Bring your A game

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You bring your A game when things aren’t going well.

When things are fine, you can glide, you can dwell, you can afford to take your foot off the pedal.

The difference between a high performer and an average performer, is that when things get tough, the high performer kicks in and delivers more. They use uncertainty as a base to drive forward.

Every single successful person I have ever worked with, embraced adversity, thrived on it and grew stronger.

Every single passenger I have worked with saw themselves as a victim, sat on their hands and blamed others.

To those that believe, “it isn’t worth it” you are right. It isn’t worth it.

To those that believe, “we can make it better” you are right. We can make it better.

Two truths, one choice.

Your call.

Dumb acceptance

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I’ve written before about the use of the term, “the business” when referring to areas other than HR. To put it mildly, it drives me nuts and normally it arises in one of two contexts,

1) from within HR – “we need someone from the business to look at this”
2) in criticising HR – “they need to spend more time working in the business”

I’m baffled, confused and (I admit) a little bit grumpy. Let’s deal with scenario 1 first as an amuse bouche of perfectly formed stupidity, before we move on to the entrée of down right dumb, stupid acceptance of idiocy that is scenario 2.

If you work in HR and think that you’re not part of the business, then give up now and resign. Go hug a tree, or stare into the sunset, or become a coach. Because you’re wasting organisational oxygen, space on this earth and perhaps most importantly, my time.

There. Done. That was easy, wasn’t it?

So let’s talk about the main event.

I’ve heard a number of people over time espouse the theory that in order to be a good HR professional, you need to have worked in, “the business”. In fact it often features in comments on this blog. Can someone please tell me what “the business” is? Where is this elusive mystical beast? Is it tucked away in the armpit of the Yeti, or squeezed between the tightly closed thighs of the Loch Ness Monster? If anyone sees “the business” running free, give me a call, we need to talk….

I work for a publisher, does that mean I need to do an editorial role in order to be able to do my job as a HR director well? If I worked in law firm, should I spend time as a solicitor? What about an abattoir? Would time as a meat packer help me?

And do you really think these roles have the same skill set? The same knowledge base and the same competences? Of course not. I’m as qualified to do an editorial role as an editor is to do my role. And I can guarantee they wouldn’t want to go within a million miles of my job – because most of them are sane.

Do we say the same about finance, about marketing, about IT? Of course, not. Once again it is just stupid, shallow, groupthink without really understanding what we’re saying or trying to say.

HR needs to understand the way in which the business that employs it works, it needs to understand how the areas fit together, the commercial model, the brand, the strategic direction and the external economic environment. Anyone arguing this will get my full support and a virtual fist bump (or wrist punch as we call them chez Morrison).

Of course, yes.

Anyone saying that people who move cross functionally can bring different insights and expertise to their business areas will get a note of commendation and a wholly platonic, virtual man hug.

Yes.

But saying HR people need to spend time in “the business” is like saying that to be a good heart surgeon you have to have had a double bypass. It’s stupid, it’s crass, it’s unhelpful and it’s wrong. And most of all, it detracts from the main issue, which is ensuring HR teams understand and are passionate about their organisations.

That’s where the real story is at. Trust me.

It’s time to dump the cliches and move on.

All animals are equal….

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There’s an assumption that often runs through recruitment, that industry experience is necessary. That somehow the experience of a particular environment is more important than the skills and knowledge that may have been developed. It has happened to me in my career that I’ve not been considered for a job because, “they’re looking for someone with experience in x industry”.

I find this peculiar. In my career I’ve worked in,

the public sector
professional services
retail
media

In my team, we have people from a range of backgrounds, transport,manufacturing, media and financial services. But something I noticed over time was we have a lot of people who’ve worked in retail.

A disproportionate amount.

I tweeted something about this last week

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and the response was really interesting. In general, there was a lot of positive reaction. But, of course, some people tried to argue the point. So let me tell you what I think.

No career path is the same and there is no “right” way to develop your career. But certain sectors provide a quicker, more intense training ground and experience than others. And retail is one of those.

Why?

Because it is fast paced, fundamentally aligned to the brand, customer focused, varied and genuinely commercial. Pretty much everyone working for a retailer understands why they are there, what they are there to deliver and their role in making that happen.

Each of the sectors that I’ve worked in have given me something different and something challenging, but as a learning ground, I don’t think anything was as formative as my time in retail. And when I recruit good people, a lot but not all, come from retail backgrounds.

So that doesn’t mean that good people only come from retail, or that retail produces only good people. But there is a higher likelihood that you’ll find a bright, commercially astute, experienced and organisationally focussed individual. They might add something to your organisation, even if they haven’t worked in that sector.

The myth of recruiting within sector is dangerous, arrogant and essentially lazy. Cross pollination is the new black, variety is the spice of life and change is the new normal.

All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.

It’s just the way it is.

We want to be together…..

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I’ve written before that the true value of Human Resource Management is in taking a systemic approach to organisational performance. HR is at its strongest when it provides a convincing, cohesive agenda based on organisational understanding and environmental awareness. Understanding the internal and the external environments and delivering seamlessly across the organisation.

HR is at its weakest when it is fragmented, isolated, distant, disconnected and seemingly counter intuitive.

We’ve all seen the models of HRM that show the inter linkages between specialisms and functional capability, but more than that we can use our common sense to understand the importance. If reward strategy is aiming to achieve something different to the performance management approach, which is built on different principles to the learning and development plan and has nothing in common with the resourcing goals. Then we intuitively know that this is one screwed up organisation.

HRM is a broad church, as a profession it accepts people with specialisms, it accepts people transferring in from other professions and it accepts inter dependencies with other areas of business. The skill of the HR leader is to recognise the breadth, diversity and inter connectedness and yet to be able to present it in a cohesive, recognisable and understandable manner. It isn’t always easy, but it is always achievable.

As with any broad church, you’ll also find the conflicts, the tensions, the insecurities and the chips on shoulders. You’ll hear claims for greater seniority, more importance, recognition and responsibility. Learning and Development feels overlooked and not taken seriously enough, Resourcing wants to be seen to be more strategic, Compensation and Benefits doesn’t understand why people can’t be more compliant and Generalists believe they have a God given right to walk on water.

That’s just the way it is.

The role of the HR leader is to manage the tensions, to help build knowledge and understanding of the value of collaboration, cohesion and consistency. To take the view of the employee, the manager, the leader and not to be inward facing and self obsessed. Put simply, nobody cares about the internal relationships other than us, they just get in the way of delivering successful organisations.

We are stronger when we’re together, we’re weaker when we’ve divided. It is as simple as that.