My Favorite Hamburger

One of our former au pairs, Anna, came to visit us from Hamburg, Germany. She’s my favorite Hamburger.

What’s really cool is that she’s a very successful businesswoman now. She has her own salon in central Hamburg. She started small, and now the business is burgeoning. Anna says that she has to turn away clients because they are maxed out. In fact, she says she’s going to have to raise prices in the new year to level out her business. That’s a high class problem.

We haven’t seen Anna in four years, and it’s been seven years since she lived with us and took care of our boys. She was always very smart and very motivated. She said that she was going into business, and studied cosmetology for a few years to prepare. Then she took a risk, started a business, and it worked. Great.

It’s super great to see Anna now. And there’s an HR communication lesson embedded in all this. There’s an interpersonal communication flaw that people are guilty of called “static evaluation.” Basically, it means that when we don’t see something, we assume it stays the same. An extension of static evaluation is that the first impressions of a person stays with us. Start out as a secretary and make it to CEO, and that person is a “secretary who made it.” Static evaluation means that we don’t recognize that the CEO might look like the secretary, but is no longer the same person.

Static evaluation is most dangerous in career planning and performance evaluations. In our minds, people don’t grow up. We grow up, we’re different people. But people who report to us — they’re still kids. But don’t fool yourself — people grow. And static evaluation is a thinking flaw. When we’re aware of it, we can correct our thinking. When we’re not, everyone is frozen in time.

Would You Hire a CEO With an Unsophisticated Speaking Style?

If you were interviewing a candidate for CEO or COO of your Fortune 500 company, would their vocabulary and sentence structure matter to you? What about their accent? (C’mon, I’m not just talking about a “Fargo” accent, I’m talking about anything that isn’t Standard American English, the kind of speaking that newscasters use.) Would you overlook a lack of sophistication in their speaking style? Are there some kinds of accents you like and some that you just can’t stand? Do you think that people with certain accents are stupid?

I’ll admit that I’m not crazy about Sarah Palin’s bona fides for running one of the world’s largest corporations — the United States of America. Her latest interviews and linguistic gyrations in the debate made me question what I would look for in a true leader. I find Norm Crosby funny, but I wouldn’t hire him as CEO or COO.

All General Statements Are False

Here’s your HR communication lesson for today, kiddies: Be specific.

If something is being taken away, say it. If you want people to do something, don’t beat around the bush. If you mean results, don’t clutter it up with words like “key performance indicators.” Direct. To-the-point. Clear. The best HR communication doesn’t deal in HR euphemisms. As the title says, “All general statements are false.”

Writer’s Remorse

Here’s what I know about doing HR communication: The closer you get to deadline, the more edits people have. It’s what I call Writer’s Remorse. Here’s what else I know: Those last-second edits rarely add anything to the quality of the communication.

Folks, communication isn’t about single words on a page or just one more PowerPoint slide. Great communication is about creating pictures in peoples’ heads. All the rest is clutter.

Can I See a Sample?

I was talking to a buddy yesterday about him getting asked for samples of his work. He’s a consultant, so the work he does is proprietary and customized for his clients. Asking for samples is naive to say the least, but it’s a crutch that clients sometimes fall back on when they don’t know the real questions to ask.

I was reminded of a couple of pithy answers that JT gave about clients asking for samples. Here’s the first one:

When I worked for the big consulting warehouse, I did executive compensation consulting. I must admit, I was never asked for a sample. I would be asked however to tell them, “what do most people do.” Now this was not, what do most people do, who are in our situation, just what most people do. They asked the particular question because understanding the situation is what costs money.

My stock answer was to tell them I would happily share that information with them but that I hoped they did not merely replicate the activity. I would explain that it is like a pharmacy. You (the client or potential client or soon to be ex-client) are sick. I don’t walk into the pharmacy and say “I’m sick, give me the medicine that people take most.” You need to know what is wrong with you first.

JT, commenting in the same article I wrote last year called The Odd Thing About HR Communication Consulting, said something that runs through my head each time I get asked. And it gives me a laugh.

Next time you are asked for a sample, give it to them. Right on their desk. But be sure to not use the little Dixie cup.

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