I’ve been a SHRM member since 2001. Over that entire time, I have never been excited about the leadership of my professional organization in HR. It’s not that SHRM didn’t have good, solid leaders, but they were never people who inspired me in my profession.
At the SHRM National Conference this year in Chicago, Johnny Taylor, SHRM’s new CEO, will take the stage and many in attendance will get to meet the man for the very first time. I think you’re going to be impressed!
Now, this isn’t my first experience with Johnny. I first ran into Johnny about 8 or 10 years ago when he was an HR leader and doing the speaking circuit. I had never met him. He gets on stage and kills! I had to go on after, which is never a good feeling. In my mind, I was like, “this dude is going to be famous!” I’m not sure CEO of SHRM is famous, but he’s done alright for himself!
The podcast link below is from Joey Price’s Business, Life, & Coffee pod where he got Johnny to sit down with him and really open up about the HR profession like no other SHRM leader I’ve ever listened to. In terms of what Johnny (remember, the CEO of SHRM) thinks would be his ‘ideal’ HR professional, he had four attributes:
- P&L knowledge and responsibility, with Business Operations background.
- Experience managing people, with a high degree of empathy.
- Keen understanding of the legal landscape
- Strong sense of culture
Do you see anything on that list of an ideal HR pro that speaks to ‘functional’ expertise?
Johnny is the CEO the SHRM membership needs at this point in the history of our profession. Business savvy, great communicator, an HR leader who you easily see running your company. Not running HR, running your company.
Kudos to Joey Price for getting a great interview! Kudos to Johnny for opening up and letting the SHRM membership see who he’s all about. I’ll be cheering him on as a SHRM member and hope he’s wildly successful.
No pressure, Johnny! I’m sure you’ll kill at national!
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Tim, maybe if I had a well read blog and spoke at the SHRM conferences I would feel like you do. Unfortunately, my experience and the experiences of many others re SHRM are consistent. The service level is not atrocious, but has been certainly underwhelming. But I have great confidence in the future.
Sackett: I agree that Johnny has great promise and should do great things for SHRM. However you premise that the previous CEOs were solid leaders could not be more laughable. SHRM has been an organization of hacks, who needed a job that required little think or energy. In fact (sorry SHRM) most of the SHRM organization is loaded with freeloaders whose wattage is dimmed. I hope Johnny can clean house make SHRM the organization it can and should be.
Parker,
I disagree with you about most of the current staff at SHRM. The people I’ve worked with are talented and dedicated to helping move the profession forward. I believe under Johnny’s leadership they’ll do great things.
Tim