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Archive for April, 2009
Healthy Disagreement in HR
Apr 29I agree with everything you say, but I would attack to the death your right to say it.
–Tom Stoppard
We need healthy disagreement in HR. We are not lambs.
65 Things I Believe About HR
Apr 25This I believe about working with people and HR.
- I believe employees want to do a good job.
- I believe they were great when you hired them.
- I believe people do what they get rewarded to do.
- I believe in pay for performance.
- I believe a good manager can make up for a lot of crappy policies.
- I believe a great manager comes along only once in a while.
- I believe great managers should be paid at the 99th percentile.
- I believe crappy policies and crappy managers should be scrapped.
- I believe employees are productive at different times of the day.
- I believe there’s nothing wrong with overpaying people.
- I believe you can’t ask for commitment unless you give it first.
- I believe it’s important to have friends at work.
- I believe you should say hello to everyone every morning.
- I believe you should say goodnight when they leave.
- I believe people want to work with superstars.
- I believe there are more hidden superstars out there than we think there are.
- I believe in honest communications.
- I believe everyone has a hidden talent.
- I believe you should know the birthday of everyone who works with you.
- I believe you should celebrate your employees’ birthdays when they happen.
- I believe executives get isolated and lose track of what’s going on.
- I believe HR has a role in keeping executives grounded.
- I believe HR does its best when it has guts.
- I believe in the power of diversity of thought.
- I believe that none of us is as stupid as all of us when it comes to editing.
- I believe the way we do performance management is awful.
- I believe real performance management is about management, not about annual ratings.
- I believe in management by walking around.
- I believe HR shouldn’t make up silly names for managers, like “career coach.”
- I believe calling employees human capital is about to jump the shark.
- I believe HR shouldn’t practice psychology without a license.
- I believe behavioral-based interviewing is for the birds.
- I believe in asking candidates if they can do the job.
- I believe in asking employees to prove it.
- I believe forced rankings are…forced.
- I believe merit increases can never be performance differentiators the way we do it now.
- I believe people work for more than money.
- I believe managers are naive if they think people don’t work for money.
- I believe layoffs as an annual business strategy is doomed.
- I believe HR was asleep at the switch at some doomed financial services companies.
- I believe people will do a lot more when rules are eliminated.
- I believe we need more lawyers in HR and fewer lawyers telling HR what to do.
- I believe cynical HR people should get out of HR.
- I believe anyone who subscribes to Theory X should never be in HR.
- I believe HR attracts an inordinate number of people who used to be hall monitors.
- I believe HR would do well to work its way out of a job.
- I believe systems work in HR.
- I believe we have too many processes and not enough systems.
- I believe HR and managers need to listen more.
- I believe handwritten notes go farther than all the recognition programs combined.
- I believe travel incentive awards are really motivating.
- I believe teambuilding should be an everyday thing, not done at retreats.
- I believe HR forgot that being fair and treating everyone the same aren’t the same things.
- I believe HR should help managers manage.
- I believe managers can be trained.
- I believe not all managers should be managers.
- I believe in great benefits.
- I believe onsite dog walking and massage therapists are overrated.
- I believe in the company making money.
- I believe in HR helping employees understand how.
- I believe HR should stop buying HR software that never works right.
- I believe in great leaders.
- I believe in small gestures.
- I believe we work 11,250 days out of our 25,000 we get in a lifetime.
- I believe it’s HR’s job to make every one of those days the best they can.
That’s mine off the top of my head. What do you believe?
Back to Basics in HR
Apr 23
When I was a kid we played outside. We played games that we made up. We played baseball using patches of dirt for the bases. We played the games and were our own referees. Our parents were nowhere to be found. And we didn’t need them.
What happened to us in business? Companies don’t start out with giant policy manuals and “annual processes.” Startups get moving and do the work. They don’t need rules because everyone knows what they need to do. They know how their actions affect company success. And their performance isn’t adjusted once a year — it’s done every minute every day.
Then the rules start.
Do you see kids out there today organizing their own pickup baseball game? Hardly. In what looks like an HR Farce, “self organizing” involves parents who make rules, tell kids they’re doing great even when they’re losing, and make it so that everyone is treated equally. Heck, I’ve heard of games where parents make other parents sign legal waivers before games can be played in their yard.
Sound a little like HR run amok?
Let’s get back to basics in HR. Let’s understand that the kids can organize their own games without us making the rules. Let’s let the winners win and the losers get better. Or kicked off the team.
Let’s think about the kinds of rewards we got when we were kids. We don’t need to tell people they’re doing great when they’re not. They get the greatest recognition from their friends. (Okay, we call them peers. Ick.). If you make it fun, they’ll play all day.
It’s time to get back to the basics. If you aren’t questioning every rule and your role as overprotective and overbearing HR parent, then you’re doing it wrong. Let the kids do what they know how to do. Take away the silly rules and you’ll find out they know how to do it right themselves already.
It's Hard Work Trying to Do Things Easier
Apr 21Progress isn’t made by early risers. It’s made by lazy men trying to find easier ways to do something.
–Robert Heinlein
More About Hard Work
Apr 21I wrote yesterday about the value of hard work. Here are a couple more contributed by KnowHR readers:
From Rick at 48Facets:
You know what’s easy? Selling something.
You know what’s hard? Bringing real value to your customer.
And another from CoCreatr:
You know what’s easy? Copying good ideas.
You know what’s hard? Adding real value.
If you have any more, send them along and I’ll post them. This is going to be Hard Work Week.
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