Category Archives: Leadership

Stop Saying “We Love Vets!” You don’t, or You would actually Hire them for real jobs! #VeteransDay

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Veteran’s Day was yesterday! I’m sure your social media team made a big deal out it. Send around a lot of American Flag IG and Twitter posts. Even put up a blog post on your site about how much you just love Vets! The problem is, it’s all a big fat lie!

You don’t love Vets! You love the concept of being politically correct and wrapping your company and brand around the American flag! It’s basically Stolen Valor what you’re doing on your career site, acting like you love to hire Vets!

If you really loved Vets you wouldn’t be trying to hire someone who led a platoon of a hundred soldiers into battle for a $12/hr job with no career progression! You wouldn’t be trying to hire someone who was responsible for hundred’s of millions of dollars of machinery and resources into a $17/hr warehouse job. But, that’s how ‘you’ love Vets, right? Give them a shitty job!

I’m not a Vet. Never served. Really never even thought about serving. My grandfather fought in WWII and he gave me his medals when I was a young boy. Told me stories. I have uncles and cousins who are Vets.

I’ve hired countless Vets in my career. I find that Vets, compared to normal civilian hires, perform better on average. I hired a Vet to come work as a Recruiter for me, when he had no recruiter training (his name is Brian McIntosh – go connect with him, he’s awesome!) He was a tanker by Army trade. Not really something that correlates into great recruiting skills normally, but here are the skills he brought to us:

  • Dedication
  • Works his ass off
  • Team player
  • Motivated
  • Desire to learn
  • Exceptional at networking with other Vets
  • Colorful language! (Okay, I made that one up! But, hey, you spend some time in a hot tank and you’ll learn some colorful language as well!)

He normally would have been offered one of those $15/hr jobs. “Oh, you’re a tanker and have no real-world skills, that’s great we have a dead-end warehouse job for you to work in! We love our Vets!”

Think about how many great paying, salaried jobs you have that really can be taught to anyone. How many? 60%? 80%? That’s reality, right? Most of the jobs that we have can be taught to anyone with the desire,  the motivation, dedication, and willingness to learn.

I’m not trying to dump on decent paying hourly jobs. I know we have to fill these as well with great people, and some of those jobs turn into great careers for people, but let’s be real, our Vets aren’t looking at those jobs as their first choice upon serving our country. They want career jobs that fit the skills and training they received while serving our country.

So, what can you really do? 

My friend, Torin Ellis, came to the Michigan Recruiter’s Conference a couple of weeks ago and spoke about Diversity and Inclusion and made this comment – “You need to have a diverse recruiting team if you want to recruit diverse talent.”

So, if you want to hire Vets into real jobs in your company, you need to have Vets on your recruiting team! What we have found is our Vet recruiters know the environment and skills on both sides, so they know where a Vet will be most valuable in your organization based on those skills. A recruiter without this knowledge just looks at keywords on a resume, and thinks, “No fit” or “Hourly entry-level job”, not truly who this person is or could be for your organization!

Or you could also work with a Vet to come in and train your team around what jobs you have where Vets would be a great fit, and what questions they should be asking to find out what skills they really have. We find Vets aren’t the best at talking about some of the great skills they have, they don’t see as special, coming from a military environment.

Lastly, call out your hiring managers who say they support Vets, but then never hire a Vet when you put them in front of them. They aren’t supporting Vets, they just love wrapping themselves in the flag and acting like they support Vets.

Happy Veteran’s Day! Thank you for your service! If I can help you, please let me know.

Turning in that ‘work related’ strip club expense!

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It’s 2018 and Under Armour, this past week wanted to make sure that their staff knew it was no longer okay to turn in receipts for business expense reimbursement from strip clubs! From the Wall Street Journal article:

“on Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that the sports apparel company Under Armour had ended the “long-standing company practice” of letting employees expense strip club visits to their corporate cards…the story reported that “over the years, executives and employees … went with athletes or co-workers to strip clubs after some corporate and sporting events, and the company often paid for the visits of many attendees.”

So, not at all surprised, this type of thing is going on in corporate America, because at one point in my career I actually approved these types of expenses! Now, this was two decades ago, and I wasn’t in a position to change this policy at the time, but I know firsthand this type of stuff goes down!

It brings up an entire issue around what is appropriate work-related, client entertainment options. So, we are saying in 2018 going to the strip club is not appropriate, I think we can all come to an agreement on this, that is unless your actual profession is running strip clubs!

So, let’s start adding to this list of inappropriate work-related, client entertainment options:

– Vegas-style Burlesque Show – basically any show that is showing naked bodies for the sake of showing naked bodies, right?

– Any venue that includes prostitutes – So, taking a client to Ruth Chris is fine, taking a client to Ruth Chris with a hooker is not fine. Top Golf is awesome, Top Golf with strippers or prostitutes is not awesome unless it’s a bachelor party, not mine, honey, someone else’s.

– Marijuana dispensaries – Sure it’s legal in a lot of states, but let’s not take our clients out and break a federal law.

– Crack Houses – No explanation needed – No strip clubs and no crack houses.

– Church – Oh, what!? Yeah, look I don’t want you taking a client to Church and you better not try and turn an expense in for the $10 bill you threw into the offering plate!

– Skydiving or similar activities – Killing a client is never a good business development strategy. So, let’s just take off activities that might kill someone.

– Apple Orchard, Pumpkin Patch, Hayride places – I’m just putting my foot down on the losers that actually think this is entertainment. It’s apple cider and donuts. If that’s your idea of entertainment you should be fired.

– Any Running-type races – Marathons, 5Ks, Tough Mudders – Running isn’t entertainment, it’s a punishment for when you don’t play a real sport well, or you screw up a play for the tenth straight time, or to get away from your screaming kids and nagging spouse, but it’s not entertainment.

– Massages – I love a great massage, but I’m never taking a client to get a message! That’s super creepy! Just don’t ever turn in that receipt!

– A Nickleback concert – Or really any concert that takes place at an Indian Casino. No, I want to support the tribe, I don’t want to support dried up entertainment acts! Let’s treat our clients better than that! Sure I love Hall and Oates to, but I don’t love Hall and Oates when other people are signing their songs and they’re just standing on stage as props. That just makes me and my client sad.

Okay, hit me in the comments on which work-related, client entertainment we should add to the list!

 

My Parents Never Told Me Who They Voted For.

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Today we wake up and go to work like any other day. We will talk about the elections that took place yesterday. They’ll be people who will be ecstatic over the results, there will be people upset, but most will just go about their day, just like yesterday. That’s our reality, a single election doesn’t change our normal day to day life.

I grew up with educated, professional parents. They worked white collar jobs. They paid taxes. They cared about social issues and worshipped in their respective ways. My parents never really spoke about politics, or more likely, they did, but I was more interested in going outside and throwing and catching a ball, or riding my bike.

Some will say those were simpler times, but ‘those’ times were no simpler than these times. My parents still had to find ways to make ends meet, and still, try and provide a life for me that was better than the life they had, like we all do for our own families. I think those in an older generation would say those times were definitely more “civil”, and those who have modern views would probably call that naive.

I talk about politics a lot with my sons. I tease them about voting for who I vote for, but they know I support them in voting for whomever they want. I try to get them to understand that both sides are flawed. No one side is ever perfect, and much of how you lean depends on your place in life. I’m not sure it’s right or wrong, but I want them to make informed decisions.

What I try to get them to understand is the wisest people I know in every gender and race, see both the good and bad on both sides. They tend to be moderate in their beliefs no matter what they believe because they understand while I might believe very strongly about many policies and stances with one party, I might also believe in a policy or stance in another party. I remember that both sides are fundamentally flawed.

There is no winner or loser in an election. There are just all of us left needing and hoping for solid leadership in all aspects of our lives, not just one or two aspects. Hoping for a better world to live in, for all of us, not just some of us. Understanding that we come from different eras, different parts of the world, different backgrounds, and none of those are wrong, they’re just different.

Those differences are what make America great, and they are what makes America so very difficult to lead.

My parents never told who they voted for and I never asked them why. It probably had to do with a number of factors but the biggest being that as children we are very black and white in our decision making. One thing is good. One thing is bad. Politics are completely gray. So, I appreciate that they let me be a kid for a while longer. I love my country and all its flaws, and I’ll keep working to make it better.

Tim Sackett, Best Life Coach Ever!

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I believe the concept of ‘Life Coach’ is the biggest con anyone has been able to pull off in the history of mankind.  That being said I personally know some folks who love having a life coach (#WhitePeopleProbs).  I do like the concept of ‘Business Coaches’ or ‘Leadership Coaches’, I see those things a bit differently based on what I see in organizations.

Two unique things happen in organizations that make the concept of Business Coach more viable:

1. We promote our best workers to managers.

2. Leaders are put on an island with no one to confide in.

Both ideas above are systematically flawed.  Just because you’re the ‘best’ worker doesn’t make you a good manager.  You might be, but you also might be a colossal failure.  Being in a senior leader’s role, and giving you no one to really be able, to be honest, also has bad consequences.   A business coach can help both sides succeed, where normal organizational training fails.

You can give new managers all kinds of training, but there comes a time when one-on-one, let’s walk through a specific scenario you are having, just works better for learning and development of that person.   Also, a leader needs to get ideas out of their head to someone they trust will give them good and honest feedback about how freaking crazy they are!   Subordinates won’t do this, and peers might use it against them to position themselves for the next move.

I’m a big fan of Business Coaches.  I think organizations underutilize this approach because it seems expensive.  The reality is, it’s usually a billable hour or two per month, to ensure you have well-functioning leadership.  That total cost might be $5000 per year.  I’m really hoping any manager or leader you have brings in exponentially much more profit than $5000 per year!

Which leads me to Tim Sackett, Life Coach.

I could be a life coach.  I have a feeling it would go a little like this:

Mark, Life Coachee: “Hey, Tim great to talk to you, just wanted to dive right into a problem I’m having, is that okay?”

Tim Sackett, Life Coach: “No, it’s not okay. That’s your problem Mark, you’re always thinking about you!  What about me and my freaking problems!”

Mark: “Uh, sorry. But I thought I’m paying you to help me on my stuff.”

Tim: “No, you’re paying me because I’m smart and have my shit together, and you can’t figure out how to manage your own daily simple life.”

Mark: “I don’t think this is what I expected.”

Tim: “Yes it is. That’s your problem Mark, you think too much.  You’re now paying me to do your thinking.”

Mark: “Okay, I’ll play along and see where this is going.”

Tim: “Mark here’s what ‘we’ are going to do. First, you’re getting your butt up each day and you’re going to work. Second, you’re going to stop whining about your life. Third, you’re going to go home and be an active part of your family life, and stop acting like you should be able to have a family and still act like you’re in college, you’re not.”

Mark: “But you don’t understand, I work in a stressful job!”

Tim: “Shut up, you’re an accountant. Stress is not knowing where you’re sleeping tonight because you don’t have a place to live.  You don’t have stress, you have normal.”

I have a strong feeling my ‘Life Coaching’ sessions would only go one session, and everyone would be fixed, so I’m going to have to figure out that pricing model.  If you want to set up an appointment, just hit me in the comments and we can get that set up immediately, I take PayPal!

The Newest Leadership Concept that will take 2019 by Storm: “Sunshining”!

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Have you heard of “Sunshining“? I’m guessing most of us haven’t. I came from Reed Hastings the CEO at Netflix. Netflix has a really transparent work environment and Reed and his executive team has started telling employees exactly why someone has been fired. They call these talks “Sunshining”!

It’s not just about explaining why someone got fired, it could be about almost anything. This radical transparency is part of Netflix’s unique culture and employee experience. If you have a question about anything, you’re encouraged to ask out in the open, and leadership is encouraged to welcome these discussions, even those that might be taboo in most company cultures:

In one “sunshining” scene described by the Journal, former talent chief Tawni Nazario-Cranz was asked by Hastings in front of dozens of executives why she paid for some of her team’s makeup and hair styling ahead of a company launch event. Nazario-Cranz said that if a manager took employees to a golf outing it wouldn’t be questioned, which led to a debate about “gender equity,” one person in attendance told the paper.

Employees are also encouraged to review each other and share feedback with their teams. There are”real-time 360″ lunches and dinners for feedback and criticism, with one former executive saying the pressure to participate was the “hardest part about the culture.”

 

Can you imagine sitting down in front of a department of employees and saying, “Hey, everyone, you all know Tim, your boss, well, I just fired Tim because Tim quite frankly wasn’t getting the results we hired him to get. Tim is right here, right now. Let’s discuss!”

 

Um, what!?! “Yeah, hey guys, let me wipe the tears away from my eyes, I’m still in a bit of shock, I guess I’m most concerned with how I’m going to pay my mortgage and tell my partner I just got fired, but what would you like to know?”

 

Holy crap! That could not happen, ever! Unless you had this culture of ongoing performance feedback and accountability where it was 100% out in the open that this was happening and there was no ill will. Even then, I’m still skeptical! I mean, I’m willing to sit down as a fired employee and talk to the troops if Reed is giving a giant parachute! “Oh, yeah, hey guys, I just lost my job, but I’m fine, I’m thinking of taking a couple of years off to pet puppies or something!”

 

Do you think your company culture could handle this right now?

 

I’m doubtful, primarily because this isn’t something you can just turn on and the next day start doing it. This is a fairly radical cultural shift to even open up and be that transparent across the organization. I think most of us would tell ourselves we would love to work in that type of environment until the mirror is turned on ourselves!

 

That’s a tough leadership environment to be a part of for sure!

 

What didn’t make it through Netflix’s leadership team? 

 

Having employees see each other’s salary! Reed wanted to open this up, the rest of the leadership shot this down:

 

Starting last year, Netflix allowed any executive above the director level to see the salaries of all employees, a decision that, like most of those detailed by the Journal, received mixed reviews from the people interviewed. In the case of employee pay, some said it led to awkwardness, while others said it encouraged people making less money to try and get raises. However, Netflix executives recently shot down an effort by Hastings to allow any employee to see the pay of any colleague, regardless of rank, the paper said.

 

I think that’s a giant step of any organization, but it’s probably the one step that needs to happen to fix gender pay inequality for good!

Turns out, Boring Speakers Talk Longer!

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I just had a discussion with Elaine Orler, the new incoming Chair for the Recruiting Trends and Talent Tech Conference, taking place in February in Las Vegas. I’m pretty excited about it because Elaine, the team at LRP who produces the conference, are really pushing the envelope when it comes to conference content.

Elaine isn’t the only one, but she’s really pushing it to the next level, Recruiting Trends is going to be amazing this year! I can’t wait to speak at that conference!

I’ve also had similar conversations with Steve Boese, who chairs The HR Technology Conference, who this past year did an HR tech startup Pitchfest in the middle of the expo hall that was amazing! SHRM’s, Letty Kluttz, is pushing a very traditional conference team out of their comfort zone, and you’ll see some new amazing content streams at SHRM Talent and SHRM National this next year, as well!

The LinkedIn Talent Connect team tested “Silent Disco” talks at this year’s event, and it was fascinating to watch and do one! As a speaker, the Silent Disco talk might have been one of the biggest challenges I’ve had in recent years! Shannon Pritchett over at SourceCon also has shorter keynotes and sessions, really trying to get to the meat of the content and less fluff.

So, why all of a sudden are conferences breaking up the traditional conference content flow?

For decades I think we all had a hard time imagining conferences in a new way. Most followed, and still follow, a basic format of: full group morning keynote, followed by hour-long sessions throughout the day, followed by afternoon day-closing keynote. Most of the design was directed by the continuing education community, which is why most conferences started.

You need one credit per session and those sessions need to be at least one hour of ‘training’ or education.

Then TEDx came around and people had 18 minutes to produce some of the most amazing content any of us had ever seen! DisruptHR-like events sprung up and we got to see great content happen in 5 minutes! Many people started wondering, why the heck are we sitting here for one hour listening to people drone on endlessly when they could tell us all of this in half the time!?

There was a recent small study done around this concept. A researcher went to a conference an sat in 50 sessions. Within four minutes he made the decision was this content boring or not. Based on that he also looked at the time the speaker went over or under their time, and his data showed him that boring speakers were more likely to go over their allotted time!

“For every 70 seconds that a speaker droned on (over their allotted time), the odds that their talk had been boring doubled.” 

So, if you ever sat in a boring session and thought, “Oh my, this is so boring and it’s taking forever!” You’re right! The boring stuff does take longer!

As a speaker, all of these changes that conferences are making and testing are really exciting. Here’s what I’ve learned over the past 12 months with some of these new content configurations that are being tested:

– The shorter amount of time you have to speak, the more time it takes to prepare really great content! Seems counterintuitive, doesn’t it? Should be harder the longer you have, but it’s not. If you have a short amount of time, your talk has to be really tight and practiced. If you have a long time, as a speaker, you can wander around and come back to things.

– Shorter segments of live content that are good, are much deeper and less wide. The best short range content goes really deep on one item, not surface level on many items.

– The audience pays closer attention to shorter content. If you have an audience for an hour or more, they tend to come in and out. If you have them for 20 minutes, you are more likely to have them the full time, which means, they’re more likely to call you out if you try and slide some B.S. by them!

– Most non-speaker, speakers, really struggle with short content. Most speakers at a conference aren’t professional speakers, they’re practitioners. They need more time, not less, because they aren’t on stage enough to practice short, tight sets of content. So, they’re more likely to fail doing short sessions.

Get ready for some exciting conferences in 2019! Conference producers are really working to change things up and keep modern attendees engaged with the content at conferences, and I personally love the challenge and the changes! If you’re building our budget for 2019 make sure you try and hit one of the conferences listed above in 2019, you’ll definitely get some amazing takeaways!

Using Email Activity as a Performance Metric!

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So, the other day I was reading this article by Josh Bersin. You know Josh, right? Bersin by Deloitte, big time voice in the HR Industry for decades. Josh might be one of the most recognizable thought leaders in our space. He recently left Deloitte and is back on his own. Josh has forgotten more about HR than I’ve ever known.

I’ve probably met Josh personally 15 times. Sat at dinner with him one night, at an industry event, for about 3 hours and had some really good conversation. Just saw him at LinkedIn’s Talent Connect as I was coming off the live stream and he was coming on, went to say “hello” and he looked at me as if I was about to mug him! LOL! I think he legitimately thought I was coming to ask for his autograph! Turns out, I know Josh, way more than Josh knows me! That’s okay, he’s still brilliant.

The article is titled: “What Emails Reveal About Your Performance At Work”:

After analyzing months of communication patterns using messaging metadata (data about the messages, not the messages themselves), the company can now statistically prove that certain types of communication behavior directly correlates to business performance. In fact, using employee communication data with a Deep Learning Model, Genpact can predict “Rockstar” performers with 74% accuracy. (This process works for emails, slack messages, skype messages, etc.)…

What did they find? The highest performing leaders use simpler words to communicate, they respond faster, and they communicate more often. In other words, they are more engaged, more efficient, and more action-oriented.

Now there’s a ton of data science that comes into play to get to this outcome. I’ve written about the power of Microsoft’s Workplace Analytics using data to help organizations and individuals improve their performance by analyzing how we work, and this is basically doing the same thing.

How do you improve your performance through email?

1. Respond quickly to messages.

2. Use language everyone can understand.

Let’s unpack those two things a bit because it sounds way too simple to actually work!

When you respond quickly to any kind of messaging a person has sent you it triggers a couple of things. One, the person who sent the message feels validated that not only did you get the message, but you thought ‘they’ were important enough for a quick response back. Don’t discount the impact that has on your influence at a larger level.

Two, a quick response shows the people you are communicating back to that you’re on top of your stuff. When you get a response to a message you sent from three days ago, I assume that person is way over their head. Look, I asked if you were interested in doing this thing or not. It’s a seven-second response, just respond, it’s not difficult!

Using simple, straightforward language ensures that everyone on the message can be crystal clear about what the message was about. Nothing was vague or left to interpretation. “No, I will not attend this meeting. Instead, Sandy will be coming as she is the one who has the data you need, and my full support on any decisions that need to be made.” Bam! Done. Simple.

Sometimes I think we overcomplicate what really good performance looks like. Turns out if respond quickly and make sure people understand you, you meet a couple of really important qualifications to becoming a strong leader!

Also, go connect with Josh Bersin and tell him Tim said “Hello!”

Team Woke vs. Team Resentful!

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Have you been feeling like you don’t fit in recently? Like both sides might not be what you’re looking for? Like ‘these folks are crazy!”?

Welcome to America!

The Atlantic had a brilliant article recently where a study from Harvard says it’s not ‘you’, it’s actually ‘them’ –

“On social media, the country seems to divide into two neat camps: Call them the woke and the resentful. Team Resentment is manned—pun very much intended—by people who are predominantly old and almost exclusively white. Team Woke is young, likely to be female, and predominantly black, brown, or Asian (though white “allies” do their dutiful part). These teams are roughly equal in number, and they disagree most vehemently, as well as most routinely, about the catchall known as political correctness.

Reality is nothing like this. As scholars Stephen Hawkins, Daniel Yudkin, Miriam Juan-Torres, and Tim Dixon argue in a report published Wednesday, “Hidden Tribes: A Study of America’s Polarized Landscape,” most Americans don’t fit into either of these camps. They also share more common ground than the daily fights on social media might suggest—including a general aversion to PC culture.”

As you know, if you’re a regular reader of The Project, I tend to be of the not politically correct persuasion, but not necessarily outwardly so. I like humor. The best humor is usually not politically correct, regardless of what side you’re on politically. I like to believe I have a highly tuned sense of humor, so I can find something funny, when I know it’s wrong, because, context matters.

Most members of the “exhausted majority,” and then some, dislike political correctness. Among the general population, a full 80 percent believe that “political correctness is a problem in our country.” Even young people are uncomfortable with it, including 74 percent ages 24 to 29, and 79 percent under age 24. On this particular issue, the woke are in a clear minority across all ages.

Youth isn’t a good proxy for support of political correctness—and it turns out race isn’t, either.

Whites are ever so slightly less likely than average to believe that political correctness is a problem in the country: 79 percent of them share this sentiment. Instead, it is Asians (82 percent), Hispanics (87percent), and American Indians (88 percent) who are most likely to oppose political correctness. As one 40-year-old American Indian in Oklahoma said in his focus group, according to the report:

It seems like everyday you wake up something has changed … Do you say Jew? Or Jewish? Is it a black guy? African-American? … You are on your toes because you never know what to say. So political correctness in that sense is scary.

So, for the most part, we tend to look at political correctness the same – we don’t agree it’s helping. In fact, it might be driving us further apart because those who believe it strongly, on either side, use it as black or white, without any opportunity for gray, or understanding.

“There is, however, plenty of additional support for the idea that the social views of most Americans are not nearly as neatly divided by age or race as is commonly believed. According to the Pew Research Center, for example, only 26 percent of black Americans consider themselves liberal. And in the More in Common study, nearly half of Latinos argued that “many people nowadays are too sensitive to how Muslims are treated,” while two in five African Americans agreed that “immigration nowadays is bad for America.”

So, what’s the risk? The risk is we tend to listen to a minority viewpoint, on both sides, believing it’s at least a 50% viewpoint when in reality it might only be a 1/5 or less viewpoint of the whole. By the way, we do this in business as well, all the time! Your executives want to know how your employees are feeling, so you do a survey of your 1,000 employees.

200 actually perform the survey, 1/5, and we go back to our executive team and say our “employees” believe “X”. So, we need to change X, Y, and Z. When in reality, only 20% of employees actually believe “X”. And we wonder why we can never really get our arms around engagement!

The problem of political correctness on worldviews shows this same behavior:

“The gap between the progressive perception and the reality of public views on this issue could do damage to the institutions that the woke elite collectively run. A publication whose editors think they represent the views of a majority of Americans when they actually speak to a small minority of the country may eventually see its influence wane and its readership decline. And a political candidate who believes she is speaking for half of the population when she is actually voicing the opinions of one-fifth is likely to lose the next election.”

I have so many friends who couldn’t believe that Trump was voted President (for the official record – I did not vote for Trump! But I understand how it happened!), and they are 100% sure he won’t be voted in again. 100%!

Yet, we fail to understand the majority in the middle, caught between outliers on both sides, who are being continually hammered for not being politically correct and thinking this will magically change them to the correct side. So, I’m not Team Woke or Team Resentful, I’m Team Somewhere in the Middle, but I’m definitely far from alone!

Teens Feel Speaking In Class is Unreasonable & Discriminatory. What do you think?

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A recent article in The Atlantic brought up is seemingly troubling subject. Teens are voicing their opinion that being forced to speak up in classes is discriminatory:

“in the past few years, students have started calling out in-class presentations as discriminatory to those with anxiety, demanding that teachers offer alternative options. This week, a tweet posted by a 15-year-old high-school student declaring “Stop forcing students to present in front of the class and give them a choice not to” garnered more than 130,000 retweets and nearly half a million likes. A similar sentiment tweeted in January also racked up thousands of likes and retweets. And teachers are listening.” 

Hmmm. I’ve got some thoughts…

I was out at LinkedIn’s Talent Connect recruiting conference this past week. Great content, engaged recruiting pros and leaders, and a lot of great data being shared. One of those data points shared by CEO Jeff Weiner was the largest skills gap currently in need by employers. Can you guess which skill was most needed?

  • Tech/IT/coding-type of skills? No, but not a bad guess!
  • Healthcare/Nursing skills? No, but another great guess!

The #1 most sought after skill by employers is Oral Communication!

Turns out that we have a ton of kids coming into the workforce that have a hard time communicating orally! Hmmm…

Yeah, so we should probably not make kids who have anxiety over public speaking not speak in the safe environment of a classroom in front of a trained educator!

You know what, most people have anxiety about public speaking. The answer isn’t let’s try and find ways for these kids not to speak, its let’s find ways to get these kids to begin speaking in small ways where they start to gain confidence and little by little start ramping up how and where they speak.

Education isn’t about making some comfortable. It’s about making you uncomfortable in a safe way. If we know kids need oral communication skills to be successful in the work world, we must demand that our educators help make this happen.

I get we are in a time where kids have a great platform to voice their opinions and desires. Good for them! It’s awesome time to be alive. Also, these are kids. Kids can be super smart, and super short sited. It’s our job as adults to say, “I hear you! Public speaking in front of your peers is hard. That’s why you actually need to do it more, not less.”

So, knowing this is a skill that most adults also struggle with, what do you think? Should we be finding alternatives for kids who don’t want to speak in front of their class, or should we make them stand up and speak?

I’m all for making them uncomfortable and teaching them a skill that will help them the rest of their life. I don’t need them to get on stage and speak in front of an audience, but I do need them to be in a meeting with ten co-workers and be willing and active in that conversation!

What’s Your HR Vision? #Insight18

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Spoke at Saba’s Insight conference this week on How You to Get Your HR Metrics to Connect with Your Executives, and a really great question came up from the audience, and it was foundational.

This HR Pro was like, “Hey, Tim, great information, but how do we even get from doing traditional reporting of metrics to leveling up and providing business intelligence?” Great question, my talk was on how to get them to listen to modern metrics, not about why you should even be using them and how to get your organization to even want to go down this path.

So, on the fly, my answer was this:

The first step to great HR, and delivering great HR business intelligence, is you first have to have a great HR vision. What’s yours? I hope part of that vision is delivering the information the organization needs to be successful. 

Oh wait, you don’t have an HR Vision? Okay, I get it, it’s not surprising, most don’t. You’ll have an organizational vision, but for me, great leadership is when you take the organizational vision and you bring it home to your own department and function in a very real way.

The organization’s vision is we are going to make the world a better place by delivering blah, blah, blah. Okay, nice! How will HR do that? That’s different from what the organization had to do, it’s very specific.

Great HR leadership, great HR execution, starts with a crystal clear understanding of what your HR Team stands for and how what you will do, relates back to helping the organization achieve its mission.  It doesn’t mean you need to spend two months creating a vision. Ugh, be better than that. It will mean sitting down as a leader and deciding who you are, and it will mean sitting down with your team and deciding who they want to be.

You might find that some folks on the team don’t want to be what you want to be, and this could be a roadblock to you as an HR leader and your function to finding success as you define it.

It’s a really cool exercise to go through with your team, and go back each year and analyze your HR measures and determine if that vision is being reached, needs to be tweaked, etc. But, we all need that true north in terms of knowing where we are going and how we will get there.

Being an HR leader is tough, you have to walk the walk within the organization, drink the kool-aid, but you also have to do it internally within your own department, it doesn’t just magically happen. Oh, we’re all in HR, we get it. No, we don’t, we’re just like every other function. We need to know where we are going.

So, ask your team today, what’s our HR vision? Then sit back and see what comes back, you might be surprised!