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Crash landing back to reality after a week of glitz and glamour where I got to walk up a proper red carpet with fans and photographers all sporting a disappointed “who is that idiot?” look. But hell I milked it anyway. So much so that I woke up the following morning having overslept and with just under an hour to pack, check out, get to the airport, through security and onto a plane. Which I did. Although never again…….
Anyway, the week away meant little time to blog and therefore a glut of ill prepared and ill-conceived ideas ready to spew themselves onto my keyboard and into your eyes (unless you still have them closed from the thought of me poncing up a red carpet).
The week before last saw the first TRUManchester part of the TRU series of events run by the effervescent Bill Boorman (who incidentally wrote about me this weekend but in no way relating to that – we’ve had our ding-dong, it is over and done with!). One of the tracks at the event was entitled the future of HR. Given that this was an event for Recruiters, my initial reaction was it was akin to asking Sunday School kids to debate the future of Islam.
Over the week I’ve been thinking about this a little more. First of all I don’t think there needs to be a debate about the future of HR. It is the business equivalent to a debate on the future of Snickers bars when the real issue is childhood obesity. There is a debate to be had, but we’re having the wrong one. The real issues are about people and the workplace, about the globalization of employment, the increasing disparity between the knowledge economies and the service economies. The real issues are why we are witnessing the last generation with a livable pension and what we do after that. The issues are global, complex and downright scary.
The role HR needs to be fulfilling is leading this debate, of engaging all of the parties, the business men, the economists, the educators, the unionists and of course, the politicians. If we can do this, if we can lead this thinking and shape the future of the world for the better, or at least not for the worst. If we can take a few steps forward, there will be no need to even think about the future of the profession; we’ll have defined it through our actions.
Linked in, zoned out
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Day two in Berlin and the rain is pouring down. I had a day off today when I had hoped to see a few of the sights and absorb some of the culture. I still got to see the sites but all I absorbed was first grade German rainwater. I exaggerate of course and I would thoroughly recommend Berlin to anyone who has never been. Just the thought of the wall is enough to send me into deep introspection.
But before I have a chance to rest on my intellectual laurels, I am going head first into 72 hours of almost non-stop meetings and schmoozing. I’m not particularly good at schmoozing, I’m somewhat of an introvert and the constant tittle-tattle of small talk doesn’t come easy to me. I guess I’m not alone here. But if you read all the experts out there and the fervent twitterers you’d believe that if you aren’t constantly networking then you are somehow a loser waiting to happen,an incomplete human…..a business failure.
Personally, I don’t have a network. But, I do have relationships.
Take two scenarios. The weekend before last I spent the weekend with complete strangers. I did so because in some way or another I had already made contact with most of the people attending, I was interested in them and I wanted to find out more about them. I wanted to have contact and build relationships. Then, last week I was due to attend a swanky dinner with a number of high-profile people from the business world. I really couldn’t be bothered and pulled out.
The difference for me was that with the first lot of people there was nothing to be gained. We were meeting to get to know one another. The second lot of people all had a vested interest in being there. They wanted to make contacts to further their own careers or businesses. I don’t do business with people who are part of my “network”, I do business with people with whom I have a relationship.
Those experts out there telling you and I to network, in most cases they have something to sell. To sell to you. So of course they want everyone to get out there and network. Take a tip from me. Focus on quality not quantity. You don’t need to attend pointless, heartless events aimed to expose you to the hyenas. You do not to spend time with people you like, you trust and you get along with. It may not give you or them any benefit in the short-term, but the relationships will be meaningful, longer term and more likely to bear fruit.
Respect my authoritah
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So this week sees me take off for Berlin. It’s not a city I know well, it’s not a language I know well. I don’t do a huge amount of business travel these days, the allure of hotels is far exceeded by the desire to be at home with my family. But I need to be away this week as the global corporation of which I form a minuscule part summons the great and the good (and me) together.
As is the way with these über gatherings there are meetings in abundance and therefore a whole load of preparation to go with it. Which is why I’m writing this on a Sunday evening on the sofa, taking a few minutes away from the papers that I should instead be writing.
But hang on you ask? Is the man with borderline OCD really leaving everything to the very last-minute? Is his some kind of new way of being, some trial of strength and fortitude? No. I only wish it was.
Basically………my team fucked up.
They let me down, they stuffed me. There was a mark to step up to. They took one look, shook their heads and departed for the nearest outlet selling alcoholic beverages, to later piss their careers up against the wall. They had months to deliver on this particular piece of work and they failed. The failure I can cope with. The fact that no-one informed me….that is another thing.
And that brings me to the point. There are very few simpler things in business….indeed in life…..than managing expectations. If you’re asked to deliver something, then there is a professional expectation that you will. UNLESS you say otherwise. That is your responsibility, no-one elses.
You may not like your work, you may think your boss is a dick, you may believe you were cut out for the stage or for bigger and better things. But you should have you own professional respect and dignity regardless. You have a responsibility to yourself and to all of those around you to be the best that you can be. When we stop caring, when we start to let things slip, before we know it things start to slip around us too.
So I’ve worked like an idiot for the last few days to turn this one around. I’ve done it and I can go away knowing that I am about as well prepared as I can be. But I did it for myself. Because there was little other choice.
I’ve got a young team. They are still learning. When I get back next week, we’re going to take some time to reinforce some basic messages.
You see a rainbow, I see a dark cloud
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Guess what fuckers? I’m back.
I’m truly back. I was suffering a little bit of a wobble there, things were all getting a little bit weird and Kafkaesque. But then I had a moment, an epiphany. And for this I give thanks to a wonderful twitter friend.
Following my post the other day, they sent me a tweet that started me thinking, but I wasn’t sure I totally understood and so I asked them to email me their thoughts in a little more detail,
………I (and presumably others) arrived at your blog and kept reading because it often strikes a chord with lots of corporate nonsense, such as unthinking acceptance of Ulrich etc. Posts like “Coachy-coachy-coo-coo” contain the kinds of conversations that I have. And all the CEO stuff…. absolutely – they are all mad.
It is hard to blog in public about some aspects of working life, as to be really interesting (and not watered down) requires truth and integrity – and that’s just not possible if using one’s own ID. Well, it is possible if future employment isn’t a worry, and it is possible for consultants, journalists and academics. So to be real as a blogger, you have to be unreal.
And all of a sudden I started thinking again. The reason that I started to blog was that I was tired with the absolute crap that I heard in the corporate world. I found the content of the HR press and journals nauseating in the extreme with their sycophantic following of the “in” organisations like RBS (until they went tits up) and flirtation with the latest fads and fashions. And most of all I was amazed at the way that HR blogs were predominantly used as a way of people promoting their individual careers. Either because they were consultants or because they had one eye on moving into consultancy or…..heaven forbid….key note speaking.
I don’t want to achieve any of that from this blog. The reason I started was a reaction to all of the above and the desire to reach out and say, “we don’t have to take all of this so damned seriously you know?” Someone needs to stand up and tell it as it is, someone needs to break through the bullshit, someone needs to hold others to account. If bloggers can’t do this then who the hell can?
I’m not going to change the world, I said that from the start. But if I can make you laugh, If I can make one young HR pro or student look and think about things differently, if I can make you fill your lungs up, lift your head and get back on with your work knowing that it isn’t just you. If I can do that, then everything else that goes with it is worthwhile.
Even if it means going back into the shadows.
Back to basics
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If you work in HR you are a service. You are not a profit centre, you are an overhead. Don’t fight it, don’t run from it, don’t try to conjure up nebulous arguments about how you add to the bottom line. Just do your job. Simple.
I’m not saying you have to sit there passively and take it up the arse from any passing manager. Of course not. but there is a world of difference between providing a good service and being a doormat. But ALL good service starts with being focussed on delivery and on delight. It focuses on the needs of the client, it doesn’t focus on the needs, wants and desires of the provider.
Do you really know what your organisation wants? Do you really know what they need? Or do you just know what you think they need and what you want to do? Because believe me, they won’t be the same things.
Being a service doesn’t make you secondary, it doesn’t make you superficial, it doesn’t make you disposable.
Being crap at what you do, does.
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It was at dinner on Saturday night with my fellow #socreccamp attendees that Alex Hens asked me a question that has really been troubling me. I can’t quite remember the wording, but in essence he asked me whether I ever regretted starting this whole thing, being anonymous, being theHRD, being a loudmouth idiot who shoots his mouth off left, right and centre.
I can’t quite remember the conversation (there were a number of beers involved) but I do remember saying, “well at some point I’m going to have to kill off the HRD”. At some point, I’m going to have to kill off the HRD……there you go. That is the truth of it. At some point I’m going to have to decide to live in one world or the other. I can’t keep attending events in the real world and hoping to keep up my anonymity. It just won’t work.
Sooner or later someone or other is going to rumble me. They’ll find out one way or another, either by luck or through endeavor. Hopefully they’ll be friendly and keep it to themselves. But then it will ultimately put them in a difficult situation too. If they’re not friendly and they decide to use that information either for their own personal kicks or for other nefarious activities….well it doesn’t bear thinking about.
And this is before you start to consider issues of other people’s freedoms. The freedom to take photographs at events without me having to dive behind a pillar, pull my cap down over my face or ask politely that they are either pixellated or removed. I mean really….what sort of a jumped up idiot does that make me? It just isn’t fair on others despite how courteous and obliging they are for now.
So, at some point the HRD will meet his maker. Well his maker will meet him. Or they’ll meet together and decide a dusty drawer in a cupboard in the attic of the internet is the right place for him. It’s not quite now, it’s not quite yet. But it will happen, because it has to.
I find that kinda sad.
PS. I took the photo on the first night of #socreccamp. I hope you like it.
SocRecCamp – The ones that got away
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It’s a weird one to try to explain. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Umm…I’m going camping”
“Cool, with friends?”
“Umm…..actually, I haven’t met them before…….”
“……….”
“…..and they don’t know who I am…….”
“Taxi!”
“……..and all weekends they’re going to call me by a name that isn’t really my name…..”
But then this is the interweb social media like age and of course anything is possible. So that is exactly what I did.
This weekend saw what I hope will prove to be the inaugural #socreccamp as 16 of us set sail for deepest darkest Devon for a weekend of fun, frivolity and hashtags. To say that I was experiencing a certain level of anxiety prior to attending is somewhat of an understatement….to the point that on Thursday I was very close to pulling out. But I didn’t and I’m glad.
And in the spirit of continuous professional development from these events, this is what I learnt:
- Social Media and Recruiter type people have mobile phone attachment issues. In fact they have mobile phone issues. When in a pub without signal, they resembled a bunch of recovering alcoholics. Phones were placed, turned, positioned, repositioned, tweaked and re-tweaked. And that was before the accusations of signal stealing started…… But seriously, I thought I had problems…..these guys are hardcore! 🙂
- Tents are like cars. They are a male thing and are without doubt directly associated with confidence about penis size. We had a range of sizes. Even the diddy Charlie Elise chose not to sleep in her handbag and to bring one that could have accommodated 30 of her. Mine was the smallest. I’m just sayin’…….
- Surfing is fun. It also shows you different sides to people. As a bunch of beginners we made a lot of mistakes, but everyone persevered. The Duracell Bunny that is Lisa Scales (and by that I mean she’s fluffy and bangs on a lot) floated past me muttering, “If I don’t nail this I’ll be back here tomorrow, I will do it…” Only Andy Headworth felt a bit of a prick and decided to stop….whilst the rest of us just looked like a bunch of pricks (he trod on a Weaver fish…he’s a top guy….honest). But most importantly I think it was a great ice breaker, it gave us some shared experiences that helped calm the nerves.
- People have some screwed up ideas of what I look like. No Sarah Knight………………you may be gorgeous and smiley and all that, but I am NOT short, fat ginger and middle-aged! You must have been mistaking me for someone else 🙂
- My blog and twitter biographies are pretentious crap. I hear you, I take the feedback. I’m going to work on them……just as soon as I work out what the hell to say!
But most of all, more importantly than anything else I reminded myself what a good bunch of dudes are out there in the blogosphere and twittersphere. People that would take an unnamed idiot like me and treat me with respect, kindness and consideration. People that are ok with the quirks that come with being anonymous. And for that I extend my deepest gratitude to you all.
A full roll call of #socreccamp participants is as follows:
Wendy Jacob (if you need to find her just use a metal detector)
James Mayes (Mr Innovations Catalogue)
Mervyn Dinnen (one half of Waldorf and Statler)
Gareth Jones (……the other half)
Andy Headworth (purveyor of booze beyond compare and all round top man)
Sara Headworth (delivered some of the funniest most understated one liners of the weekend)
Matt Jessop (my find of the weeekend…..genuine, real all round good guy)
Stephen O’Donnell (genius creator of #beyourownbestfriend)
Sarah Knight (Stumpy Miss Daisy…..)
Matt Alder (Mr iPhone 4 – with no underscore)
Peter Gold (‘sup bruv?)
Lisa Scales (who gave me the best most reassuring hug of the weekend)
Charlie Elise (the journo within and adopted micro Welsh person)
Gary “Gimp” Franklin (employ this man, but for fucks sake make sure he know the dress code before he starts)
Alex Hens (our very own Sugar Daddy….the man who managed to constantly be inviting young women into the car…..)
Research Update
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My attention was drawn yesterday to research carried out by HireScores.com which showed that for the British the dream employer is the purveyor of all things fizzy, Coca-Cola. In HR towers we see a lot of these sorts of surveys, but I was particularly drawn to this one because of the robust nature of the research and the empirical methodology.
The sample size of 1,326 people, representing a healthy 0.002% of the UK population, clearly adds validity to the conclusions from the survey which included a, “multi answer question”. Along with Coca Cola (76%), other “dream places of work” include Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Disney and British Airways.
The top reason stated for wanting to work for Coca-Cola was “the salary” with 42% highlighting this. Now the 42% of the 76% must have something on me, because try as I might, I could only find one vacancy with Coca-Cola in the UK and unfortunately it didn’t include a salary in the advert. Still, the research must be right, I must be missing a trick.
The other thing that struck me as slightly strange, however, was how the research fits with some of the other fine studies that have also been carried out. For example, the 2001 research[1] that indicated that 89% of ex- employees of Coca-Cola worldwide were Pepsi converts within 12 months of leaving. And of course the widely reported story[2] of the ex Google IT consultant who revealed that employees were given Android phones so that there locations could be mapped via GPS and Google maps at any point during the day. Neither of which suggest a completely happy bunch of campers.
As an aside, the research also highlighted that more than women than men would be willing to go abroad. Funnily enough in a similar study by a specialist family charity[3] found that two-thirds of married men would happily go and work abroad, whilst the other 33% were either unavailable for comment or replied in a foreign language. But I guess that’s the intricacies of research for you!
I open my arms in welcome to this fine study and I ask you to do the same. I am sure this goes a long way to contributing to the debate on employer branding and how to become an employer of choice. As we speak I have a room full of minions researching Coca-Cola, so that one day we too can feature as a “dream place of work”.
Until that time, I will be taking the words of Managing Director of HireScores.com Lisette Howlett to heart,
“I have a strong belief that people can achieve whatever they put their minds too [sic], if people have a desire to work for Coke all they have to do is work hard and they should achieve their goal…….If people are seeking out new employment, sites such as HiresScores.com can be such a significant help”
[1] Bubble, Pop et al The Journal of Soft Drink Human Resources, Autumn 2001
[2] IT R US, The Registrar, The Gruniad amongst others Jan 2009
[3] Relate, Reasons for Divorce and Separation: What role does work play? Out of print
I have nothing but no ball intentions
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It won’t have escaped any resident of the UK or indeed any cricket lover that there has been a bit of scandal over the weekend. But before you all click away, rest assured I’m not going to write about sport.
To summarise, the scandal has been caused by an undercover reporter revealing that players were “allegedly” complicit in a betting syndicate by making errors to order to facilitate spot betting. In other words, they were bowling no balls to order by stepping over a white line at a pre agreed point so that others could profit by betting on it. Along with the understandable outcry about the specific act, there has also been a wave opinion that sports people should always be “doing their best”. And it is this that strikes me as both ridiculous and naive.
Sport people, like business people, like any people. Are people. Ok, so I labour the point, but it is a Tuesday after the Bank Holiday and you may be limited in the brain cell compartment (that’s ok). And people are not always performing at their peak. Moreover, people sometimes don’t perform out of choice. The reasons for demotivation are well scripted and presented by greater brains than mine. However, these guys didn’t just not participate, they acted….but negatively. Is that so unusual? I think not.
I’d suggest this is pretty common, and I know that I certainly see it throughout the world of work. People don’t perform for a manager, because they want to see them get into grief, they don’t pick up on an error because they want to try to profit from someone elses mistake and some even go to the extent of wrongly associating other people with cock ups in order to benefit.
I’m not condoning any of this behaviour. I’d love to live in a world where sportsmanship and fair play rule and that everyone acts in the best interests of society and strives for the greater good. Unfortunately that place only exists in fairy tales and in the guidance we give to our children in hope that a drop in the ocean can become a turning tide. So instead lets stop the hand wringing and the moral outrage. People are people, they do good and they do bad – regardless of what they do to earn a living.
PS. If you haven’t heard enough of my drivel for one day, you can also read a more serious article that I wrote for the wonderful XpertHR here.
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For the past few weeks I’ve been working on a project. It’s a big project, a really important project. If I pull this off it could be life changing, if I screw it up it will always sit there lurking in the shadows as a reminder of my incompetence.
And incompetence is the word. I am so far out of my comfort zone that I can barely remember what I am actually capable of doing without significant thought and effort. Because everything is an effort and nothing seems easy.
I hate feeling like this. You’ve probably figured by know that I am a control freak by nature. I see no point in fun fair rides, the adrenaline rush cannot overcome the distress of the feeling of being out of control. I get that some people like this sensation, but I don’t. All I get is a feeling of being ridiculously stressed.
Sure I have people helping me and there is the wonderful world of the interweb to provide me with more information than I can possibly digest in one sitting. But I am used to knowing more than the people helping me and I just don’t have time to do a crash course. How can I tell if what I am being told is right, if I don’t know the answer myself?
The simple truth I guess is that I just have to do my best. And I have to trust that people are doing their best and that the work they do is good. Perhaps most importantly, I need to trust my own instincts and back myself to be able to work my way through. And hope for a bit of luck…..
I’ll hopefully be able to reveal more in time but for the moment I worry that I’ll jinx it. So just keep your fingers crossed and if when I manage to pull this off I’ll let you all know what it was all about.
My Hell is Other People 