HR

Power, control, HR and Ulrich

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As I write this, I’m heading off over the Atlantic. So I know it is normally de rigueur to mention the number of feet….but I’ve never been the most spatially aware and, let’s be honest, you really don’t care. It’s ok….we can be honest….we’re amongst friends.

Whilst working on the subject, of which we must not speak, which occupies most of my waking and sleeping hours, I’ll also be spending some time with someone who divides my world, our profession, more than most. Someone we could maybe describe as the Marmite of the HR world. Revered by many, loathed by others and the subject of more column inches than even the Rave Pony. I’ll be meeting and spending time with a certain Dave Ulrich.

I’ve been pretty open about the Ulrich model in the past. I firmly believe it has been responsible for down skilling the HR profession. I believe it has made building a career in HR harder than ever. The model has been snatched by the profession with the blind eagerness of an addled addict spying a wrap of crack down the back of a well worn and somewhat putrid smelling sofa.

I also don’t believe that you can blame Ulrich for this any more than you can blame Smith and Wesson for the ridiculous levels of gun deaths in the country that likes to consider itself the most advanced in the world. Yeah…I’m posting this after I’ve got through immigration.

But that isn’t it. The issue isn’t the model.

The issue is about power and control. And no model has, or will, deal with the issue that is at the heart of the problem.

We see the power tension in the EU, in the United Nations, in our health care system, local and central government.

In any organisation with central and devolved functions, with local and global functions will always have tensions. The thing about the Ulrich model is that it did nothing to tackle them and instead went a long way to creating significant additional issues by highlighting and emphasising them.

Centres of Excellence looked down on Business Partners. Business Partners looked down on Centres of Excellence. And everybody looked down on the Shared Service guys. If they could find them….somewhere between here and Bangalore.

The creation of an additional power struggle within an already fragile and uncertain profession was as welcome as the proverbial fart in a space suit. And as parts of the HR function set about fighting in and amongst themselves, in a comedic HR turf war. The people that really matter, the employees, the managers, the customers and consumers, became increasingly disenfranchised from the department that couldn’t even speak highly of themselves.

Confusing. Baffling. Conflicting. Debilitating.

I don’t think any “model” is going to work unless you can deal with this issue of power and control. Throwaway statements about collegiate working and cooperative solutions are excrement coated feathers in the breeze. Easy to throw out there, seemingly light and appealing, but ultimately stained, stinking and ineffective.

So let’s get this elephant on the table, this walrus on a rock, this ostrich egg on a giant sized egg cup. And let’s crack this thing once and for all. The power struggle within HR is all pervasive and crippling. No model that separates, that divides will work unless it deals with this, the very essence of our identity crisis:

Who has the power and who has the contol?

Ask a stupid question….

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Applying for jobs is hard work and particularly so if you’re graduating in the current environment. It is hard for other groups too, I know, but it isn’t that many years since I was coming out of University and trying to get my foot on the career ladder. So I have a lot of sympathy.

Job seeking is a pretty soulless process. Time consuming, expensive, depressing and often fruitless. But you have to keep going and you have to keep positive. Despite the stupid application forms you need to complete, the ridiculous processes that are created, despite the, oh so clever, questions you have to answer.

Because yes, that question that you wrote that you thought would sort the creative wheat from the non-creative chaff is being met at best with an eye-roll and at worst with utter contempt. As one job applicant said recently to me, “[it] makes me feel like I’m not being taken seriously as a hard-working student who wants to show my skills and talents”.

Seriously, have you looked at your recruitment process from the other side of the fence? Sure there may be more candidates than there are jobs, for now. But does that make the applicants less human? I’m not talking about candidate journey – there are recruitment bloggers out there who will cover the subject much better than me. I’m talking about common decency and respect.

If you ask a candidate to complete pages and pages of answers as part of their graduate application, don’t you think you should show them a little respect back? If you’re going to ask them question after question, then at least make them relevant to the applicants and respectful of the time, hard work and financial commitment that they have already put in just to be deemed worthy to complete your process.

We all need to make selection decisions, of course. But can the candidate see the relevance of it and do they feel that they are being judged on criteria that feel fair and transparent?

“Describe a unique experience you’ve had over the last year” (are you testing me on my descriptive abilities or the quality of my experiences?)

“Where would you like to be in 5 years time?” (geographically, existentially or financially?)

“Why do you want this job?” (because medical science rejected my body and a corporate career was all that was left open to me)

So yes, ask questions, pull your application processes together, design your assessment centres, do the do. But try to put yourself in the candidate’s position too. This probably won’t be the only job they’re applying for, they’ve seen hundreds of similar processes. Make it relevant, make it easy for them to shine and make it reflect well on you, both in the short-term and for your longer brand perception.

I still have all the rejection letters that I received, somewhere in a file….I’m not against grudge bearing….I know who you are…..

Continuous learning is your own competitive advantage

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We’re all looking for that extra something. Those of us in the corporate jungle know, that at one time or another, we will come up against someone else, someone powerful. Head to head, face to face, nose to nose. You get the point.

When you come up against someone, the question that you will ask yourself is, “what is my advantage?” But, by then it will be too late, because by then you will be pushing heavy stuff up a hill against a downhill wind. And that, my friends, is both an uphill struggle and a blow off in one simple sentence.

So the question is, or the question should be, how can I gain that advantage now?

A lot of my free time is spent cooking, I love the challenge of creating dishes that surprise, entertain but also simply nourish people.  I love providing people with things that they really want. That they enjoy.

And you know what? That would be the most amazing way to approach the world of work. What if we strived every day to dish up something to our co-workers that surprised, entertained and nourished them? What if we constantly tried to learn, improve and deliver delight?

How about….

1)    We absorb technique. We read, we learn, we are inquisitive. We look to others for knowledge and understanding.

2)    We experiment unremittingly. We try, we serve, we receive feedback, we improve, we try again. There is never a sense of “that will do”.

3)    We learn from others, unafraid to listen, taste, learn and accept the knowledge of others that may have been there first.

4)    We constantly seek to amaze.

This is all about continuous improvement, about continuous learning, about striving to improve, to excite, to surpass our history.

All of us know that one time or another, we will come up against someone else and at that point, we will have had a couple of choices.

But the most important ones, will already have passed.

If we can be good, be strong, be wild and be focussed on being amazing every day. Well then, the rest, it can work itself out.

Why I’m not listening. And nor should you.

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Would you buy a cookbook from someone who hadn’t been near a kitchen in anger for decades? Or learn to drive from an instructor who last saw a car when they had someone walking in front with a red flag?

How about someone teaching you to shoot, who only had a track record in making bullets? Or have your house built by a plumber?

How about a mountain guide that had never been outside of Holland?

I’m sounding ridiculous, right?

When you’re looking for advice, when you’re looking for someone to help, when you’re looking for a friendly hand to guide, when you want expertise…..when you NEED expertise. Then, you want someone who has been there, taken the blows, dodged the bullets and made it out the other end. You want someone who, themselves, has done the hard miles.

So why in the world of work do we take advice from people who have come no closer to running a business than I have to running a marathon? I could tell you how to run after a bus…but that would be the limit of my experience. And you’d be foolish to listen to me on anything further.

On a daily basis, I hear lawyers telling me how to run a business. Now anyone who has ever provided HR support for a legal department will tell you that lawyers are amongst the worse people managers since Attila the Hun hung up his axe. They are great at providing legal advice, but after that….not so much.

And how about the consultants that have “worked” in HR. The ones that when you check their Linkedin profiles haven’t actually been in any organisation of any size since Margaret Thatcher was in power.

Or they just had a sucky job in a sucky company.

I don’t want to beat up on consultants, or lawyers, or anyone. Well maybe a few people, but I’m going to shelve that now and focus on my professional persona.

For the best part of 20 years, I’ve been slogging my butt in to organisations and trying to make them a better place to be for the people who work there. From the CEO to the cleaner. For everyone. And I do it because I honestly believe it makes the world of work a better place.

So I completely resent being told how to do my job better, by people who have no idea of the realities of an organization, of my daily life, of business in the 21st century.

I don’t mind thoughts, I don’t mind suggestions, I don’t mind specific points of knowledge. I am not against collaborative working. That is all good.

I’m an HR Director, I have skills, I have experience, I have knowledge, I have expertise. Every day I hone these as I work to do the right thing for my company and my employees. I bring something to the party.

And if you work in HR, so do you.

So next time someone is telling you that you should be doing this, that or the other. Ask them….when did you do that? When was the last time that you succeeded in deploying that in an organisation? What was the result?

What experience do you have that can complement MY experience?

And if they can’t answer that question to your satisfaction, then show them the door. They add no value.

And I tell you now, I won’t be listening to them. And nor should you.