It’s common for organizations to begin their Lean journeys focusing on production, operations and Lean tools. It’s only after toiling at it for a couple of years that they realize they should’ve focused sooner on the human capital aspects of creating lasting change. Commonalities between operational improvement and managing involvement are significant, particularly with regard to three critical work streams often overseen by the Human Resources (HR) arm of human capital [Read more]
Let’s all stop being professional, a rhino’s tale
April 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Every time someone with enough rank and a title granting them authority starts to screw up, behave in a foolish or terrible manner, or speak like a fool – we are told that we shouldn’t address the issue because “That wouldn’t be professional.” So, since being professional prevents us from acknowledging there are problems, let’s make a conscious decision to be profoundly un-professional.
What’s at work here is the manifestation of fear. Fear that if I point out there’s an 80,000 pound rhinoceros in the room, someone will make my life difficult, or I’ll lose my job altogether. Which is silly, because the rhinoceros is obvious and it stinks to high heaven. [Read more]
Adversity: It’s Not Whether It Will Happen But How You React That Counts
February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment
At some time you’re going to face serious adversity. Maybe you already have. Your crisis may be an internal or external one, but it will come. The more extensive your leadership reach, the more likely you are to face these situations. The impact can be disastrous for your business and for you personally. Just ask [...]
Shattering the rules: The too hard pile
January 4, 2012 By Leave a Comment
It is because of fear that we look at change as being too hard. We believe the obstacles insurmountable. The deck is stacked against us, or maybe we just don’t know how – so we fear looking foolish if we fail. So we don’t try. We throw things on the Too Hard pile and forget about them. We throw them there, so we don’t try and we just accept. We accept until we start to believe things are this way for a reason. We believe long enough to start to defend it, and then the status quo reigns. That is a powerful load of inertia to overcome [Read more]
Typical Recruiting: The first step to the last straw
January 3, 2012 By 1 Comment
From time to time I am contacted by recruiters, usually third-party folks who are looking to gain a commission, and once in a while I get a message from an in-house recruiter who has found my resume on monster.com or LinkedIn. The typical introduction, whether by phone or email, tends to go something like:
Hello, I am ___________, a senior recruiter with ___________. I have a position I think you are a perfect fit for. Please forward me your resume and I’ll give you more details about the position.
Now, all of that sounds normal, right? It’s just business as usual and part of the HR hiring process. Sadly, if we’re looking at it as part of an acceptable process, we’re looking at it all wrong.
Understanding that Results are an absolute
December 21, 2011 By Leave a Comment
As I continue to contemplate the machinations of the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE), I’ve had a few conversations recently with people who are trying to understand how ROWE works. While I am far fom an expert, I have come up with a few things in order to share my understanding. [Read more]
It’s not, “Should HR lead change?” It’s, “Why do we need HR to lead change?”
December 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
HR may or may not be at the Vanguard of creating the culture of the company. In fact, it might not be much more than a Benefits and Compliance department, but someone in the organization clearly has an understanding of the human resources, even if it’s not Human Resources that’s in control.
Which begs the question, what if not just someone – but everyone – in the company adopted the people-first mindset?
[Read more]
“…honest, thorough, and ongoing self-criticism…is at the heart of continuous improvement”
November 17, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Dissent is, afterall, the outward sign of dissatisfaction combined with the will to say something about it. In no way should we convince ourselves that silence implies consent. Instead, we should first think that silence implies the lack of desire to say what’s on your mind for fear of retribution. So, we return to Deming’s philosophy, which told us to eliminate fear. A lack of dissenting opinion is the manifestation of fear. An explosion of tight agreement is, too.
[Read more]
Zynga and the time-based incentive problem
November 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
On the heels of last week’s post “$50,000 and time served” there’s the troublesome case of Zynga, which promised early employees in the infancy of the startup’s rise stock options, but is now asking those same employees to return the options in a compensation renegotiation. Several analysts (see CNN Money/Fortune and Washington Post articles) have described this an effort to align performance with compensation for those employees, however, the rest of, well, pretty much everybody sees this as renegging on a promise which, whether we’re talking stock options or bubble gum, is never looked upon with much favor. [Read more]
Making Your Network…Work
November 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Recently, I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to witness several strong examples of the positive impact that real, strategic networking can have.
Being a part of these particular examples got me thinking a bit more about networking and what it truly means in the age of Facebook and LinkedIn. [Read more]
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