe in the corporate world, the behavioural expectations set by the boss to his followers are [often] completely at a variance of the boss’ behaviour with his boss and peers. For example, boss expects his directs to engage in collective problem solving and dispute resolution through consensus, share the resources through mutual help, etc. while he/she does not exhibit such behaviour or exhibits exactly opposite behaviour. This is a case of selfishness and hypocrisy and hence it is important for the organizations to assess not only the results achieved by teams per se but also look at how they are achieved at somebody else’s cost! Here, the tools like 360 degree feedback could come in handy.

This very much echoes the comments in my earlier post about Claudia Joyce’s work that I’ve written about elsewhere (and will post when I find time). She endorses the same rules for leaders and the use of 360s to ensure they are promoting collaborative practices. Until more companies do that the problem Narahimhan reminds us of will be only too common.

Workforce Management collects the most intriguing human resource challenges imaginable. A California software company announces it will hire only Vegetarians (the owner is one, so we must assume he imagines there is some moral issue involved unless he means higher cholesterol will cause greater health cost as we’re seeing with tobacco). On one hand one can applaud someone with the gumption to put their money at risk to promote what they believe in. He will certainly forego many great employees and others will lie, which will inevitably damage cohesiveness and teamwork. On the other hand do we find it OK to impose one’s will because one can?

Of course this goes on nearly everywhere in one form or another. It’s just that hiring managers mostly don’t mention their pet beliefs in their job ads. When I talk to groups of executives in job search I use my own case of being screened out of some jobs because I never played football or hockey well. I was terrible at basketball. I can’t run due to asthma. Scrawny as a kid, I went on to squash and swimming and grew to appreciate the team sports I missed sometimes taught great leadership lessons… though they also sometimes taught a sort of elitism that excludes a wide range of people as in the vegetarian example. No specific experience or lack by itself dictates later job results. It’s what people do job-wise that counts.

Today, for the moment, employers generally can’t be quite so prejudicial though many still subconsciously apply their beliefs for far less moral reasons. They really should look instead at the work an applicant can deliver and their motivation to do the work. Unless it’s for a job playing football or working for a company that makes it’s living selling vegetarian, then why are these relevant? In the grand scheme it doesn’t matter. Unless the number of vegan owners far exceeds their percentage in the workforce there will always be jobs for meat eaters.

Still, raising this low impact question highlights a raft of related issues managers should ponder when making decisions.

Sure you can outsource human resources… some would argue completely. But why? Line managers, no matter how well we train, will never have time to gain experience with the vast range of complex situations needed to get an overall handle on things that may, and inevitably do, pop up unexpectedly.

Some will face human rights, some unions, some leave and temporary replacement and many, many more highly specific issues. We want line managers concentrating on business and day-to-day management of people, with some sensitivity to complicated HR items, but not to try to be expert in all of them. We don’t even want them tied up for long worrying about where to find the right sort of expert for the challenge they’re suddenly facing. For them to be able to turn to someone with more overall knowledge about what’s possible and who knows the internal culture seems totally logical.

The more we can automate and outsource details and "transactional" stuff (HR systems, payroll, benefits, even parts of recruiting and substantial parts of training) the better, but to suggest we outsource all of HR is just plain dopey in virtually every case.

In fact, a big beef with in-house HR professionals is that even they don’t have complete experience and expertise with the vast range of challenges that can arise. But at least they know where to look fo what’s available, what pitfalls to avoid until expertise is engaged and, if they’re any good, how that expertise needs to adapt to fit the in-house culture.

Hardly a week goes by without another "expert" threatening the possibility that Human Resources in organizations will become totally irrelevant and be totally outsourced. Stop already! The latest article is by a former Toronto senior human resource executive (who shall remain nameless) who helped outsource a major chunk of his company’s HR operations and is now himself providing outsourced services to others. Frequently it is outsourcers who write this stuff.

Here’s a question - how do these outsourcing companies (some of which are now huge) do their own HR for their own people? Do they outsource it? If their in-house people can do it effectively (is it by calling on subject experts in-house on each piece of HR?) what makes other companies’ in-house HR people so unable to achieve the same skill?

No one would argue that every in-house HR person is fully knowledgeable or even knowledgeable enough on all that is available today. But that’s the nature of virtually every profession - constant learning. My beef is with HR people who think they know it all, not with the concept that HR contributes value when done well and when decisions about what resources are needed, internal or external, are made with good, logical judgment. Today, many of the know-it-all HR types are not those inside organizations.

Handling people effectively is at least as core a business function as handling money effectively. Regardless of what portion is farmed out, doesn’t it make sense to have an expert or two in-house to coordinate issues that arise every single day in virtually every organization? Is that best done by line managers who already have busy workloads and over-worked brains?