General

A letter to Penny

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Dear Penny,

I wanted to write to thank you for your letter. I realise that replying to it twenty-two years after receipt is probably considered bad form. But then, at the time, I wasn’t ready to reply. And it was only this weekend that I was going through some boxes that I came across it and read and appreciated it.

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photo 1

Not missing the irony that, of course, this week people will be getting their own A-level results. And some of them will feel like I felt, back in 1992.

The strange thing about education, about our system is that we place so much importance on that very short period of time. You know, you and a few of the other teachers were absolutely right. I needed to go, I needed to get away and I needed to see what I could make of life.

At the time I was too obsessed with the opportunities that I saw diminishing before my eyes, to realise the world of opportunity that nonetheless awaited me. “But I was supposed to…” was the phrase that kept on going through my mind.

But life isn’t about “supposed to” or “should have”, life is about “can do” and “did do”. It took me the best part of twenty years to realise that. Before then I was too busy wanting to stick two fingers up to the past and show people I could be a success. I guess in some ways I’m grateful that this was my reaction to failure, rather than to get subsumed by it. Some people do.

The simple answer to your question though, is that I’m doing well. Life has been good to me, we’ve been successful and healthy and happy together. I’ve got to do things that I would never have dreamt would have been possible in that moment when I opened those results and saw the letters C,D&E. I’ve worked in amazing companies with some of the brightest people in their sectors. And together we’ve repeatedly made history.

And it makes me think that this week, like me 22 years ago, there are going to be people all over the country that are going to feel the world collapse under their feet as they look at the letters that they have on their screens (what happened to paper?)

My message to them is to, “go, get away and make what they can of life. Focus on what you can do and will do, not what you can’t do or won’t do. Your world feels limited, reduced and cruelly diminished. But your talents aren’t. You are everything that you were before and more. And you will be even greater still”.

With a bit of luck, they’ll have had teachers that cared for them, that nurtured them, that educated them. Not to pass exams, but (like I did) to help them grow. I hope they go out there and prove you right and the system wrong. I want them to be focussed, be successful and be happy.

Thanks for teaching me this Penny. I’m sorry it took me so long to realise and to learn, but maybe that’s why I didn’t do as well as I wanted. I’m a little bit slow. I hope life treated you well and I’m sorry we lost contact. Who knows, maybe the connected world of the web will rectify that.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Neil

PS. You’re too kind about the poetry, it was always a bit crap. But I guess I’m still writing, so that’s ok?

NB. If anyone happens to know the whereabouts of Penny Salkield, it would be my absolute pleasure to thank her in person.

Your happiness is your responsibility; it’s time to quit your job

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Over my career I’ve been able to identify the single biggest cause of employee dissatisfaction. That’s been working across multiple sectors, in different roles and in different conditions.

It isn’t compensation
It isn’t development
It isn’t promotion

It’s something that is completely out of our control.

It’s regret. The regret of failing to act.

Life is full of events over which we have no control, life is full of changes which we cannot influence. We can sit idly by and bemoan the fact that things aren’t what they were, that life has dealt us the hand that we didn’t want or that people are doing things or behaving in a way in which we disapprove.

We can’t change any of these things. But we can always act.

Unsurprisingly, these two things are often confused. The response is, “but I can’t do anything to change [insert cause of issue]” and the answer is always, “so what can you do?”

Ultimately we are all responsible for our happiness, we are responsible for finding our own peace and for ensuring that we make the most of our life both in and outside of work.

And that means accepting responsibility that we can act and our failure to act, not the change, leads to our regret.

In a work context, that often means leaving a company where you’re unhappy. I’ve seen too many people become under performers, become organisational hostages, become “that guy” in the canteen that everyone tries to avoid, become the source of dissatisfaction of others, simply because they failed to act.

Or it means accepting that sometimes change happens, the past is exactly that and we need to move on. In either case, this is a choice, a conscious decision that each and everyone is able to exercise.

Life is too short to sit, being unhappy and blaming others.

“Il n’y a de réalité que dans l’action.”

The only reality is in action.

HR excellence versus HR stupidity

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I watched the aftermath of the HR Excellence awards unfold with the dismay of a once proud father seeing the return of their drunken offspring, black eyes, a bleeding nose and in the back of a cop car. (CAVEAT ONE: Before I go on, I should point out I wasn’t at the awards nor did I follow the events live on Twitter). I was sat at home drinking herbal tea and having an early night. We can’t all be rock and roll…….

Anyone who has been to an awards evening will know that the compere is always a point of contention. Sometimes they’re good, sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re indifferent. Turns out the chap at HR Excellence created a new category, shockingly inappropriate. (CAVEAT TWO: I’m not defending any of the content or trying to argue that jokes apparently about child abuse are in anyway funny. Just no. I wasn’t there, but it sounds quite wrong).

So it turns out people were offended. So offended that some laughed, some Victor Meldrewed on the spot and some took to Twitter. None, that I’ve heard of were so offended or felt it appropriate to walk out. There was clearly still free booze to be had, sponsors to be pleased, and we have to balance indignation with a free bar now, don’t we? But shocking nonetheless and somebody, SOMEBODY had to take the blame.

The organisers.

And so the bile and outrage and pointed indignation was directed at the folks at HR Magazine. (CAVEAT THREE: Before it is dragged up by the gutter press, I have once been photographed having a glass of wine at an event with the Editor and Deputy Editor of the magazine, but I did not have sexual relations with that woman…..)

Anyhoo, the point is….. they’re still to blame.

Bastards.

But the thing is this. Can you imagine anyone who felt worse about this turn of events than the organisers? Can you put yourself in their place and think how that might feel? Can you imagine the sensation in the pit of the stomach? How they slept that night? The conversation in the office this morning?

As practitioners, as professionals we constantly espouse the idea of a no blame culture. And I personally don’t think it is helpful, productive or useful to point out loudly and openly where things went wrong. I do, however, believe in learning, and when things go badly wrong most people need time to regroup and to reappraise.

Banging on constantly about the way in which they’ve fucked up is hardly productive or helpful. Nor is it thoughtful, grown up or intelligent. It is the behaviour of vacuous, intellectually stunted, egotistical, smug idiots who constantly take the moral high ground and are as risk adverse as a crash helmeted slug in a refrigerator full of lettuce.

When you find out things have gone wrong, guess what? They’ve gone wrong. They’re not going wrong, likely to go wrong or even potentially wrong. They’re full fat, 100% pure, total high energy WRONG. And you can’t change that. When things go wrong, most people feel bad. Really fucking bad.

We have a choice how we react, we can support, help, advise, nurture and console. Or we can jump and down, point the finger of blame, claim second sight and superiority. It’s a choice and the choice we make reflects on our practice and on us. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. I’m not religious, but there seems to be something in that?

I want the HR profession to be bold, to be edgy, to take risks and to push the boundaries. Sometimes that will mean that we get things wrong. And if every time something goes wrong we behave like a bunch of puritanical know it alls, we will take less risks and be less exciting and less progressive. Maybe this was a risk that went wrong. Whatever, I’m sure the guys at HR mag are regretting it now, and I’m sure as hell that they don’t need the idiots rubbing it in their face.

The Bog (standard) Squad

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Having a blog is easy. Using Twitter is simple. That’s why any idiot can do it.

It is also why the mere fact that you can use a bit of simple tech does not in any way make you a rock star. It does not make you powerful, influential, interesting, cool or informed.

It does, however, mean that you sometimes get noticed.

Being invited to conferences is a privilege, it is not a recognition of your supreme existence. Being asked to cover an event is not a declaration of the second coming, it is bestowing a simple responsibility.

DO NOT: Think this is an opportunity to convey your superior intelligence.
DO: Think about what will engage your audience.

DO NOT: Think you have to constantly tweet platitudes.
DO: Be mindful of balance, moaning all day long isn’t going to help.

DO NOT: Treat the hospitality as your God given right.
DO: Be thankful of the organisers and sponsors that brought you there.

DO NOT: Think you can duck out of half the sessions and spend your time in the pub.
DO: Give yourself and the audience a break.

DO NOT: Think your presence there in anyway makes you clever or special.
DO: Help inform those that aren’t able to attend like yourself.

DO NOT: Tweet mindless soundbites that have no context.
DO: Ask questions and seek opinions of a wider audience.

Ultimately it comes down to this. Don’t be an arse about it, but do be human. Nobody wants to follow a stream of ridiculously vacuous tweets and blogs that mean nothing and create noise. They want humour and context and insight. They want to get the feeling of what is going on. If you’re not enjoying a session, that’s fine, but if you’re there on the back of the organisation, slagging off their entire conference makes you look like a vacuous, ungrateful leech.

There’s a skill to being a blogger, that is more than knowing how to sign in. There is a skill to tweeting about an event that is more than being there with a phone. Next time you’re asked to cover an event, think what you can do to make it a success for other people, not what’s in it for you.