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Who's Famous in HR?
May 13
We were talking yesterday our production prep for HR Bobbleheads.com, a new site that we’re excited about. We’re getting a bunch of props built and are ordering bobble heads. It’s going to be really fun.
Here’s what caught me off guard.
Someone asked, “Who’s famous in HR?”
I didn’t have an answer. I know some super smart and super successful HR people. I scrounge really great ideas from them. They’re “present company excluded” when I rant about less-than-optimal HR practices. But what I’m talking about is “Who’s famous?” Like Madonna famous.
HR people don’t seems to appear on CNN or CNBC or in People Magazine. CEOs do. (Jack Welch, Carly Fiorina) Business visionaries do. (Bill Gates, Steve Jobs) Financiers do. (Warren Buffet, John Bogle) Where’s HR?
So, tell me, who’s famous in HR?
(See that bobblehead in the picture? Our Man Furley got that as a birthday present from a friend. I have to tell you, if you want to get a really great reaction, get someone their own bobblehead. Everyone should have one.)
About the Author
Frank Roche
Frank started IFRACTAL over 7 years ago with Sarah Chambers. Together, they've created HR communications and HR software for some of the world's leading companies. Frank is also studying Flamenco guitar and origami.
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I would argue that management is HR and that anyone famous for management is famous for HR.
I wont agree with your point. how you can tell that everyone will become a HR in an organization?
Because the HR only knows all the employees attitude, strength and weakeness, they are dealing with people. other people are dong routione works in that organization.
Wow, what a great question. I agree with Sarah above partially. I would also throw out this short list and my reasons why:
Jim Collins – Good to Great is an insightful study on how people drive a company
Steven Levitt – The economist behind Freakonomics is a personal hero. It is through analysis techniques identified by him, that we have been able to begin to truly understand the difference between cause and correlation in what we do in recruiting
John Sumser – dude is a rock star in the world of on-line recruiting. John is the guy the blazed the trail for the rest of us
Dr. John Sullivan – the Dean of recruiting, who’s careful study of best practices has helped many organizations move from transactional recruiting to strategic recruiting
@Puf Really great list. Thanks for that. They are now on the famous list!
Steve Bartman
@Bill I can’t stop laughing about that one. Beauty.
I came across this myself yesterday as I was offering to look at what well-known HR people embody for a UK HR magazine – then I realised there weren’t any and the Apprentice and Dragon’s Den candidates were better known than any HR folks!
If no one is famous in HR it’s because it’s not important to people – sad fact.
All the Bobble-head best from Brighton,
Mark
Libby Sartain
Marcus Buckingham
David Ulrich
Tim Ferris – since he had the #1 Hr blog on some top 50 list I didn’t make a couple weeks ago (His blog is not an HR blog. It is a business/lifestyle/vanity/moneymaking scheme blog!)
Drew Carey
I have two questions: what’s the threshold for famous and what’s the threshold for HR?
Bob Sutton (sorta famous)
Penelope Trunk (sorta HR)
We need to figure out the criteria for being famous and create a personal development plan for HR professionals out there.
Marshall Goldsmith – He’s brilliant http://www.marshallgoldsmithlibrary.com/
Sarah,
This is rare but I must disagree with you. Maybe HR SHOULD be a part of everyday management–or HR is a subset of Management as a subject manager. Whatever. The point to me is there really is no HR rock star. Heck HR people are not even infamous the way a star CFO taken away in handcuffs could be.
Within the business community I am sure that some of the top headhunters and/or Exec Comp consultants are well known beyond HR but that is the limit.
Having said all that I would not bet money against you or your partner being the first world famous HR star.
Rick
You did that I’m-going-to-disagree-with-you-and-make-you-feel-great-about-it thing. A very rare skill.
I oversimplified!
I continue to be frustrated that we call folks “managers” but we don’t pay attention to what they do as “managers”. I totally agree that subject knowledge is important. To me, it’s the price of entry. People get promoted for being good at what they do. The new thing is often the “manager” part.
There is another huge part beyond specific knowledge of a topic or influencing people and that’s understanding business. The best HR people I know view HR as a business function. It exists to help the business succeed.
My point of view: better managers = more business success (higher productivity, less turnover…)
I’m going with Peter Drucker as the famous one here. Some of what he said…
• Accept the fact that we have to treat almost anybody as a volunteer.
• Company cultures are like country cultures. Never try to change one. Try, instead, to work with what you’ve got.
• Executives owe it to the organization and to their fellow workers not to tolerate nonperforming individuals in important jobs.
• Most discussions of decision making assume that only senior executives make decisions or that only senior executives’ decisions matter. This is a dangerous mistake.
• Most of what we call management consists of making it difficult for people to get their work done.
OK… he said LOTS of other cool stuff. But these things, if it looks like HR and sounds like HR maybe it is HR?
Sarah,
I understood your message. There were points to be made both with my narrow and your broad interpretation of the question. My way was more American Idol and yours more Harvard Business Review.
No disagreements from me about the skills management needs but rarely has.
A perfect example occurred this week for me when I just assumed something stupid came from management. http://48facets.wordpress.com/2009/05/13/i-was-punkd/
Dr. Jac Fitz-enz – Father of human capital strategic analysis and measurement.