Marc on HR

I read something like this from you before... maybe you emailed us an earlier version some months back? Anyway, I understand your point, although not being in HR, I don't totally grasp all the finer points about how organizations typically handle HR. I can only speak from the military perspective.

If I understand your premise, I would agree. I'm slightly biased here, but I believe that the importance of the Chief Petty Officer Mess in the Navy is in its ability to integrate every facet, every department of a command into a single unit, which is what I think you are advocating for HR. Organizational charts are normally North-South, or top to bottom, but the Navy Chiefs intentionally work horizontally within the existing org chart to unify the vision and the work. We look for ways to optimize potential and solve problems by seeking answers outside of the typical institutional "lanes".

As far as stamping a "leadership passport", military commanding officers typically must "do time" in all fields of an organization at some point before taking on that role. For example, you'll find that a Commanding Officer of a Navy warship at one time or another was the weapons officer, admin officer, engineering officer, navigator, etc. It's imperative that they understand EVERY aspect of a ship in order to lead it.

I've seen many changes within my own field, which throughout my career has been called cryptology, intelligence operations, security group activity, information operations, and is now most commonly referred to as information warfare. I have seen a huge shift over the years from being viewed as a completely separate and augmenting field to a fully-integrated Navy discipline. Early in my career, military units would "pick up" an intelligence support team when they headed out the door on deployment. That's not the case any more. Now those same units have fully integrated information warfare teams that are permanently assigned and therefore participate in everything, including preparation, planning, and training as well as post-deployment review and assessment. We use the term "cradle to grave" support.

Now, having said all that, I can't say that the Navy has it all figured out. We still have very traditional roles that restrict officers from reaching that top spot and having anything more than the "seat at the table" that you're referring to. We have "line officers" and then "restricted line officers", also known as "special duty officers". (I'm using quotation marks WAY TOO MUCH in this thing). Line officers are the only ones who can be in command, or the CEO if you will. Restricted line officers are specialized, and therefore considered unqualified for command duty. For example, some officers are specially qualified in engineering, meteorology, medicine, submarines, information warfare, etc. Line officers follow a more generalist career path and spend time in each area (as I've mentioned before). But the thought is that the organization can't function if you don't have SOMEBODY specializing in the different areas. Jack-of-all-trades are nice to have around, but you don't want that guy running your computer network defense division or your accounting division, right?

So, I guess my question is, if you fully integrate HR, do you still need HR professionals? Could someone who hasn't grown up in HR like you have handle your position?

Sorry I'm behind on the blog. I'm working on it. Passion is on deck.

Just Think

Strategic thinkers take something quite big and make it quite small, while tactical thinkers take something quite small and make it quite big. I've always admired the former and struggled professionally with the latter. Although, I've come to appreciate the latter much more than in the past. Regardless, both are a critical component of a strong team, good leadership and effective management.

Brad on Passion

If you did a survey most people would respond that passion is great. But like most everything else, its only great in moderation. Excessive passion is not great. Positive swings of passion may be entertaining or attractive, the downside and more destructive aspect of passion, the unpredictibility and self centeredness of it, is extremely difficult for people to deal with. Showing passion in a controlled way I think is a fantastic skill, and one that I know has made me want to be around someone. I've seen leaders whose ability to use their passion to motivate others to action is incredible. People with passion can be downright entertaining if its being channeled the right way. However, not being able to control your passion to the point it becomes unpredictable is something I think most people have trouble dealing with.

Sports is a perfect place to illustrate. There are individuals considered great leaders and success stories of their sport, such as Payton Manning and Tom Brady. They have won at the highest level and are clear leaders of their team and their league. You will see them displaying their passion by yelling at a teammate or showing celebratory emotion. But it is usually in moderation and they are almost always in control. They are in control by displaying their passion or muting it. As leaders they make others better. Reggie Wayne reached his potential as a wide receiver in part due to having a quarterback showing how passion for winning means doing the film study, doing the extra reps, and giving that little bit more to be a champion.

By contrast you have troublemakers in the league, like Terrell Owens or Chad Ochocinco. These guys have had personal success in terms of individual statistics and big contracts. They have a similar passion for football and for winning, the difference is their passion is unbridled and unpredictable, and it is typically focused on their individual wants, not the overall needs of the team. Is it entertaining and attractive at times?..absolutely. Although there is a long list of ridiculous behavior from TO, I particularly liked Terrell Owens doing situps shirtless in his driveway while surrounded by reporters (see link here). That was funny. But eventually entertainment and attraction loses out to the understanding that those guys are self centered, me guys that don't give a crap about the other guys on the team, the league, or people in the stands that watch their every move.

Whether in business or in sports winning comes through being a cohesive group that work together towards a common goal. The Terrell Owens' of sport or business, while having incredible talent, will always be a distraction and ultimately a detriment to winning. It isn't a coincidence that teams these guys have played on, while having enormous talent, have never won a championship in the NFL.

Passion is good, but only in moderation and when focused on the betterment and goals of the team, not the individual. So for those of us with a bit too much passion for people to handle, let's be more like Payton Manning and less like Terrell Owens. Irony that the jersey numbers are the opposite?...I don't think so.

More than you want to know about HR

Here is a paper I wrote to be published, the likes of which are being contemplated by several editors in the form of "how many more ways can I say no to this guy?" But here it is for your reading enjoyment and so I can say I have been published, if nothing else on my own blog!
________________________________________________________

Nearly 20 years ago, I received my degree in Industrial Relations and Human Resources and became part of my first HR team. Through these decades, I’ve seen HR professionals across all industries seeking something elusive – notoriety, recognition, support. Since I’ve been in HR, it has always been about getting “a seat at the table” – the chair, the voice, the seat, the nirvana of many HR professionals. Once there, we finally will have arrived. Right?

According to Webster’s dictionary, a profession is “a calling requiring specialized knowledge and often long and intensive academic preparation.” Using this definition, HR would need to possess a recognizable and distinct set of knowledge, skills and abilities that can be easily differentiated from other professions, much akin to lawyers, accountants and engineers. But these professions came to be in a completely different age, a completely different time. Different times call for different measures. These professions are separate and distinct departments from the core operations of the businesses they support, unless the business happens to be a law firm, accountancy or engineering firm. Their professionals take pride in the requirement to have a license to practice them. They base much of their credibility in business on their unique offering of skills and qualifications and on their distinction as being wholly different from any other part of the business.

Is that what HR really aspires to? We appear to be working diligently to progress down that path.

I don’t accept this traditional HR vision, and I don’t think that it’s best for our profession. Licenses and designations for HR are fine if their mission is to promote the very best HR practices. Admittedly most fulfill this role quite well. But I don’t believe we should be seeking to distinguish HR professionals from other business leaders as a means of gaining notoriety, recognition and “our seat”: because HR is a discipline for all of the business, not just those with full-time HR responsibilities or those with full license and designation to practice.

I believe most of my HR colleagues, like me, entered HR for a completely different reason. We didn’t join the HR department to incubate, develop and justify the development of HR as a profession. We weren’t after what consumes most of our HR trade journals pages and is the most widely discussed topic in HR today. Ah, finally HR will be the profession bravely envisioned by those personnel departments of the past. I didn’t seek a career in HR to gain membership to an exclusive HR organization, nor is it why I wake up with a passion for HR everyday. Rather, quite the opposite.

I don’t want a separation from the business I support. I don’t want to be a unique, differentiated and established profession. How can we possibly be seeking this objective when we are supposed to be partnering and aligning with the businesses we support? I just don’t see those paths as linked, or even as near parallels.

I’m not trying to earn notoriety and support for an HR seat at the table. Instead, I’m trying to grow closer to the business I support, trying to establish an indistinguishable alignment with the essence of the business and what it is trying to accomplish. That’s partnering. That’s value creation. And I believe that’s what the C-suite wants. Value creation comes from what HR does to support the business and align with it, not from being a separate profession of qualified HR professionals who began meagerly from personnel departments and have evolved to a larger necessary evil with an expanding portfolio of services to deliver to the business. In most businesses HR and the functions we execute are overhead – cost and expense to be managed, monitored and controlled – optimized at best, limited at worst.

Let me paint a very different picture of what I believe HR departments and professionals should be striving for. We should work toward becoming so intertwined and indistinguishable from our businesses that HR IS THE BUSINESS, and THE BUSINESS IS HR.

Now that’s an aspiration, mission and vision that I believe all HR professionals can get behind. We will encourage all leaders to take personal accountability for the most complex and dynamic business challenge in the world today – leading, managing, rewarding and engaging people. We’ll hone our collective expertise on the subject in a way that creates a business that cannot be replicated, a business whose competitive advantage can be sustained. Now that’s a leadership challenge that shouldn’t be reserved only for HR professionals or those so called people businesses. No, it’s a challenge for all leaders of all businesses, with HR professionals guiding, educating and leading the way.

Now, this message will likely come as a shock to some of my HR colleagues. I will be accused of over simplifying and generalizing the current state and mission of our HR profession, slighting the real views of my colleagues. But I’m doing it for a reason – because there is far more truth to what I’m saying than most HR professionals are willing to admit. We seem to believe that the establishment of HR as a separate and distinct profession will take us where we want to go, take us to where other professions are today, trusted and respected. I just don’t believe that to be true.

No separate seat at the table – all the seats at the table! Yes, CEO. Do you want to lead an organization? Then you have to be an HR professional. You’ll need the HR stamp in your leadership passport. It’s not a separate profession, but a fundamental business competence that is mandatory for business success. Without the HR stamp in your passport, entry into the boardroom will not be possible or at least ill advised because the business is likely to fail. This is true for the CEO, COO, CFO, CIO, etc. It’s time we created collaborative independence for our C-level colleagues, not separate dependence.

Passion

Passion is a marvelous thing. It can bring out the best and the worst in people. But whichever the case, it brings out people from their often otherwise muted feelings and personalities.

In some contexts passion is down right ugly, among the worst displays a person can reveal - anger, frustration, and revenge. But conversely it can be among the most magnetic, engaging and positive of all expressed emotion as well - love, excitement, happiness, laughter, optimistic.

So why then is passion something that is so forbidden in most personal and professional contexts. Why is it more often the shouldn't than the should? Can one imagine the world without passion, would we not lose one of the most human of all expressions in emotion. The catalyst of nearly all things human?

They haven't yet (and I say yet) created any non-living creature that has passion. Other animals may display emotion also, but not nearly to the degree of people. We have been provided with many gifts to display our emotions:

Eyes: The window to the soul. Many times our emotions can be seen through our eyes.
Mouth: We can often speak passionately via the tone/volume we use. Language and words also play an important role in passion served via our mouth.
Ears: Hearing emotion is easy. Just imagine yourself on the phone when you've heard passion in what others are saying.
Nose/Tongue: I won't go so far as saying that these can't be utilized to show emotion and will just leave it at that.

I've taken this farther than I intended but just am interested in why passion is such a taboo when it oftentimes is what makes leaders (and followers) of people, and which more than perhaps any other quality, defines us as human. Isn't that a good thing?

Discuss.

Ed on Why Our Dad is Awesome

Good story Brad, and one that I'm sure Marc and I could offer parallel stories that support the Dad fame of "it's never too old to take care of".

This is one area where as brothers we probably all have a slightly different take on Dad and his all his qualities, we each admire them none the less. The same is true of Mom, but perhaps that is a later post.

Back to your post, lawn mower maintenance is one of the few forays that you haven't explored in your handyman nature. You have a woodworking shop in the fifth stall of your six stall garage, and have more tools (properly placed I might add) than I can even identify or name.

Marc, in some contrast, has more of a McGyver mentality and has a way of fixing, repairing and replacing things with nothing more than his Leatherman and a paper clip. How he's done the things he has with the tools he has in his box (not garage, but a box) is beyond me.

Now me, I'm a bit of a poser. I have a work bench, vice, and tools strung all over the place. I like gear and I have a lot of tools to show for my limited use of them. I'm a left handed cog in a right handed wheel when it comes to handyman matters. While I pride myself on having a pretty impressive mower I've also outsourced maintenance of said machine. Why? For the same reasons Brad listed.

But I also don't achieve the threshold of competence when it comes to anything "handyman" that my two younger brethren are known for. Both Marc and Brad piss more handyman skills in a day than I have reasonably acquired over my lifetime. Yes, I have a bit of a chip on my shoulder over that. But it is, none the less, a true statement.

So, whether it's the two wheel pick up truck stories, the limb cutting activities, or the general reputation I have for utilizing family labor for all of my blue collar duties, I have built a reputation in my family of not knowing the difference between a straight slot and Phillips screwdriver. Some of my reputation is earned, and some it is ... well ... you can judge for yourself.

Why our Dad is awesome

For about a month Dad was fixated on cleaning up and preparing my mowers for the season. I'm sure in no small part due to his knowledge that I do little to nothing in terms of maintenance on these machines. Why don't I maintain my mowers...part lack of expertise, part lack of time, and a big dose of not caring that much. Due to the inconvenience of working on them at my house (another story for another time) he picked them up a couple weeks ago, took them home and worked them over, and returned them to me a few days later.

On Saturday, since the weather was beautiful I pulled my riding lawnmower out of my garage, engaged the blades and prepared to start mowing. This is where it starts to get interesting...

As I pull forward and turn to go alongside the house, my hands slip off the steering wheel and I darn near run right into the side of the house. WHY YOU ASK??? Because Dad has put so much Armor All on the wheel I can hardly grip it to steer. Of course he had to do it so that the black steering wheel was not outshone by the fresh coat of wax on the shiny green body of my 10 year old Craftsman lawn tractor.

I made sure my grip was secure and I mowed my lawn. Of note, the mower ran as smoothly as it has since I purchased it 10 years ago. I'm in no position to complain about the service from Big Al's Mower Maintenance!

Ed on God's Debris

It's surprising that such a message "a conversation can never be useless" could come from someone who so sarcastically writes a comic strip. That was shocking to me when I read your blog. According to Scott Adams of Dilbert fame almost all conversations are useless, at least in the office context.

And one other point to make - sometimes the most gracious way of giving someone some of your precious time is by listening, not conversing/speaking. That might be an even better way to show respect, courtesy and appreciation. After all, we've all heard the saying "there is a reason why God gave you two ears and only one mouth".

God's Debris

On my reading list was God's Debris by Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame). It is neither about Dilbert nor comedic. It is a self described "thought experiment" and tells a twisting story of a old man who knows everything. Its a little too nebulous for me, but there is a particular passage I enjoyed...

"Conversation is more than a sum of the words. it is also a way of signaling the importance of another person by showing your willingness to give that person your rarest resource: time. It is a way of conveying respect. Conversation reminds us that we are part of a greater whole, connected in some way that transcends duty or bloodline or commerce. Conversation can be many things, but it can never be useless."

For the next few hours the old man revealed more of his ingredients for successful social living. Express gratitude. Give more than expected. Speak optimistically. Touch people. Remember names. Don't confuse flexibility with weakness. Don't judge people by their mistakes. Remember that your physical appearance is for the benefit of others. Attend to your own basic needs first; otherwise you will not be useful to anyone else.

Go Blue Devils!

If Duke wins I will get 1st or 2nd in my office pool. I can't believe it, but I'm rooting for the Dukies!