HRevolution 2011 in my garage?

Jason-

I hope that you had a miserable time in Chicago this weekend, I was home with the kids and watched about 47,000 hours of Curious George. Being a grown-up can be downright brutal at times.

The HR blogosphere (which, fortunately for me, happens to be just around the corner from my house) has been abuzz about a couple of things the past few days. Lots of folks talking (and whispering and tweeting and blogging and screaming) about HRevolution and about China Gorman leaving SHRM, and about what these things might mean to the future of this work.

I do not know China Gorman, but some people that I respect think pretty highly of her and I did see her doing a good job of providing a face for SHRM where it did not really have one. It clearly reflects well on her that so many folks are disappointed to see her go, but part of what I hear in this conversation is concern about the role and direction of SHRM.

In the noisy, “pay attention to me” intersection of HR and social media, SHRM is the easiest target in the world for anyone that wants to find a large credible “friend” or a large credible “enemy.” I think that people who are legitimately about moving this work forward know that SHRM is not the problem or the solution, but contains elements of both as it is a reflection of the craft, and not its creator. I like to throw a stone or two at SHRM from time to time myself. It is fun, easy and safe, especially since the people at SHRM have real jobs and are not likely to have the time to pay any attention to me. I also enjoy being invited (and paid) to speak at SHRM events local, regional and national and the interwebs are chock-full of hypocrites like myself.

We love to throw stones at large institutions, but large institutions (SHRM, the auto industry, congress, Big Bacon) are a product of what we did (and what we did not do) yesterday. Stop worrying about what SHRM is doing. Change your organization, tell your story and help someone else change their organization. If you do these things, you will be moving the profession forward in a very real way.

I personally do not have an organization so I am probably just going to lie down. Talking about change wears me out.

And then there is HRevolution. This was kind of hard to miss because the people that were there spent all last week talking about it on Twitter and on their blogs and in their sleep, they talked about it all weekend, and they are still talking about it right now…as far as I can tell, they are really an annoying bunch of self-obsessed, self-promoting jerk offs and I am filled with rage, bitterness and jealousy that I was not able to spend the day with them on Saturday. I am going on record right now saying that I will be at HRevolution 2011 if I have to host it in my garage and provide the play doh myself.

Since I was not there, my perspective on this unconference is probably the most insightful one and you are all welcome for my insightfulness. And my humor. And my good looks. I would also like to take this opportunity to make it clear that this is technically an unpost on an unblog. I do not know what HRevolution was like and obviously cannot speak to its value, but I do know there was a lot of sharp folks there that are very passionate about this work. But in the spirit of evolution (and revolution) there are a few traits that I believe are becoming increasingly important to those wanting to help create the future of this body of work.

Curiosity: I think that we need to ask more question and do a better job of seeking out information from different places. Questions are powerful and can determine the direction of our growth. Are we asking good questions, big open-ended questions? It can be easy to talk about all of the stuff that we do know, but to wonder about the stuff that we do not yet know is different. Are we looking outside of our networks and our profession for new ideas, new archetypes, new models, new language?

Critical Thinking: Social media is a tricky thing because if we are not careful we can use it to just replace the old talking heads with new more hip talking heads with iphones. Are we using our new tools and new connectivity to distribute power? Are we putting more power in the hands of the practitioner? Are we developing greater discernment? HR has been very susceptible to fads, so called “best practices” and shiny new metrics…even those measuring nothing that matters. Are we getting better at making the decisions that are right for our organizations?

Courage: If you want to help create tomorrow you have to be willing to walk out to the very edge of today and that can be a scary place to be. I would imagine that this topic showed up at HRevolution either formally or informally because I know that there were a lot of smart folks there with a lot of knowledge and expertise. And when you know your stuff it eventually becomes a question of courage. Are you willing to tell the truth and help your organization to tell the truth?

Maybe we can dig into these themes a bit more of the next week or two, I know that you will have some interesting perspectives as an internal practitioner.

-joe

Morals Schmorals

Jason-

I think I did not do a very good job of making my points in my last post. Most business leaders today prioritize short-term tangible benefit over long-term excellence...there are a variety of things that drive that. Most business leaders today don’t really get human capital practices so they stick to the other stuff...there are probably a variety fo things that drive that as well. The fact that many of these practices are long-term and challenging to actually measure (among other issues) become the justification for “leaders” to not fully invest.

Every single airline in this country knows what Southwest does to be successful and how it does it. Every single airline in this country continues to go a different way and continues to underperform Southwest. It is just much simpler to focus on being as profitable as possible today than it is to build an amazing organization.

But certainly you are right, there is more to the story.

You mention personal accountability and amen. Personal accountability should always be a part of the conversation, but it goes hand in hand with the organizations role in supporting that behavior. If we want employees to confront bad management then we have to make it safe to do so. This is a topic where it is common for organizations to have a big doing-saying gap. Almost every company out there says it wants people to speak up, it wants employees to tell the truth, and in almost every company the employees know that the truth is a bit more complicated. Organizations that truly want employees to be awake, alive and accountable can have it...that is our natural state as human beings. But most companies do no want that, as it requires a much different style of leadership.

You also mention the morality of work that truly matters and again amen...and give me a break. Maybe I am a bit extra cynical this morning, but if business and business leadership had a real sense of the “right” way, you and I would probably be unemployed, hungry and on the street. Any institution that exists solely for the purpose of profit, that privatizes profits and socializes costs is morally challenged from the start. Business has historically been forced to do the right things...against its will. The funny thing is that most of the right things that business has been forced to do have been beneficial to business in the long-term, and again I point back to my two original points. Business is not naturally oriented towards the long-term, that requires courageous, competent leadership and that my friend is a rare thing.

That is what I think.

-joe

Is Jason Seiden an Anarchist?

For obvious reasons we take the word “anarchist” pretty seriously, and to us it basically means one who seriously challenges the existing rule, norms or customs. A lot of people do a lot of talking about things like radical change and revolution and transformation, but for most people it is just talk.

If you are only loudly challenging the things that are safe to challenge (bad managers suck! / bad companies suck! / bad customer service sucks!) you are not really serious about changing anything and you certainly are not an anarchist. Anarchists have to be willing to challenge institutions and in-groups from time to time…anarchist have to be willing to challenge one another and themselves from time to time as well. If you cannot do any of this you are simply championing new sacred cows.

I knew that Mr. Seiden had some anarchist tendencies after I read his first book, How to Self-Destruct, but I was reminded of those tendencies recently after reading a recent blog post. We proudly fly the Gen X flag here at Talent Anarchy and I know that Mr. Seiden is “one of us”, but this post called us Xers out on some of our own stuff. We have some issues with “bosses” and “organizations” and we might not be building the kinds of relationships that we need to because of some of our own assumptions and beliefs.

Its good stuff and a good reminder to me that we cannot just point out what other folks need to do differently, but we also need to take care of our own side of the street. Regardless of the issue, the opportunity or the problem…we all have a roll to play, and it is important to have truth-tellers and anarchist to remind us of that from time to time.

So. Might it be time to name our first honorary anarchist?

-joe