Off limits
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My kids are a wonderful part of my life, they make me proud and astound me on a daily basis. Being a father is, without doubt, the most rewarding thing that I have ever done or will ever do. Everything else pales into insignificance. I’ve done and continue to do everything I can to prepare them for a future life of happiness and success in whatever they choose to do. Because that is what parents do.
Sometimes I realise how much they’ve grown, how much they’ve developed and how close they are to moving on. And of course that is what it is all about, but at the same time, there is something inside that wants them to stay small and protected. Tonight both my kids will be singing at the local schools carol concert, as they have done every year, for my son this will be the last time before he moves on. This morning the fresh snow was greeted with a “meh” last year it was squeals of delight.
Yesterday I wrote about obesity. I wrote about it because I believe it is a huge issue for the country and I believe it is a debate that we need to have BECAUSE I care about the future not just of my kids but of your kids and everyone’s kids. Some stupid idiot had the temerity to accuse me of being a bad role model to my children by raising this. Not only did they completely blur the line between the real me and the comic exaggeration that is The HRD, but they also chose to attack me as a parent.
I don’t care whether you disagree with me, whether you think I am an outrageous fool or a drunken buffoon. I don’t care whether you want to write streaming diatribes about me or my comments or views. I don’t care if you curse or swear or call me every name under the sun. That is all fair game.
But when you start to include my kids and my role as a father to them, that most certainly is not.
Fuck you.
A heavy heart
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We are a fat and lazy generation and we are going to pay for it. But worst of all, so will the next generation and the one after that. Our kids are going to pay the price of our greed. Congratulations.
Nearly a quarter of all UK adults are now classed as obese. Not chubby, not a little bit over their fighting weight. Clinically obese. That means it is likely to damage their health. Unlike our European brothers we’ve chosen to take an American model and consume ourselves into early graves. But not content with that, we’re doing it to our kids too…..24% of children aged between 2 and 15 are also obese.
And before I hear any of this passive liberal rubbish about it being a condition and fat people being as healthy as others….let us be clear…..THAT IS ALL CRAP! Stop pretending, stop lying to yourselves and stop being a lame victim. The vast majority of obesity is linked to lifestyle choices and being over weight is statistically proven to increase your risk of a whole host of illnesses and conditions.
So not only are we over feeding our kids, we’re also likely to completely fuck the National Health Service in the process by bleeding it dry of resources through our own over indulgence and complete laziness.
Health problems, higher taxes and a crumbling health system. What a fine legacy we are going to leave. Unless we start doing something about this NOW. As businesses, as organisations we need to take this seriously. I’ve written about this before, I know. But SOMEONE has to step up to the plate and sort this one out. The Government aren’t going to do it….they’re busy REDUCING the amount off sport done in schools. We need collectively to take this one seriously and understand that health and wellbeing is a competitive edge not only for our businesses but for the country as a whole.
Start the education process, start the programmes and initiatives that will help your staff, start leading from the front and being clear that a healthy workforce is as important as a healthy profit. If we don’t take action we are condemning this country in the same way the previous generation fucked up our pensions for us. Are you ok with that? Because I’m not.
Die of nothing but a rage to live
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“I am hurt.
A plague a’ both your houses! I am sped.
Is he gone and hath nothing?”
I’m not a great believer in cliques. I got over that at about the same time my balls dropped and my voice started to squeak. But I do believe in community. I believe in true community. The problem though is that very soon weak people seek identity from being part of something and that is when a community can become a clique. And then when the cliques form the strong start to use them for their own ends.
And what was once a community becomes a series of tribes and the attributes that were frowned upon in others suddenly manifest themselves within. People emerge and start to use the opportunity for self aggrandisement and personal gain. Ideas are quickly quashed and group think takes a grip. Tribe turns against tribe as a means of firming up their own identity and soon all sense of community is lost.
And what was good turns bad, what was laughter turns to tears and what was hope turns to disappointment…………
*****
“No question now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Sugar my tea baby
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Last night I was lucky enough to meet Laurie Ruettimann. I know I don’t need to explain who she is and if I do, then you need to get a life…..or a browser….or a cat magazine or something. It wasn’t a work meet it was an informal beer but inevitably we talked a little about blogs and blogging. In this world I am a new-born and Laurie is a wizened old woman. In fact if you’ve seen the picture…… When I started I was always drawn to Laurie, not because I agreed with her, because here was someone who was willing to take a position and stand by it. Often I disagreed completely, but the one thing it did was to start me thinking, to make me argue, to make me work out my position.
HR as a profession is notoriously crap at having balls. In fact there used to be a blog called HR with balls….not sure what entirely happened to them…..castration? I digress. Having a position, making a stance is not a weakness, far from it. Managers, fellow professionals respect you if you say what you believe. The moment you say, “this a decision for the business” not only have you disempowered yourself, but you’ve also added a further degree of separation between HR and “the business”.
You don’t influence by giving choices, you don’t change peoples’ opinions by asking them what they want to do and you don’t get better decision-making from submissive compliance. You get it through debate. And in order to have a debate, you need to have a position. How you express that position is going to be different depending on who you are dealing with. I have colleagues where conversations are the office equivalent to cage fighting and others where it is a game of chess. But each time I know what my position is and I make it clear.
If we’re serious about this profession (and I know I am, ‘cos its all I’ve got) we need to start standing up and being counted. We need to bring something to the party other than snivelling subservience. We need to start adding something. We need to bring a position.
You’ve been shopped
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As we move swiftly towards Christmas and swiftlier more swiftly in the US towards Thanksgiving I want you to spare a thought for the retail employees out there. It is the season for giving so give a little love in their direction…..go on you know you want to. Apart from you……yes YOU…..you’re not allowed to give any love now are you…..not after the last time……I mean really…..I’ve never been so embarrassed…….
Anyway…….
I know you are busy. I know that spending your money on things that other people will put at the back of their cupboards is important. I know that you love to fight over the 50% reduced top in last years colour because it is so you and the pair of trousers that really don’t make your bum look big……honest.
And I know that people aren’t responsive enough to your needs, your desires and your time limits. I know that.
I know that, because I can read your mind.
The kids that are there with the sash or the special t-shirt highlighting them as second class staff. They can’t. They only see an amorphous mass of angry human flesh behaving in ways in which we would find shocking…..if it wasn’t us.
They only see the minimum wage payment that they will receive and the hope that they may be given some extra hours over and above the crappy flexible contracts that they have.
They only see the fact that whilst everyone is at home stuffing themselves, they will be staying late to change POS in the hope that they might get a permanent crappy job at the end of the temporary crappy job.
They only see their lack of training and lack of legal protection and lack of employment rights.
So in the run up to the festive season, as you spend your hard earned money also spend some time to think about these guys who don’t want to be there, but have to be. Remember that that kid struggling with the till, or looking aimlessly into space WHEN YOU NEED SOME HELP RIGHT NOW is just doing their best in shitty conditions for shitty pay.
Share a bit of love their way, not only will you make their day better, you’ll also improve your own.
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There are moments of serendipity in life. Some come quickly, some work on a slower burn. Some are obvious and some……well they take you a lifetime to realise. Life is twisted and complex, lightness and darkness, it is baby kisses and sinister sneers. But it is all that we have, all that we need and has a richness that can take your breath away.
It is 2008 and my life is not what it should be. I know that, but I am caught in a series of events, behaviours and habits that are continuing to propel my ship down the river without a captain or course. The rocks that should exist in my life are instead crumbling pillars. Whether at home or at work all I experience is frustration, disappointment and inequity of reward for effort. Days are a fuzzy haze that roll into one another, tasks get completed, work gets done but without any sense of achievement.
The Company is a big FTSE100, the place where I have spent most of my career. I’ve risen through the ranks. Around me I have the best team of people who I have ever worked with. A real collection of talents. We’ve been delivering fantastic results. Not just by my standards, we are being recognised externally. But inside I don’t really care anymore. The company and I have been going our separate ways for a while. The only thing that keeps us together is the financial impact of being apart. It would be messy and of course there are the kids to think about too……
I am gliding in a sort of free form, uncontrolled, headless career suicide kind of way. From the outside it probably looks ok. Senior management role with a big company, share options, final salary pension, company car and a month’s worth of holidays a year. But the truth is I’m not moving and more and more the people who I see around me are alien. Whilst we are delivering, they are getting promoted based on politics and the schmooze. Whilst we are adding value, they are building empires and castles on sand.
If you do what I do the calls from headhunters are not uncommon. But, nine times out of ten the role isn’t right, the location isn’t right or the package isn’t right. The other one out of ten, you’re not right. Sometimes, however,……sometimes we laugh in the face of statistics and something amazing happens. On this particular occasion I was a wild card, because they had trawled their industry and failed to find a hire. They on the other hand were a trophy to assuage my ego….to show that people still wanted me, still valued me. The funny thing was though….well, we kind of hit it off.
When I resigned, the Group HRD pulled me into his office and in no uncertain terms told me that I was committing career suicide and that I should seriously consider my decision – a conversation that reinforced more than anything else my decision to leave. The MD would not meet my eye and shunned me for the period of my notice…..draining the last drop of respect that I had for them. And in September 2008 I upped sticks and left.
The two years have been up and down. It hasn’t been the easiest period of time to be in work never mind to be an HR Director. The first six months I felt like a fish out of water….not least because that is exactly what I was. The purging of the corporate world from my every sinew was slow and painful and confusing. In March 2009 I started writing a little blog called L’enfer c’est les autres as a way of expressing what I was going through and how I was starting to think. In November that year it became My Hell is Other People. Through the blog and through Twitter I have met many people who I am proud to have beside me and to call my friends.
I’ve started to think differently about the world of work, about HR and about people. I’ve remembered the importance of creativity in the way in which we approach our lives and I’ve relit the creative flame within myself. I don’t do things the way most HR Directors do things……and I’m ok with that. I don’t think the way that the journals tell you to do……and I’m ok with that. I’m finally starting to feel and be me……and I’m ok with that too. And so, thankfully, is my business. A little while ago, for the first time in their long and illustrious history and in they took the step to appoint their HR Director to the main board.
There are moments of serendipity in life. Without the hard times there wouldn’t be the good times. Without the sadness there would be no joy and without failure there would never be success.
Thank you all for your support and help on the way. x
Doing cartwheels
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HRD: Bonjour……
CEO: Ahhh…..its you….well come in…….
HRD: Thanks……..but……..ummm……. I am……
CEO: You are what?
HRD: ………………………….in
CEO: Ahh…..yes…….indeed……….remind me why I wanted to see you?
HRD: You just said you wanted to see me……
CEO: Well that’s no good is it? I mean…am I expected to know everything around here? For fucks sake…..fucking useles……
HRD: …….you wanted to give me a pay rise……?
CEO: No. It definitely wasn’t that……
HRD: …….a promotion?
CEO: To what?
HRD: *under breath* anything above Chief Dogsbody would be an improvement……
CEO: What?
HRD: I said……umm……has there been any movement?
CEO: In what?
HRD: ……stuff?
CEO: You’re making absolutely no sense today. Have you been drinking?
HRD: ….if only……….
CEO: Anyway, why are you here?
HRD: Is that a philosophical question?
CEO: Stop wasting my time.
HRD: ………………………………………….
CEO: …………………………………………..
HRD: so……………………………………….
CEO: ………………………………………..so?
HRD: …………………………..wanna hug?
CEO: GET OUT!!
Wrap your arms around me
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I accept that I may not always come across as the most touchy-feely person on the interweb it is ok….I can live with that. And yet at the same time I know that in HR we are all known as a bunch of tree huggers. Well, I’m going to let you into a little secret, I don’t hug trees, but I do hug people.
Ok, not just anyone…..I mean I don’t walk up to people in the street and hug them. Nor do I follow people around or write them scary letters. I’m normal, not psycho. Well ok, just a little psycho…..but then we all need to have a hobby. Come to think of it, I need a new balaclava….
But what about hugging at work? Should we, shouldn’t we, do we, don’t we? Would the workplace be better if we were to hug people every now and then? Would it break down boundaries or would it cause discomfort and unease? Is it a British thing to be so uptight about physical contact?
In my role as chief protagonist and leader of change, I feel it is beholden on me to make a stand. Starting right now. I’m off to hug the CEO…….I’ll let you know how I get on……
Why don’t you?
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Here’s something for you. We need to stop communicating so god damned much.
The world has exploded with information, we expect to know everything and if we don’t know it we expect to find out. Knowledge is not sacred, information is not sacred and ignorance is no longer bliss. We have a 24hr information culture and it is making us sick, fat and lazy.
You don’t need to know everything. You don’t need to be involved in everything. There is shit that other people know that you don’t. And guess what, there is shit that you know that other people don’t.
More and more we are snacking on knowledge, seeking the easy way, the microwave meal of enlightenment. And you know what? It doesn’t exist. You may know stuff, but you won’t understand anything. You become a fat, bloated somewhat belchy shadow of your former self.
Knowing less is more. Curious bewilderment is the new black. Put down your laptop, shut down your phone. Turn off the television and turn down the radio. Go for a walk in the park, meet someone interesting, read a book.
You know you’ll feel better for it.
Who let the dogs out?
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As well as being an HR ninja, father and all round international superhero I am also a dog owner. That’s right, not a dog lover, a dog owner. Dog lovers are weird people who smell a little strange and have that thousand yard stare thing going on. Dog owners are the ones that aren’t afraid to give the pooch a sly kick when they are being disruptive. See the difference?
Anyhow…..before the RSPCA come to take me away I better get to the point. So they have this thing where they say that dogs look like the owners, or their owners look like their dogs….or I guess logically both (chicken and egg moments are so not made for a Monday morning). Which got me to thinking…..if HR was a dog, what dog would it be? And then I stopped thinking that because it was too much like my favourite interview question, “if you were a biscuit what biscuit would you be?” – pause and watch the candidate’s head explode…..
Of course, it is far too simplistic to generalise…..HR is a broad church…..so here I unveil the various characters in HR…..have fun now!
The Trainer
Loyal, dependable and ultimately stupid, the Labrador pup of the HR world. The ability to get distracted by the sun reflecting on the wall. In time they overeat, under exercise and die of a heart attack. Because they are stupid. Did I say that already?
The Rewarder
Or otherwise known as the Schnauzer. Think about it, take a minute……doesn’t the sound of it just fit perfectly. I tell you….by the end of the day, the next time your comp and ben guru tells you that you can’t do something that you know is eminently sensible, you’ll be thinking, “Sod off shnauzer!”. Of limited intelligence and a bit beardy weirdy…
The Recruiter
Because everyone who owns one will tell you how loyal and lovely they are…..until they bite the head off a small defenseless person. Ok so that may be a bit over the top….they only maul you right? But they’re playing….. Oh yeah….and they’re all ugly too…..but so would you be if you had to kiss arse all day…..(that is the recruiters….not the pit bulls).
The Systemiser
I kid you not…..these dogs are vicious….you think the pit bull is scary?…..get a look at this bad boy…. The Papillon one of the most intelligent dogs, but with an attitude that sucks big time. Now can you just run me that report? Ok,……..run away! Because you systems guys…..we know that you do weird things at night when the rest of us are asleep…..like beating up grannies and stuff…..
The Generalist
Hardworking, loyal, incredibly intelligent and damned good-looking to boot. The HR generalist is, in an understated way, the king of dogs. Balanced perfection and boundless energy. But with a track record of worrying sheep…..still we all have our peccadilloes…..
So there you have it, the career may be a total dog….but at least we have variety…..and that my friends is the spice of life.
My Hell is Other People 