Category Archives: Communication

Management is Judged by its Second Act

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I have a new HR Crush and his name is Ben Brooks – check him out, the dude is a crazy smart HR dude from NYC (VP of Human Capital Performance at Marsh).  I saw him present at HR Tech about his company and the cool stuff they’ve done, are doing, etc., and he used this quote (he might not be the original, but after an extensive Google search I couldn’t find anyone better to attribute it to – Ben says his CEO at Marsh said something similar and he adapted it):

“Management is judged by its second act.”

Simple enough, but very powerful.  Think about that for a moment.  It would seem most leadership/management that I run into seem to want me to judge them based on their first act, right?  It makes sense, any time a new leadership person/team comes into an organization there is always some low hanging fruit that needs to be taken care of.  We always talk about how hard it is coming in as a new leader, but there are also some easy pieces to being a new leader.

New leaders have a small window of time where they get to point out all the obvious crap that’s wrong, like they’re some super genius consultant, and everyone thinks they’re brilliant.  They then go around fixing that stuff (the low hanging fruit) and then they live off of that for as long as possible.  Leadership lore is filled with “turn-around” specialist.  Leaders who come in, turn around a company, then take off to do it again, and again, for other companies.  They sell themselves as specialist, when in reality – they are just coming in and doing what everyone knows what needs to be done, they just don’t have the guts/influence/backing to do it.

The hard part of leadership is to perform your “second act”.  What do you do once all the easy stuff, the obviously broken stuff, is taken care of?  Yeah, that is hard!

Want to help out your C-suite?  Go to them with this concept and start helping them design their second act.  You might first have to help them define their first act! Let’s face it, leadership is a bit like politics, the more you market what you’ve already done, it helps buy you time to go and do some more stuff – but you still have to let people know what you’ve done!   Once you get act two drafted, you begin the marketing process for that as well.  It goes a little like: “Hey, we’ve done all this great work in Act 1, so now we are getting ready for our next stage and Act 2” – but with specifics, don’t really say Act 1 and Act 2 or you’ll sound like an idiot!

Act 2 won’t be easy – remember you’ve taken care of the easy crap.  Act 2 is going to be defining and it’s really where you get to understand, as a leader, am I any good at this leadership thing. At building a vision. At delivering something that moves an organization forward.  Most leaders never get to Act 2 because Act 1 is so gratifying they can’t pull themselves out of the theater, they just keep running the same show over and over, and many companies keep buying seats.

Have you begun your Second Act?

9 Wishes for New HR & Talent Professionals

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My favorite part of the fall conference season is the fact that I get to meet a ton of HR and Talent Pros and connect.  Of those, the ones I have the most fun talking to is the newbies!   They are still in that point in their career where HR is fun and exciting and they get jazzed up talking about the stuff we (older, I mean experienced HR Pros) no longer find as fascinating.   I usually find myself answering questions – you know the type – “how would you handle…?” or “what would you do…?”, etc.  Which gives me an opportunity to tell them here’s how I screwed it up when I first started, and here’s how I handle it now – which are usually very different.  So, as I reflect on this season I’ve come away with a few wishes for my fellow HR and Recruiting Pros who are just joining us on this journey.

I wish new…

 …HR pros would unlock the doors to their departments – wait – change that – actually take off the doors all together.

 …Corporate recruiters would make more outgoing calls then they get incoming calls.

 …HR pros would spend more than 50% of their time out of their office/cube walking around talking to employees and hiring managers.

 …Recruiters would never feel like it’s their responsibility to staff their companies – it’s not – it’s your leaders of your departments – you’re just the tool they use to accomplish it – but they’ve got to own it – ultimately they make the final decision, not you, which means it’s there responsibility.

 …HR pros never learn “soft” HR math.

 …Recruiters learn how to recruit before they learn how to build recruitment processes.

 …HR pros spend their first month (or more) in position actually working in operations, marketing and finance – it will make you a better HR pro!

 …Recruiters would build relationships with their main competition’s recruiters – this will make you better as well – and you won’t be giving away the corporate secrets!

 …HR pros would build more influence in their organizations than more process – one is easier to do – which is why you don’t do the other.

I guess I wish all of this stuff, because it’s stuff that I had to learn over time – and if I could have one wish for our newbie HR and Talent peers it would be they could have all of this knowledge up front as they come in the door.  Because I can’t have that wish – I’ll throw out a challenge to my HR brothers and sisters – take a new HR pro under your wing – it doesn’t have to be in your organization – just find one and do it.  Here’s what you’ll find – they will help you more than you’ll probably help them – helping a newbie will energize yourself, help you slow down on your own decision making and reflect on what you’re doing and its importance – and because of your experience it will allow you to go out and make some adjustments to your own shop that will have great impact to your business!

A Conversation: with your Least Engaged Employee

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You: “Hey, Lee (Least Engaged Employee) – how are you doing?”

Lee: “You know, working hard, hanging in there, one day at a time” (winky face)

You: “We need to talk.” (this is what all HR Pros say, it’s #1 in the “What to say when you’re in HR” handbook)

Lee: “About what?” Now, somewhat nervous because HR never talks about positive stuff.

You: “You know, it just doesn’t seem like you’re real excited about your job, or the company, I’m not sure.” Classic HR beating around the bush – also in the handbook

Lee: “No, really (deadpanned) I love it here.” Voice trailing off as he looks for a way out of this nightmare

You: “Well, that’s a relief because we love having you here.” Being able to effectively lie to yourself and employees – Handbook page 27.

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It’s funny because it’s to close to the truth for too many HR Pros and Hiring Managers.  We want engagement, but we have no idea how to talk to a person who isn’t engaged.  Let’s try one more script between you and Lee.

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You: “Lee, I need to talk to you about something that I’m very concerned about.” Set the tone immediately – it is serious – Lee’s position hangs in the balance.

Lee: “Sure. What is it?” No one ever turns down talking with HR – what choice do they really have…

You: “I’ve noticed that your lack of engagement with your job, with the organization is starting down a path that isn’t going to end well.”

Lee: “What do you mean!? I love my job, and the company.” This is what low engagement employees say, because they aren’t showing it.

You: “No you don’t.  If you did, I and your manager would be seeing this out of you: example, example, example.”

You: “So, we have 3 choices: 1. Continued lying to each other until we fire you; 2. Continue lying to each other until you leave on your own; or 3. We fix it.”

Lee: “I’m not lying – let’s fix it.” Lee just told you 2 lies in that small statement – Lee is lying and Lee probably won’t fix it without major help

You: “So, tell me why are you no longer engaged?”  Then shut up, wait, wait an uncomfortably long amount of time for Lee to speak.

Lee: “Lame reason I think you want to hear to get you off my back, and back to my desk so I can update my resume on Monster.”

You: “No, really, why?” More uncomfortable silence

Lee: “Something closer to the truth you both already knew.”

You: “Now, let’s come up with how we can turn this ship around.”

You and Lee: “Plans, promises, measures, next meetings followup dates, morning hugs, etc.”

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We tend to treat our least engaged employees like a virus.  Stay away, wash our hands of it and hope it goes away.  Rarely do we ever really go out and “engage” our least engaged employees.  Seems like too much work, too much time, too much of headache.  It is.  It is also the only way to move in the direction you want to go, the fastest.  That direction might be to turn the employee around, or it might be to kick them off your buss – either way – the conversation must be had appropriately to move in that direction.

Have you talked to Lee lately?

The Law of Diminishing Title Return

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“I don’t care what you call me – my title is meaningless!”

Have you heard this?  If you’re in HR long enough – you’ll hear this a number of times over your career.  You know who says this?  People making a lot of money, people who’ve been out of work and are just happy to have a job, or people who’ve been around so long they actually really don’t care anymore!

Titles are important to people – although that is not the politically correct thing to say – so hardly ever hear the truth when it comes to titles.  Don’t think titles are important in your organization – try changing some – try going, let’s say, backwards in title!  You’ll see how important it is.  The issue I see in many organizations is the concept of Title Creep.  When for whatever reason, usually the business not doing well so you don’t have money to give out, the organization starts giving out titles over raises (“Hey, Janie, doesn’t look like we have any budget money to give you your 3% raise this year, but gosh golly you sure our important to us, so we want to “promote” you to Manager!).  And you know what? That crap works for a little while! Because people love titles!

Just look at banks – they’re really funny about titles!  Everyone at a bank – and I mean everyone – is either a Vice President or a President!  Banks really have screwed up the title thing worse than any other industry.  You will see banks now that the person’s title will be Vice President – Manager of Recruiting, or Sr. Vice President – Director of Human Resources – and I wonder to myself – “So, what is it – VP or Director!? What are you?”  This is where titles go very wrong and stop having value to the individual.

The main problem with title creep is when it’s used and people feel because they have, or have had, a certain title that means they should get that title in another organization.  I interviewed a sharp person a while back who had graduated from college in HR and over the course of about 6 years went from HR Generalist, to HR Manager, to HR Director, to VP of HR in the same organization. Impressive, right?  But wait, there’s more to the story!  She lost her position do to an organizational change (that’s what we call getting fired today so the GenY’s and millennials still feel it’s not their fault) and was struggling finding another “executive” role in HR.  I asked her a couple of questions:

1. From your beginning as an HR Generalist to your final role as VP of HR, how many direct reports did you pick up?

              A: 1

2. From your HR Gen role to VP role – what responsibilities did you pick up?

             A: Well…I still do everything, but I also am now more strategic.

Oh, boy.  So, I got to share with her some advice. Stop looking for an “executive” role, find a solid HR Gen or HR Manager role – you my friend are no VP of HR!   Title Creep really hurt her.

In HR we have a major role in this concept of Diminishing Returns in regards to Titles, and that role should be to stop handing out titles like it’s candy from the bowl on the receptionist’s desk at the front door.  We should protect titles and not allow them to diluted, because most people do like them, and they can be a valuable tool in your compensation tool box, but only if you don’t use them very often.

BTW – best title ever is from K Swiss Kenny Powers commercials!

HR’s Largest Affliction

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You know what I really like about Sales departments in most organizations?  They try, or do, almost anything, once, to try and increase sales for your organization.  They are willing to take chances, to tinker, to experiment and the organization is fine with it – hell, most organizations expect sales to do stupid stuff every now and again.  Marketing is the same way – if there is a dumb idea out there – someone in Marketing is bound to come up with it – and give it try.  Why not?!  It might actually work.  Operations? Same thing.  When I was at Applebee’s, about once a year some operations person would say “Hey, we should do Breakfast!” You mean America’s beer and burger place, doing eggs and bacon? Sure, why not.  Then after one week of trying a “Sunday Brunch” they’d go – “That’s dumb – let’s not do that”.   But they tried it.

HR, not so much.

Somehow HR became our organizations’ Mom.  I’m not sure how your Mom is but most Mom’s do whatever they can to put their kids out of risk.  I called this “Bubble Boy” when my boys were little and my wife would do everything possible to keep them out of harms way.  I’m sure, if would have been possible, she would have found a way to put a bubble around our boys to keep them safe.  Not a bad – necessarily – right?  Ultimately, we want to keep our kids safe – out of harms way.  That is the role of Mom.

HR is not Mom.

That really is our (HR’s) major affliction.  We are trying to be “Mom”, when no one in our organization, including the C-suite, is asking us to be “Mom”.  Most HR shops run like they are trying to eliminate 100% of the organizations risk.  The problem is – it’s not HR’s role to eliminate risk from the organization.  HR can advise of risk – “Hey, you might not want to do that, could get us into some hot water, but if you do, here’s how I can help” – but it shouldn’t be spending large amounts of time figuring out how to eliminate risk.  That’s why you have legal council – every company I know – even ones with 25 employees – have legal council.  Maybe not onsite – but they can make a call.

Think about it for a minute.  No other part of your organization spends time trying to eliminate risk.  They spend time trying to figure out what risks they should be taking to move the organization forward.  Some of those risks won’t work. Some of those risks will work so well it will transform the organization.  We need them to take risks.  Taking risks, calculated, is what drives innovation, drives increased revenues and drives long term health of our organizations.  Risk avoidance is an ill HR can cure.

HR needs to take risks.  Our organizations require this.

Better Boss or More Money – What do You choose?

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There was a survey done recently by Michelle McQuaid and the results were picked up by a number of news outlets and delivered as big news.  The basis of the study was, if given a choice, would your employee choose a better boss or a pay raise – and guess what they found!?

65% of employees say they would rather have a Better Boss than more Money!

So, my question to you – do you think this is true?  If you went to your employees right now, today, and told them – look we know, based on this survey you guys want a better boss, so we going to fire the idiot we have managing you right now and let you pick your next boss!  And, because we are doing this – you don’t get a raise next year – but don’t worry – you’ll be more engaged and happier because this next gal you pick to tell you what to do is really going to that much better! What do you say – are you in?!

Before you go cutting your increase budget for 2013, and funneling all of that money into leadership development – let’s look at a couple of things:

1. The person who did the survey -Michelle McQuaid – has a consulting business and guess what she’s selling? Engagement!

2. The survey sample was a total of 1000 folks from various demographics – and I’m sure was academically and statistically tested to be completely valid and reliable…

Unfortunately, the media outlets that pick this crap up never give the full story – that’s not their job – their job is to get you to click – and most people believe what they read.  Put into context, this survey is almost laughable – One person, trying to sell her ideas, throws a survey together that just by happenstance validates what she’s saying.  The Business Insider even tied Gallup into the article  making it look even more valid – which causes great confusion!

Here’s my real life study of this same subject – do this for me and let me know how it turns out:

1. Take $2500 cash – stacks of $20 bills – and set them in front of an employee.  Let the employee touch the money – pick it up.

2. Then, ask this one question – “You can have a new boss – a better boss – or you – right now – can have this money. Which one would you like?”

3. Do this to 100 employees – or 1000 (like it matters) – and tell me your results.

Here is my guarantee to you – and if it doesn’t work out this way – I’ll pay for your study.  You will not have 65% of your employees chose a new boss!!!!  I guarantee it.  Look I get what Michelle is trying to do – we’ve all drank the engagement Koolaid – so now we’re supposed to believe that money no longer matters to people. Well it does – it matters a whole lot – don’t try and kid yourself.  Telling yourself that your employees will pick a better boss over a raise is fools gold – and makes you look like an idiot to your executives – because they know reality.  People want a better boss – people need and want more money – more.

5 Steps To Becoming the Most Liked HR Pro Ever!

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The old adage “I’d rather be respected, than liked” was made up by people who didn’t have any friends!  And it’s been perpetuated for centuries by HR Pros who didn’t think it was professional to have friends in their organizations.  “I’m not their friend, Tim – I’m in HR – there is a reason we lock the doors to our department.”

I look it this a bit differently – make friends first.  That is all.  No, “then” or “after that” – just make friends.  Do you know why HR Pros don’t make friends with employees? Yes – you do – because “We don’t want to fire our friends!” or “We need to remain impartial” or “I’m stupid” (I made that last one up – which if your stupid you probably didn’t know).   The reality is, we do things attempting to stop stuff that probably will never happen.  When is the last time you truly had to fire a friend?  “Never – because I don’t have friends that work for me!” No, really, when? Most of us would say, “Never”.

The problem with not allowing yourself to be friends with non-HR employees is that you lose a major source of influence within your organization.  Also, it sucks eating at your desk everyday.  And you decrease your eventual dating pool. But, really it’s the influence!  So, here are 5 steps you can do to be more liked and make more friends at work:

1.  Stop being a know it all.  HR people act like they created Congress – everything is legal this or legal that – stop it – be normal. 99% of stuff HR thinks might happen, doesn’t happen – trying to mitigate 100% of risk in your organization makes people hate you – and it doesn’t help you do your job better.

2. Make a fool out of yourself once in a while.  You’re not that important that you have to act like Mr. Manners all the time. Having employees laugh at you, because you did something silly, foolish and/or crazy – will help them believe you might be normal.

3. Hang out with the smokers! Let’s face it smokers are cool and know everything that goes on in your organization – you want them as friends.  I don’t smoke because it’s gross, smells and will kill you – but I love hanging with smokers – especially if they have one of those voice boxes they talk about of!

4. Go out to Lunch.  Preferably not with the smokers because that isn’t appetizing at all.

5. Kiss another employee on the mouth at the office Christmas party! Kidding, just making sure you were paying attention.  Don’t do this – unless you’re really drunk and want to leave a legacy. Here’s the real #5 – Spend 50% of your time away from your desk – visiting employees and hiring managers – even the ones you don’t like.  This will change your professional life forever.

Being liked in HR is important it allows you to do your job in a much more efficient manner than when people don’t want you around.  It’s not about respect – you can have both – and given the choice of having respect and being hated, or having respect and being liked – well, let’s just say I hang out with smokers.

 

 

 

LinkedIn’s Talent Brand Index Could be Trouble!

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Ok, let’s be as transparent as possible:

1. I’m pissed at LinkedIn like a scorned girlfriend because they won’t let me buy their corporate version LinkedIn Recruiter (not that I need it – I know you can do x-ray searches or use a great product like Scavado for a fraction of the price and get the same info. – but it’s the racialist mentality of it all – “No, you can’t have it because your a bad staffing company and we only give it to good corporate recruiters) – see – scorned girlfriend.

2.  I use LinkedIn every day. Mostly to recruit employees from one company to another company, and someone pays me to do this.

3. I like using LinkedIn – solid U/I and a great recruiting tool, inexpensive.  (we call that a triple threat)

OK – On with the show!

Last week LinkedIn announced a new product at their annual Talent Connect conference, called Talent Brand Index or BrandConnect – or something like that – as you can see I wasn’t invited (which I’m actually not pissed about – I mean I’d like to go – but it’s not like the scorned girlfriend thing). Basically this is a tool/measure of how much your brand is engaged on the LinkedIn site – but it has a number of components baked into the algorithm that make this less than black and white.  I have 3 opinions of this announcement that range in 3 very different psychosis:

Pessimistic View (LinkedIn Haters)

Holy crap – this is just another way for LinkedIn to hold companies hostage over their brand!  Basically, the Talent Brand Index, if I want a higher score, forces me to encourage my employees to get on LinkedIn – the more employees I have on, the higher score I get.  Also, the more products I buy from LinkedIn, the higher my score.  I don’t want my employees to be on LinkedIn because my competition will be pimping them non-stop and I’m bound to lose some.  Plus, they keep using the words “Brand Engagement” that invariably will get confused by people as my “employee engagement” when it really has no correlation.

Optimistic View (LinkedIn Lovers)

This tool is great at showing me where I can increase my “engagement” of my brand within the product.  We trust our employees and want them to network professionally and share our brand with as many people as possible – it’s good for them, it’s good for us.  We believe we have a great place to work and increasing our brand engagement on LinkedIn will only help our recruiting efforts.  Plus, this new tool really, for the first time, gives us great insight to how people outside of our company feel and interact with our employment brand.  It’s great data!

Pragmatic View (The Middle)

If you have a “great” work environment and strong employment brand (let’s say 10% of companies) this is wonderful.  You have low turnover, high employee engagement – this will only help you recruit more folks – and more employees you have on won’t hurt you because they aren’t leaving you.  The other 90% of companies could see some impact from this – if they go out and encourage their employees to actively get on LinkedIn, in hopes of raising your Brand Index score. You have pockets that aren’t pretty and you’ll have folks that get picked off by your competition.  This will then cause you more work.  It’s not to say those people wouldn’t leave on their own – some will, regardless, but I don’t want to throw them a job fair in the lobby of our building. Reality check – most HR shops/companies don’t have the people, the money or the desire to really move the needle on increasing their “LinkedIn Brand Index” score – so this will be a non-issue for most.

Final thought –

I would like those companies who really think this is a great deal to do just 1 thing for me. Will you do that?  Today, go to your CIO and tell them you are going to have the entire Software Development team put their profiles up on LinkedIn – because you want to raise your Brand Index score.  Then let me know the results – if you still have a job, or are conscious.

 

Falling in Love with Your Job

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Do you know what it felt like the last time you fell in love?

I mean real love?

The kind of love where you talk 42 times per day, in between text and facebook messages and feel physical pain from being apart? Ok, maybe for some of you it’s been a while – you didn’t have the texts or Facebook!  But you remember those times when you really didn’t think about anything else, or even imagine not seeing the other person the next day, hell, the next hour. Falling “in” love is one of the best parts of love – it doesn’t last that long and you never get it back.

I hear people all the time say “I love my job” and I never use to pay much attention – in fact – I’ve said it myself.  The reality is – I don’t love my job – I mean I like it a whole lot – but I love my wife, I love my kids, I love Diet Mt. Dew at 7am on a Monday morning – the important things in life.  But my job?  I’m not sure about that one.  As an HR Pro I’m suppose to work to get my employees to “love” their jobs.  Love.

Let me go all Dr. Phil on you for a second – Do you know why most relationships fail? No, it’s not the cheating. No, it’s not the drugs and/or alcohol. No, it’s not money. No, it’s not that he stop caring. No, it’s not your parents. Ok, stop it – I’ll just tell you!  Relationships fail because expectations aren’t met.  Which seems logical knowing what we know about how people fall in love, and lose their minds.  Once that calms down – the real work begins.  So, if you expect love to be the love of the first 4-6 months of a relationship – you’re going to be disappointed a whole bunch – over and over.

Jobs aren’t much different.  You get a new job and it’s usually really good!  People listen to your opinion. You seem smarter – hell – you seem better looking (primarily because people are sick of looking at their older co-workers). Everything seems better in a new job.  Then you have your 1 year anniversary and you come to find out you’re just like the other idiots you’re working with.   This is when falling in love with your job really begins – when you know about all the stuff the company hid in the closet – the past employees they think are better and smarter than you, the good old days when they made more money, etc.  Now is when you have to put some work into making it work.

I see people all the time moving around to different employers and never seeming to be satisfied.  They’re searching – not for a better job, or a better company – they’re searching for that feeling that will last.  But it never will – without them working for it.

 

You Want a Jerry Jones Type Owner

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I’m not a fan of the Dallas Cowboys but I have to say from an HR perspective many of us our missing the boat on Jerry Jones.  Here’s the deal – you’ve got a guy who played college football, made a crap ton of money and decided he was going to buy the Dallas Cowboys.  It’s his team, he pays the bills, he is an owner unlike many NFL owners in that he actually wants to be involved and has background at a high level into the sport.

Let’s back up for a minute.  In business, most of our owners were at one point entrepreneurs/startup types that had an idea and ran with it.  They worked their butts off and became successful and while they might not be super involved in the day-to-day currently – they clearly have the ability to jump back into the mix if they had to.  In many circumstances owners are still the lifeblood of their companies – they drive revenue, they motivate, they live and die their brand.  Not bad traits to have from an owner (or anyone else working for you).

So, why do we hate on Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys?  Here are the reasons

1. We hate him because he’s wants to be involved with the business he runs?!

2. We hate him because we feel there are more qualified people to run his billion dollar investment?!

3. We hate him because he wants to be involved with every staffing decision that is made in his business?!

You know what happens when an owner steps down and let’s someone else take over operations in a majority of cases?  You get less passion for the business, you get increased entitlement, you get a decrease in knowledge and a decrease in motivation.   It’s shown time after time when original owner steps aside (it’s something I think about often in my new role – don’t let this happen!).  Jerry Jones isn’t bad for Dallas or the NFL – he’s great for it – you won’t find a person more passionate for “his” business to succeed, for “his” employees to do well, for “his” investment to pay off even greater in the future.  You know what you get when you take away “his” or “hers” –you get “yours” and “theirs” – that isn’t better – it’s worse!