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If You Want to Help HR, Get Out of the Echo Chamber
Sep 22The significant problems we have cannot be solved at the same level of thinking with which we created them. — Albert Einstein
Last Thursday, I went to a book signing for The Rookie, a science fiction book by Scott Sigler about an intergalatic football league 700 years in the future.
In addition to getting to listen to Sigler’s process for research and writing his upcoming 37 books (yep, he has that many in the pipeline), I also got to hang out with the gifted graphic designer Donna Mugavero (aka MsInformation) and The Maestro, George Hrab. We talked about business, the creative process, and what it would take to create a colony on Mars. We talked about audiences. About expectations. About communication. And the meaning of “far.” Check out George Hrab’s FAR in the embedded video below to see what I mean.
You know what the really good part was? We didn’t talk about HR.
If you want to help HR, get out of the echo chamber. Complaining about HR is fun. It’s easy. And it’s useless. Doing something about it is something else entirely. I know some real HR superstars. They’re not in the echo chamber. They don’t waste time as disgruntled middle managers. They’re doing things. That includes knowing what’s happening outside HR. Sometimes that means going far, far, far, far away from the echo chamber. Really far.
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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The very reason I’ve stepped away from the recruiter echo chamber. Too loud, to much of the same ideas, and ways of doing things. Talking about and studying why humans make the choices they make, leads me to a much broader and interesting group of people. Plus, it’s usually never about recruiting yet I find it useful in what I do for a living.
@nelking There’s something great about stepping away from the echo chamber. That kind of Eye-ore mentality is so messed up. I like to gripe, sure, but I like to offer solutions even more. I think knowing interesting and smart people really helps with that…those ones I talked about in the article are some very, very smart ones. They know people.
I live in the Exec Comp space but have some great interactions with top notch HR leaders. Since very few come up through the comp side it can be enlightening for me to listen to what they think is important and what excites them. It gets me out of my echo chamber.
Yesterday I was with a Comp Committee to review how we were going to grant the long-term incentives for the year. As the senior HR person went through the deck she was relatively monotone as she presented the competitive data, the black-scholes calculation and the rest of the basics.
Then she declared that we had come to the exciting and important section. She explained how the exec committee (CEO and reports) had jointly reviewed and discussed the performance and potential of all the company’s VPs as a group and over a series of sessions had come to agreemnt on who the top talent was, what positions were hard to replace and which people were critical to the success of the strategic plan. Best of all they made large distictions in terms of rewards for the best and most valuable versus the average performers. A large enough distinction that some of the directors were uncomfortable.
Yes, she was excited that a leadership team had taken ownership of what can be a compensation staff process and therefore took ownership as a group for the top people and the company’s future. My associates in the exec comp world do not get excited about process and ownership. They get excited about the nuances of Black-Scholes assumptions. Which of these two do you think will likely drive this company to greater success?
Some of my best ideas come from non-HR people/conversations. It’s neat how talking to a class of 3rd graders will challenge you to explain what you do in “real” terms. No ambiguity allowed, just a simple “I do xyz.” Great post, Frank.
@Ben You do interesting things…that’s what matters. Getting info from lots of places is what works.