Life without Management

Joe,

I am sorry for the radio silence lately.  Thankfully, I got to take a time off to spend with the family.  I'm now back in the saddle and ready for action.

Thank you for the tasty post last week where you posed the question: What about, rather than fixing management, we do away with it?  It is a great question and it seems to be an idea that resonated with a number of people.

As I've thought about the notion of eliminating the role of people supervisors, I realized that by doing that, we'd do away with a number of other things that we know and love:

• Performance Appraisals. There would be no one to administer them.  No loss here because I can't seem to find any real evidence that they work.  
• Management Development Programs.  Perhaps now we can re-task our training folks to develop individuals on interpersonal and influence skills.  
• Management Meetings and Retreats.  No more golf outings or long days trying to stay awake in a hotel conference room.  
• Strained one-on-one Meetings.  Instead, we can meet when we have a reason to meet.

Imagine all of this recaptured time and energy.  I have to admit, it does sound appealing.  

I think that there is one major problem with this concept.  If we do away with management, each employee must become more personally accountable for their own performance.  And, from what I'm seeing these days, if there's one thing we like less than management, it's being held accountable.  BP didn't admit any responsibility for the oil spill until they had no other options and no one left to blame.  In politics, it seems that the strategy for any situation is always deny any wrong doing and blame the other party.  Being held accountable or (gasp) accepting accountability is treated like the plague.  

In fact, if each individual chose to be more individually accountable, we might help minimize our current management crisis (if we don't eliminate the profession).  Individually accountable employees help their managers to be successful by owning their own results and experience.  Individually accountable managers embrace their impact on others and realize that their job is to facilitate others' success.  

Maybe instead of a management issue, we have an accountability issue.

-Jason

6 Ways to Handle a Bad Manager

Joe,

As we've been talking about bad management behavior over the past couple of weeks, a question was raised by one of our readers, Chris Fleek, that I will paraphrase as this: "What do you do if you have a bad manager?"  He was specifically asking how you get a bad manager to read a blog post like those we've been writing lately in hopes that you can improve their behavior without getting yourself fired.  There are thousands if not millions of people all around the world who work for bad managers and who feel hopeless that change will come.  So, I thought perhaps I'd brainstorm a list of things you might do if you find yourself in this situation.

Below is a list of things you can do if you find yourself working for a bad manager.  Not every approach is going to work for every situation, but hopefully there's something here that might help.

1. Call out the bad  behavior.  Depending on your manager, just being courageous enough to bring up the behavior to her can result in some change.  Despite what we like to think, most of the time our manager isn't trying to make our life miserable, she is just clueless.  Help her out by sharing with her how her action had a negative impact on you.  Example: "The other day, when you did X, it caused some issues for me.  I'm sure you didn't mean for this to happen, but when you do that, it causes Y and Z to take place, which is really frustrating . . ." 
2. Clarify expectations.  Sadly, most managers have no freaking clue how to set goals or manage performance.  That means that we have to help them along with this.  It's important to ask your manager specific questions about his expectations of you.  Ask questions like:
• What do I need to do this year to be considered a top performer?
• What are the most important things that I need to accomplish this year?
• What things am I not doing today, that I should be doing to ensure you see me as one of your top people? 
• What am I doing today that's not what you'd like me to be doing?
3. Model the behavior you'd like to see.  Ghandi said that "We must be the change we wish to see" so another way to help your bad manager is to show him how it's done, particularly if you are a manager of people yourself.  Do the thing that you think is right and then share that with your manager and explain why you did it.  You don't have to suggest they try it.  If your way gets results, she will pay attention and just might try some of what you are doing.  This approach doesn't always work because many bad managers are not great learners, but it does work well in cases where you have a younger or newer manager who maybe just isn't that skilled at managing.  
4. Ask questions. Sometimes, asking a non-threatening question to seek further clarification on a decision or action can lead you into a productive conversation with your manager.  Generally speaking, managers do have reasons for what they do, but they aren't always good reasons.  Making them explain their reasons can help improve their decision making.  Example: "The other day, you did X.  I have been asked by a few others why you would make that decision and I wasn't sure how to explain it.  Can you share with me why you chose X as opposed to another option?"
5. Be a squeeky wheel.  If nothing else seems to work and there's a particular behavior from your boss that must change, bring it up frequently and pointedly to reinforce how important the issue is.  If there are others on your team who share the same concern, have them squeek as well.  This means sending emails with questions/comments.  Raising it in any one on one meetings you have with your manager.  It could mean leaving it on voice mail if you are getting the silent treatment.  Make the issue one that your manager can't avoid.  If you create enough discomfort, there will be motivation to change.  Note: in order for this approach to work, you have to be a top performer who's delivering the goods.  If you aren't pulling your weight on the team, the manager will fix the squeeky wheel by replacing it.  
6. Quit.  Sometimes, it's best to move on.  The reality is that most bad managers aren't going to change unless their managers make it important for them to do so.  And sadly, bad management is an epidemic.  So, you may need to move on and find a better manager to work for.  If you chose this path, invest time in thinking about how you will interview potential new managers to determine if they are the kind of person you want to work for.

Good luck out there!

Jason

Bad Managers Suck - Chapter 3

Joe,

I have to admit, it's a little depressing how easily these posts are to write.  There is a lot of bad manager behavior out there to write about.  So far, we've written about:

1. The Silent Treatment
2. Illusion of Interest  

The next bad manager behavior I'd like to highlight is one of the most common: Being a wuss.  

Wuss may not be a technical term used in most of our formal management training programs, but I can't find a better word to describe this kind of behavior by managers.  Here's short list of the kinds of things you might be doing that would qualify you for the wuss list.

• Not confronting bad behavior by a direct report or another employee for fear of how he/she will react.
• Unwillingness to step up and fight for a promotion or raise for your best and most talented employees.
• Putting off actions to get rid of employees who shouldn't be on your team due to bad performance or, worse, a bad attitude.
• Throwing one of your staff under the bus when things go wrong rather than taking the blame on yourself.  
• Blocking your direct reports from building relationships with people higher up in the organization for fear of what they might say.  
• Inability to hold people accountable for what they committed to do or are responsible for

Each of these behaviors reveals a lack of courage.  Managers need to be fiercely committed to their people and demonstrate that commitment through their actions.  

In my experience, great managers are courageous.  They do these things really well.

1. Great managers reward high performance handsomely.  They go to bat for their best people by fighting for promotions, bonuses and opportunities for them.  
2. Great managers confront bad performance immediately.  There is nothing more demoralizing than to work with an incompetent, unmotivated, slacker who isn't getting it done.  The quickest way to lose the confidence of your team is to allow these slackers to exist within the team.  Have the courage to hold these individuals accountable to the level of performance you expect.  You have to let them know that they either step up or step off the bus.  And you have to mean it.  Great managers have a zero tolerance policy for low performance.  
3. Great manager eradicate bad attitudes from their teams.  The only thing worse than a poor performer is a person with a bad attitude.  They are poisonous and destructive.  One bad attitude can destroy a team.  They need to go, even if it requires you as the manager to go out on a limb to get it done.  If you've ever been in this situation, you know that your team will be really grateful once the person is gone.  As uncomfortable as the process of getting them out might make you, I can assure you that they are making the people around them daily about ten times less comfortable.  Get 'em out.
4. Great managers will take a bullet for their people.  If you are encouraging growth and development of your team, they are going to take some risks.  Some of these risks will backfire and there will be failures along the way.  When this happens, courageous managers take on the responsibility for the failure themselves rather than passing that to their people.  When the call comes from a higher up in the organization with the message, "What the #@&! are you guys doing over there?" you have the opportunity to both protect your person and get feedback on what went wrong. This sends the message to your team that it's okay to take risks and fail.  This doesn't mean that you don't then debrief with your team on what went wrong and treat it as a learning experience.  It just means that you make sure that these failures don't derail the individual's career.

Managing requires a backbone and some guts.  If you can't look a person in the eye and tell them that they aren't cutting it, then you shouldn't be in management.  If you can't make the decision to let someone go, you shouldn't be in management.  Management isn't only about these tough conversations, but if you don't or can't take these issues on, none of the rest matters.  Don't be a wuss.

Jason

Bad Managers Suck - Chapter 1

Joe,

As I was reading through the Manifesto again recently, one page in particular spoke to me.  It was in the chapter of the Manifesto intended for leaders.  For whatever reason, this statement jumped off the page:

GET OUT OF THE WAY.  People want to kick ass.  You just need to let them.  

It's been a while since we trained our cross-hairs on bad management, so I thought we could exchange some thoughts here on our "favorite" bad management practices.  Let's shine a light on these practices so that the Talent Anarchist's of the world can rise up and crush them.  We must demand better from ourselves and our leaders.

Bad Management Practice #1: The Silent Treatment

It seems that almost every day, I hear another story about how an individual never hears much from their manager.  For some, this means that the manager literally doesn't talk them . . . at all.  Sadly, this isn't as rare as it should be.  In most cases, it's that the manager doesn't talk to the employee about anything that really matters.  No information about what's going on.  No information about decisions being made.  And absolutely no feedback about what's expected of them or how they are doing towards meeting those expectations.

There are probably a lot of reasons that this happens.  We promote the wrong people into management.  Tenure in a job is not a qualification to manage people.  We also do a very poor job of training our managers to manage.  Learning to communicate with others doesn't happen from listening to a trainer for 60 minutes or reading a book.  Those things might give us some tools, but you have to practice.  Actually doing it and learning from the experience is the only great way to learn these skills.

The silent treatment is not cool and it's not okay.  If you are a manager, you need to sit down with your people regularly (at least once every 2 weeks).  If you are not a manager, but you have one and he/she sucks at communicating, you should demand a regular meeting.  The meeting should have an agenda with at least these four agenda items:

1. Stuff the manager knows that the individual should probably know about (Call it Team Updates)
2. Stuff the individual knows that the manager should probably know about (Call it Progress Updates)
3. Feedback on how the individual is performing relative to the manager's expectations.  
4. Q&A (Space in the discussion to bring up whatever is most important.)

This won't necessarily cure a manager who is giving the silent treatment, but it's a step in the right direction.  

What is your "favorite" bad management practice?

-Jason

Bringing Yourself to Work

Joe,

Do you bring your full self to work?  This is a question that I know we are both very interested in because the answer to this question is so often "no" for some many of us, and yet the reasons underlying this answer are so complicated.

I've been meaning to write a post on this subject for some time, but hadn't committed to do it until I saw Trish McFarlane's clever post this weekend titled Embrace the Real You which detailed her journey to the eventual purchase of a minivan.  Her post talked about the fact that she had get comfortable with who she was before she could give up her sports car and replace it with a minivan.

I think that you and I would probably both agree that an ideal workplace would be one where people could bring their full self to work.  I also think we'd probably both agree that this type of workplace is an idealized pipe dream that doesn't actually exist.  Therein lies the problem.  Why is it that workplaces require us to edit, censor and limit what parts of our self we bring along when we show up each day?

One of the things that makes this so utterly complicated is that we, as human beings, are rarely quite sure of what our true self looks like.  As Trish outlines in her post, her reluctance with buying a mininvan came from an internal struggle to embrace who she really is.  Since this is a common struggle and since we are constantly evolving and changing as people, it could be very difficult for anyone to decide what version of themselves is the real and authentic self that they'd want to showcase to the world if they had such an opportunity.  But, let's put this aside for the time being and talk about what might be going on at work that prevents us from being ourself when we go there.

Here are a few observations about what I see going on in companies that are contributing to this problem.

1. We fear conflict.  This is why we are trained never to talk about politics, religion or sports at work.  These discussions inevitably lead to disagreement and debate, so we are told to just flat out avoid the topic at all cost.  So, if you are deeply religious, political or a sports fanatic, keep that to yourself because that would just make others uncomfortable if you talk about this part of yourself.
2. We don't promote weirdos.  Intentionally or not, most corporate cultures have strong immune systems that weed out those who are different.  In a law firm, it's the person with pink hair who's the weirdo.  At a creative ad firm, it might be the person who wears a suit to work.  If you want to get promoted, you need to fit in.  If you stick out, it's probably going to cost you.  
3. Companies still think they are in control.  For the past fifty or sixty years, conditions within the US workforce have enabled a situation where companies have been able to get away with doing what was in their best interest, often at the expense of their employees.  The result is an expectation that to have a job at company A, you must figure out how to fit in at company A--to become a company A man or woman.  But, if you decide to move to company B, you need to learn a whole new way of being (talking, dressing, acting, etc.) in order to fit in there.  So, the message to employees has long been this: it's not who you are that matters, it's how well you can adapt and fit in at our company that really counts.  

This isn't an issue of self-confidence or even being comfortable in your own skin.  I feel relatively far along in both of those areas and yet I consciously pack away parts of my true self when I head into the office every day.

Do you share my concern on this issue?  If so, what you see being the leading culprits in why this exists?  And, the million dollar question, what do we do about it?  

Looking forward to your thoughts.  

Jason

Let's Get Conflicted

Joe,

As was reflecting on our conversation about conflict and how the fear of conflict is severely damaging our organizations, I was reminded that this isn't just a work issue. We generally steer away from the difficult conversations in every aspect of our lives. Couples don't talk about money. Parents struggle to talk to their kids about sex. We even have a tough time telling our friends that something they are doing might be damaging to them or others. Any conversation that might lead to conflict or discomfort, we generally avoid. But yet, each of these conversations is really important and avoiding them could lead to disaster.

So, what do we do?

I'm certainly no expert on this topic as I suffer from the same natural instincts as every other human being. But, I think that when we specifically talk about being a leader in an organization, there are certain things we can do to build our organizations capacity for constructive conflict.

1. Be the model. As a leader, the most important tool we have is our own actions and behaviors. We must demonstrate what it looks like to give tough feedback or to confront a situation, even when your push back is likely to be viewed unfavorably. This means finding the courage to have these conversations and pushing through the inevitable desire to avoid them when it comes. For our direct reports, just giving them good feedback on a regular basis is a great place to start (this means the good and, more importantly, the bad).

2. Become a student of conflict. Role modeling conflict is best if you are skilled at it. In order to become good at it, it's important to study and practice. Pick up the books Crucial Confrontations and Fierce Conversations as a starting point. Also, study conflict resolution tactics. There are tools that help make conflict much more manageable. With these tools in hand, it's much less intimidating to have the tough conversations.

3. Teach conflict skills. Once you've become proficient, it's important to share the knowledge with others. Create book groups or trainings for your direct reports or peers. Write up cheat sheets. Anything you can do to get others familiar with the tools for constructive conflict. The more confident we are that we can handle conflict positively, the less likely we are to run from it.

4. Make conflict cool. Most organizations take their behavioral lead from the senior leaders, so if they are willing and able to engage in conflict situations, then others will as well. If they handle them well, that sets a great tone for everyone else. But, the converse is true as well. This means that we need to work on the executives within our organization to first get them to embrace conflict as a positive part of business. Then, to engage in becoming better at conflict. This is no easy task. Depending on where the conflict avoidance tendencies of an organization are today, the place to start might be by sharing articles and case studies from other organizations that support the case that constructive conflict is important. If you already have this kind of buy in, then find ways to both train senior leaders in constructive conflict techniques through corporate meetings, articles, etc.

5. Create conflict practice. The organizations who handle conflict the best have created ways to practice it. They create low-stakes situations where people are forced into conflict. This might mean meetings where people are divided into groups and asked to argue different sides of an important issue. It could mean asking direct reports to create a "role play" scenario where they act out a situation where tough feedback is being shared. Humans learn by doing, so the best way to effectively teach constructive conflict is by getting them into situations where they have to actually do it.

These are the kinds of things I'm working on to bring more constructive conflict to my organization. Are there other approaches you have found to be successful?

Jason

The Crisis of Conflict Avoidance

Joe,

Twice recently I've run into situations where I've had conversations with people where they relayed to me how they weren't comfortable having open discussions with others at work. One person was in a situation where she was miserable at work, but was choosing not to have the tough conversation with her boss that could lead to improvements. When I asked her why, she shared with me a list of assumptions she was making:

• She thought that it didn't matter if she talked to her boss because she didn't think anything could be done.
• Because her issue is primarily with the behavior of a co-worker, she felt that bringing up her concerns would come across as petty.
• She felt like it was an issue that she should probably be able to resolve on her own (even though she'd been failing to deal with it for 2 years)
• She thought that raising these complaints my jeopardize her job

The issues this woman were experiencing weren't easy ones to resolve. But, they could be resolved with the help of her management. However, because her management weren't aware of the extent of the issue, they weren't taking any action to resolve it. By choosing silence, she had become part of the problem. Her solution: go look for another job. The irony of the situation was that her primary fear in bringing the issues up to her boss was that it might impact her job security (although she had not evidence to support that fear), so instead of taking that risk, she was just going to find a new job. It seems crazy, but I think it happens a lot.

My experience tells me that this issue is plaguing our businesses and workplaces. People are, for one reason or another, choosing silence and misery over courage and change. It is another reminder for me of how fearful human nature is of change. It also reminds me of how harmful it can be to people when you have a workplace that punishes those who have the courage to speak up.

As organizations talk about talent management, they often find themselves focused on systems and ratings, assessments and succession plans. But, the best designed system in the world cannot effectively set talent free in the absence of open, authentic conversations that will regularly dip into uncomfortable areas of conflict.

Just last week, I sat in a room with several HR leaders from various larger employers in the area to discuss developing leadership. As further evidence of this lack of open conversation, this group identified conflict management skills as the single biggest gap amongst their future leaders. Even more concerning was that the discussion in this group revealed that it wasn't just these leaders who were conflict incapable (or worse, avoidant), but that it was really the culture that reinforced unproductive harmony over productive conflict.

This is a crisis. So, I pose to you these two questions:

1. Does your experience align with mine on this issue?
2. What must we do to solve this problem?

I look forward to your thoughts.

-Jason

HRevolution - The Beginning

Joe,

First let me say that you were missed in Chicago. For me personally, I was trapped in my own personal purgatory of explaining where the hell you were over and over again. Not sure why people like you so much . . . clearly, they've never visited your garage. But I digress.

HRevolution was an experience, that's for sure. There has been a lot said about the conference, so I'll try not to rehash the experience, but rather try to share what I took away from the event. While I certainly brought my Talent Anarchist game to this gathering, I found myself coming more from the perspective of the corporate HR leader in the conversations, trying to provide the perspective of a person who was living in the work on a day to day basis.

As others have said, the participant base came from all corners of the HR world--vendors, consultants, bloggers, speakers, publishers, and even a few practitioners. The value of the experience for me came from the connections and conversations I was able to share with these bright, passionate people. But, a connection is simply a beginning, it's what happens next that truly matters. Here are my prevailing thoughts as I left the event:

• Ideas are cheap. Everyone has ideas. They are everywhere. What differentiates the best from the rest is execution--taking those ideas and turning them into results.
• If HRevolution is truly about evolving the discipline of HR, we have to find a way to engage more practicing HR leaders in the conversation. It has to continue to evolve from a gathering of social media savvy HR folks to an event that promotes ideas that serve as the foundation for a new reality in the work of HR.
• Talking does not equal change. HR transformation isn't going to happen in blogs or unconferences. It will happen when a new kind of leader and practitioner emerges who execute their role in a different way that creates breakthrough results for our organizations.
• Social capital and influence are, in my opinion, at the center of what top performing HR people need. I worry that some of the practitioners at the conference are spending too much time blogging and engaging in the twittersphere at the expense of building and developing the relationships they need in their organization to take their game to the next level.

So, while I completely agree with you that Curiosity, Critical Thinking and Courage are critical to participating in this (r)evoution, the list isn't complete. I have a couple others to add.

• Accountability: Leadership means giving away credit when things go right and accepting more than you share of the blame when things go wrong. In HR, it's amplified by 100 times. There was a lot of discussion about what HR should and shouldn't take responsibility for. If you want to be a revolutionary HR pro, take responsibility for it all, even if you only influence a small part of the result. We have to completely stop this blame assignment game and just step up. Yep, management may be "who" is supposed to be growing and developing people. If they aren't, raise your hand and take responsiblity for it. Then, go make it better.
  
• Execution: I've already mentioned this point. Ideas by themselves don't do anything. You have to be able to turn those ideas into results. Trish and Ben, the founders of HRevolution, are great examples of execution. They could have stopped at the discussion of this idea, but they didn't. Two unconferences later, they have started a movement. Another example--I have heard and read a lot of criticism by attendees about there not being more HR practitioners at HRevolution. If they really feel that way, then when this event roles around next time, they will work hard to get the other HR leaders from their network to attend. The vendors who came might even pay for some of their HR clients to be there next time. We have to stop our complaining and realize that we own the solution if we'd just step up and do it.
• Influence/Political Skill: The stark reality that most of us in corporate leadership aren't prepared for as we get promoted to larger roles is that our effectiveness becomes less and less about what we do and more about what we can influence others to do. HR leaders must become students of human behavior and political systems. We have to understand how things get done, who the players are and how those players make decisions. We need to be able to navigate in the shark tank without being eaten. This means studying things like power, sales techniques and social capital. Start here.

Thank you to HRevolution and the planning committee. It was a remarkable event and I'm grateful to have had the opportunity to participate. It has definitely stoked the fire for me. Up with the revolution!

Jason

Getting Messy in HR

Joe,

You were absolutely right in your last post to call out courage as a critical marker of the progress we are seeing in HR. The courageous are leading the way.

There is one more thing that I'd like to add to this discussion. It occurred to me as I was having an email conversation with a friend of mine about a project we are undertaking together. Here's a snapshot of how the conversation went:

My Friend: "It's good to have you back in the game on this thing."

Me: "It's good to be back in the game. Let's go make a mess and get something started."

My Friend: "I've been a slow learner, but I've come to realize that I need to make more messes. I now know that not everyone is going to like me all the time, and so I need to be willing to get more messy. Plus, what good is amassing this political capital if I'm not going to use it once in a while? It's not worth anything anywhere else."

Progress is messy. Change is messy. Revolutions don't happen in orderly, comfortable ways. Most of the time, we have to let go of the old ways of doing things before the new way emerges. We have no guaranty of success when we start, so we have to put ourselves in a tough position sometimes. Talking about the future, about change, makes people around you uncomfortable and when people get uncomfortable, they begin to resist. I'll say it again, progress is messy.

You know what's not messy?

• Status quo
• Complacency
• Irrelevance

All very orderly and predictable. All very widely embraced by those around us because it allows them to stay in their comfortable existence without interference.

So, this is another reason why an event like HRevolution is so important. It's an "unconference" so it's bound to break many of the rules we've come to expect for conferences. It will allow for conversation and even encourage discourse. It should press us into discussions that feel unsafe and wildly uncomfortable. It's built around creating social capital and furthering ideas, not selling products. It might just make us change our views on things.

It's going to be messy. That might be the best lesson we can learn from this experience. Less order, more chaos. This is HR for the future.

Let's go make a mess.

-Jason

In Defense of HR

Joe,

Since we do work that flies under the heading of "Human Resources," we've always treated HR like family. Because we love our family, we are typically overly critical of them. We want our family to do well, so we dish out the feedback and share ways that our family members can get better. And, like most families, we don't tell those closest to use that we love them enough. That brings me to the reason for my post.

Human Resources, as a profession, is evolving. We started out from a disadvantaged position from our very creation and have been clawing our way to respectability ever since. In many places, HR is still clinging to past at their own expense, but I also see a lot going on within HR that makes me really proud. And, if I was a business school graduate coming into the corporate world today, I don't think you could find a more exciting place to start your career than in HR. Here's why.

1. Self-awareness. We teach leaders all the time that self-awareness is the foundation of leadership. If this is true, then HR should be developing great leadership skills. I don't think that there's another profession out there that spends as much time talking about what it means to be in it's own profession than HR. We know how we are viewed (there's seemingly a new survey punching us in the face with it every week). We know that we need to get better because our business peers don't seem to have any problem telling us when we suck. There's a lot out there about where our gaps are and how we need to get better. And, I think that HR has largely embraced this feedback. What we do with it is the key.
2. Commitment to Development. I am floored every day by how many blogs exist out there that are written by smart HR professionals who are sharing their war stories and lessons learned with the whole world. We spend a lot of time not only talking about our own profession, but also sharing information and taking in information to try and get better at it. This sharing and learning dynamic is closing the HR skill gap quickly.
3. Momentum. While some may argue that HR hasn't changed all that much in the past 20 years, I think they need to take a closer look. In HR, we didn't need a change, we needed a revolution. We need a complete paradigm shift from viewing ourselves as managing the personnel side of the business, to leading the strategy of the organization. A revolution doesn't happen overnight, it's starts with a few courageous visionaries and a groundswell starts from there. There's a lot of evidence that this is taking place within HR. If you peek in on the conversations between HR pros on Twitter, you feel the movement. You also see gatherings like HRevolution beginning to happen where the purpose of the event is to bring those on the fringe together to weave the social fabric required for a revolution (I'm proud to say that we are involved in this event).

We aren't always the nicest when it comes to our HR family. We poke and prod, we challenge, and we criticize. So, today I want to be very clear. HR, we love you. We believe in you. We know that you are up to the enormous challenges we are called to meet. That's why we are so tough on you.

Okay, now let's get off our asses and go make it happen. There's work to do.

-Jason

Why Ignoring Social Media is Stupid

Joe,

You nicely summed up what I feel is at the core of the discussion about how social media is changing how people interact. So, to take it further, how exactly do these social media tools impact relationships and ultimately, the creation of social capital. Here's a few of the most important ways I've experienced:

• Social media is a tool that facilitates the creation and maintenance of relationships, it is not the relationship itself. It's when people mistake their social media connections as relationships that we start getting into trouble.
• Social media facilitates connections. By my definition, a connection is someone who you have come into contact with in some meaningful way. Once we are connected to someone, we know how to reach them and we would have at least enough knowledge about the other person to facilitate the beginning of a more substantial relationship. Connections in other words are loose acquaintances.
• We know from the work of Mark Granovetter and others that acquaintances are our source of social influence and power. Because our acquaintances (or weak ties) represent access to information and resources that we wouldn't know about through our closest relationships, the more acquaintances we have, the more powerful our social capital. Social media makes it easier than ever before to stay connected with these weak ties, thus making it easier to build our social capital and influence.
• Social media makes it easier to maintain relationships with larger numbers of connections. While Dunbar's number suggests that we can only maintain relationships with 150 people at any given time, the tools of social media make that process easier than in the past. While it seems that social media may not make Dunbar's number any larger, I would argue that it does make it possible to seamlessly change which people we have in our 150 over time. Social media gives us the ability to stay connected to people so that we know where to find them when we need them, even if we haven't actively maintained a more substantial relationship with them in the meantime. Social media keeps the connection in tact.

So, while social media can't BE the relationship, I think that it represents incredibly powerful tools for planting, growing and harvesting social capital. By ignoring these tools, you are choosing to be less influential, less powerful and less relevant. I assume we are in agreement on this point.

So, how is social media going to impact our children in terms of how they will connect with and build relationships with others as they come of age?

-Jason

Is technology killing social capital?

Joe,

I have found myself recently chatting with several people who seem to be making the argument that social networks, text/instant messaging, and the internet in general are diminishing the relationships between people. To be fair, the people making the argument are generally Gen X or older and are people who pride themselves in networking the old-fashioned way, face to face and eyeball to eyeball. So, they could just be resisting change or maybe they are on to something.

While I think it's very short-sighted to suggest that technology is ruining relationships, I do think it's an interesting topic to consider how it is changing the relationships and connectedness between people. So, I'd like to propose that we discuss this issue in our next several posts. Here are some of the questions that I'm interested in discussing:

• How has the advent of social networks, email, and texting changed the way we connect and interact with others?
• What are the differences between being connected and having a relationship?
• How is technology impacting the way children and young adults are connecting to one another and what is the long term impact of that?
• How does the difference between connection and relationship play into the creation of social capital?

Clearly, a major shift is underway in how we interact with one another. I look forward to hearing your thoughts on exactly what's going on and how we can both make sense of it and embrace it.

-Jason

HR and Empowerment

Joe,

We have a spent a fair amount of time here discussing how HR can transform itself to be the business leader we are called to be. And, in your last post, you touched on a topic where I think HR needs a change of perspective.

As we discussed personal accountability of the employee, your comments quickly turned to how the organization bears the responsibility for making it "safe" to confront bad management. That's a bit like choosing not to play a game unless you are certain you will win before you decide to play. There isn't much accountability or responsibility in that equation on the employee's side. The reality is that any environment where it's "safe" to confront bad management probably has pretty decent management already. We, as employees, will get the management we tolerate. Granted, you can't always confront a bad management situation in a way that doesn't jeopardize your job, but you also have the ability to take your career into your own hands and get the hell out of dodge at that point. At the end of the day, the employee always holds the cards on whether they decide to leave, show up and not do much, or show up and kick ass.

Here's where I get to the role of HR in this whole equation. HR, when it comes to employees, seems to have taken the approach that their job is to solve employee and manager problems for them. We in HR have decided that great customer service means fostering bad management and lack of accountability across the board by solving these problems for managers and employees. This makes our managers and employees happy in the short term, but it perpetuates the problem long term. In more HR departments, if you have a problem with your manager, HR will hear you out but probably tell you that we really can't do anything. If a manager has an employee with an attitude problem, we will go talk to the employee for them. How is this cycle ever going to change if we continue to step in whenever things get a little sticky?

Human resources needs to change their approach. We need to adopt an approach of teaching and empowering others to solve their own problems. We can facilitate the process and help lead them to the outcome they are looking for. Take the example above, if I have an employee who has an issue with a manager, I should be first helping them to understand clearly what the real issue is. Then, I help them explore what they might be contributing to the problem themselves. Finally, I coach them on some approaches they might take to tackling the situation on their own with the manager. If they are successful, I now have an employee that is empowered to help their manager manage. The same approach would be equally as effective with the manager with the punchline being that the manager ends up empowered with the tools to handle her own employee without HR jumping in the middle.

This is how the change happens, one person at a time. But, if HR doesn't both encourage and expect personal accountability and responsibility from employees and managers, we will continue to see the same thing: employees complaining about how bad managers are ruining their lives and managers complaining about employees who don't get it. It's up to us to break the cycle.

-Jason

Allowing Bad Behavior

Joe,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts regarding my big question related to why so many companies seem to be doing so many bad things yet reaping good rewards.

You make good points relative to the delayed impact of human capital practices like training and leadership and certainly it's difficult to find causal relationships between those practices and organizational outcomes. But, I don't think that's enough of an explanation for me. When we are pressed for an answer on this question, it can't be that our best response is that:

• It won't pay off for a long time (and you may not ever know that it does) and
• You probably can't measure it if or when it does.

That doesn't mean that these aren't important issues to be aware of, it just means that there has to be more to the story.

The more I think about this issue, there are a couple of dimensions to this question that maybe we aren't considering on the surface.

1. Personal accountability of the employee seems to have disappeared in this discussion. I think that as employees, like in many areas of our lives, we've been happy to hand over the responsibility for our happiness and satisfaction to someone else--in this case, our employer. One of the reasons that bad management persists, in my opinion, is because we lack courage to confront it. I know that this may be easier said than done, but at some point, we have to take responsibility for shaping how we want to be treated at work.
2. People increasingly expect to do work that matters, that has purpose. So, perhaps what we are talking about is not simply a business issue, but a moral issue. Clearly, there are multiple different ways to achieve productivity at work. But maybe there's an emerging moral responsibility on the part of organizations to create workplaces where people can both do work with purpose and that allow people to grow and flourish as individuals. So, maybe what we tend to discuss isn't necessarily the "best" way, but the "right" way.

What do you think?

Jason

Bad behavior, good results

Joe,

I recently went back and re-read The Talent Anarchist's Manifesto again as I do from time to time. I'm really proud of our work on the Manifesto and it resonates with me to my soul. I feel when I read it like I'm reading the immutable laws of business success.

But there's a question that lingers in the back of my mind that I just can't shake. So, I put this to you and anyone else who might have the answer.

How is it that there are so many companies who are doing so many things nearly opposite of what we describe in the Manifesto, and yet they seem to be very financially successful?

I'm a bit perplexed.

Jason

Hey HR, Less Finger Pointing

Joe,

We have both railed on this blog at time about why human resources isn't living up to it's potential to be a leader for business. One of the key problems, I think, is the type of questions HR is asking. I think that if HR pros would change the questions we ask, we could transform HR.

Example 1:

Question being asked:

• Why doesn't HR have a seat at the table at my company?

Questions you should be asking:

• What can I do to earn a seat at the table?
• What am I doing that is keeping me from the table?
• What relationships do I lack that might be critical to being viewed as an executive leader?

Example 2:

Question being asked:

• Why won't managers follow the rules?

Questions you should be asking:

• What about these rules might be difficult for managers?
• How can we make it easier for the manager to comply?
• What reasons might our managers have for not following these rules?
• What are we doing in HR that might make it harder for managers to follow these rules?

I'm sure you see a trend. HR needs to spend much less time worrying about why others do what they do and focus instead on their own role and accountabilities. HR needs to start thinking about what they can do rather than pointing fingers at everyone else. By simply changing the questions being asked, we can change our whole approach.

Jason

Jason Seiden Named Honorary Talent Anarchist

Joe,

I know that it was with great admiration and respect you nominated Jason Seiden as an honorary Talent Anarchist. Clearly, this is a designation that we take very seriously since we have not until now even considered bestowing that designation on anyone. However, having read your nomination and considering what I know about Jason, I concur with your nomination.

On behalf of Talent Anarchy, in recognition of his excellent work in promoting disorder and exciting revolt to achieve the unleashing of talent, I'd like to name Jason Seiden as honorary Talent Anarchist. For those not initiated into his work, I would simply offer of his blog and the fact that he has written these two books, How to Self-Destruct and Super Staying Power as evidence that he exhibits true Talent Anarchist characteristics.

And, since he's now within the family, should he choose to accept this designation, I will begin our new relationship by disagreeing a little bit with the argument put forth in his blog post regarding Gen X that you mentioned in your nomination. I agree with the premise of the post and even the recommendations, but I felt as though Jason was suggesting that Gen X'ers don't make friends with anyone at work, and we know that not to be true. We, in Gen X, began a long tradition of tribalism when we were at home by ourselves after school in our early years. This has translated to work and we should embrace it. Even today, we are welcoming Jason in our own Talent Anarchy tribe as a leader. What I think is more correct to say about Gen X is that we don't humor fools well and we don't generally see the point in making friends with people we don't respect. To me, that's the real challenge for Gen X. Can we put aside our skepticism to find common ground so that we can form the relationships outside of our tribe that we need to be successful?

Congratulations to Jason Seiden, honorary Talent Anarchist!

Jason

Take your fairness and . . .

Joe,

I do love it when we find an issue where we can disagree.

First, let me start out by saying that it should be a primary concern for all businesses to ensure that nothing in their practices discriminates against any person on the basis of race, gender, race, ethnic origins, sexual orientation, disability, etc. The type of fairness I'm talking about is not in the realm of this type of illegal and unethical injustice. That being said, you raise some interesting ideas in your post.

The idea of employee perception trumping all is an important one. But, if you let your company be run by employee perception and become a slave to it, I think you will be in trouble quickly. It's important to understand the significance of employee perception and then work to use that to create positive results.

An approach like pay transparency might seem like a good idea in concept but is often a train wreck in actual practice for a variety of reasons. Companies like Lominger who have studied performance and development have shown that we as individuals have a very warped sense of our own abilities and performance. As you would expect, most individuals will rate their own skills and abilities much higher than others will. Naturally, we are biased. Based on this "perception" of our value, we make a determination of the fairness of our compensation (by extension also inflated). Granted, in a few rare companies out there, pay transparency might work well, but in most places, it adds fuel to a already very hot fire.

In my opinion, productive fairness is achieved through clarity of expectation and consistency of practice. While our systems of measurement for employee performance are certainly flawed and incomplete, that doesn't mean that we don't know what matters and aren't able to recognize those things. The key is to clearly define and make apparent those things that matter and reward those things consistently. In regards to how we reward those things, I agree with you that organizations should pay more attention to what matters to their employees and reward them in ways that matter most.

For me, it boils down to this. People are not entitled to be treated how they perceive they should be treated at all times. Employers are entitled to create cultures and environments that (unfairly or not) reward certain types of behaviors and performance over others. Employees are entitled to leave and find another job when they find themselves at a company where they feel the situation is unfair. Employers are entitled to reward the things they think matter and to suffer the consequences. This is the balance in the system. In order for these circumstances to have a positive effect for the organization, there has to be clarity around what's expected and how that will be rewarded.

Done right, this system will feel very fair to the people who are making things happen to drive the business forward and will feel unfair to those who aren't. Businesses who reward the wrong things will find themselves out of business. That seems fair to me.

-Jason

It Just Isn't Fair

Joe,

Greetings. I have returned from a ski weekend where the mountain helped charge my batteries and clear my mind. It was a fabulous weekend and it's time to get back to work. We've been on a bit of a hiatus here at the blog lately but I think it's time to get back to work on some interesting topics.

Just recently, an invitation came across my desk to attend an HR seminar regarding how to keep the workplace more fair and equitable for employees. The thing that struck me about the session description was that it was clearly assumed that fairness and equity should be a primary objective for HR professionals. This made my stomach turn. Here's why.

Generally, when we talk about fairness or equity in HR, it generally boils down to money. Our employees look at their paycheck and they make judgments about whether their pay is fair relative to what they know (or assume) about other's pay. HR departments seem to really struggle with this issue because they lose sight of the reason we compensate people. Quick definition of "fairness" from dictionary.com:

• free from bias, dishonesty, or injustice
• proper under the rules

Where HR should focus is on making sure that inappropriate or illegal bias and discrimination have no place in work policies and practices. However, it seems that in our attempts to remove these biases, we have become an impediment to allowing our businesses to invest in their best people.

Money is still the most powerful incentive in place for employees at work (don't believe me? stop paying someone at work today and see how long they keep coming back). We should use our money to invest in and reward the people who create the most value for our companies. This often doesn't look "fair" to everyone because two employees who HR might say are "equals" based on pay range and job grade, might be paid very differently because one of the people is brilliant with customers or great at coming up with new product ideas (thus being worth more to the company's bottom line).

The bottom line for me is this. HR should absolutely work towards driving discrimination out of company practices; that's a must. However, all things are never equal. Some people will always be more valuable to the organization than others. HR should spend far less time enforcing their own made up pay rules and far more time trying to help their organizations invest their money in the people who are making things happen. In fact, let's not stop with pay. It's okay to give your top performers privileges that others don't have. Not only will you keep more of your top performers around, but you might just create an incentive for some of your other employees to step up to greatness. It probably isn't fair, but can make all the difference.

-Jason

Talent Rant: Colleges and Universities

Joe,

I've been speaking lately with several groups of people regarding how to get a handle on their career and get on the fast track. It's astonishing to me how many people really seem to have very little clue how they ended up where they are in their career or how to move their career forward. I suspect that this lack of ability contributes to the survey results I seem to see every other day that report that more than 50% of our US workforce is unhappy in their jobs and ready to make a move when the economy improves. While I feel that there's a discussion to be had about personal accountability and courage related to one's own career, today I want to rant about one of the root causes of our collective career unhappiness, Colleges and Universities.

For some time, I've had a bit of a chip on my shoulder related to our collegiate education system. Despite spending anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars to attend these institutions, it seems that a huge number of people are graduating with little clue where to go next in their career or how to manage their career in a way that results in some satisfaction and happiness. Here might be a few reasons why:

• In our Colleges and Universities, there is very little support or process in place to help an individual determine what course of study might make the most sense for them. The common recommendation to freshmen is to take some classes and see if they find something they are interested in. Alternatively, if a student arrives in college with a course of study decided (as I did with pre-Med), there's no work done to ensure that the decision is a good one. Despite the University systems being the home of research and science, they apparently don't think it's worthwhile to apply any of it to helping students discover a path that might be most fulfilling for them based on their strengths, interests and passions.
• Personal development and self-mastery aren't taught in most Colleges or Universities. Now I know that "History of Film" is probably an interesting class, but how is it that we spend more time in colleges broadening our horizons in this way without spending any time on the skills that might truly propel us forward through our life. A class on setting goals and developing skills to support life-long learning would be much more powerful than one more elective history class.
• Career services seem to be designed to be a life preserver for those who can't find a job rather than being a proactive partner to students as they navigate through their education preparing for a lifetime of work. While some may argue that the point of college is to learn to drink and hook up with the opposite sex, the true purpose of college should be to prepare us for approximately 43+ years of work to follow.

I think it's time that our college and university systems realize that clinging on to the notion of themselves as academic utopias where students can study whatever moves them is really screwing up the next 40 years of these student's lives. I'm not suggesting that students shouldn't be allowed to explore topics and ideas at college. But think of how truly powerful it would be if, instead, the colleges and universities recognized that their primary role is to work with these young people to help them find their natural talents and then connect those talents to a track of study and experiences that would prepare them for a long and fulfilling career.

-Jason