Monday, December 27, 2010

How Do You Carry Yourself?

I was listening to the radio on the drive home from the office tonight. It is one of the touchy feely stations that was playing Christmas music two days ago and now has the mellow music and call-in stories. A sixteen-year-old girl was interviewed who had chosen to work at Children's Hospital during the Christmas holiday from school. She ended her story by saying that today as she walked down the hall, she found her self walking with her head held high. She said she usually walked around looking at the ground. It took an altruistic deed to get her to realize how she presented herself to the world. How do you carry yourself? Do you check your posture, mannerisms, handshake? How much attention do you give to your clothing, hair, nails? What do you look like when you are under the weather? How do you carry yourself, when you are upset, angry, tired, happy? Several years ago, I read a book called "Lions Don't Need to Roar". While reading it, I realized that we are rarely aware of our physical state. There is a distinct benefit to looking people in the eye, giving a firm handshake, looking up as you walk, and connecting with the people around you. Clean hair in a neat style, properly fit and pressed clothes also allow people around you to connect. If you think that you are giving in to the "man" or conforming, so you have to continue with the purple dread locks and the pants hanging off your butt, you are missing out on connecting with a lot of people. You can fit in and still be yourself. The most elegant people add their own touches to classic looks. Being good to others also helps our confidence and gives us more reasons to meet others eye-to-eye. When we can give our time and energy to something outside ourselves we gain a sense of our positive impact on our world. Take the time to notice how you carry yourself during different situations adn at various times of the day. You are likely to find that your posture and mannerisms are affecting your emotions and reactions. When these reactions don't work for you, stand up straight, hold your head up, take a deep, slow breath and get your mind right.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Holiday Philosophy

Today, Pastor Romper Room, the one that asks us to repeat words like we need help growing our vocabulary, talked about the Magi visiting Jesus. Yes, this is religion folks. Number one remember that the king at the time was a bad dude. Herod killed his mother, wife and three of his sons. He was a paranoid with a clear understanding that God was sending a divine king and it could happen during his reign. A group of scholarly astronomers following an anomalous star that seemed to match up to some stories about a future king. This is where my tangent begins. Science today is lacking something that the Magi understood. There is a connection between science and belief that was strong when our science was new and our belief was old. The comfort of a divine caregiver and a secure afterlife allowed safe exploration of the unknown things in the world. The unknown belonged in the same safe realm where we live watched over by the same greater power. Now belief has passed and is like a ghost to so many. Science prevailed and is considered the prover of what to believe. We were better suied to science driven by belief. The focuse was more altruistic and based in principle. Those that studied scientific pursuites enjoyed the comfort of foregiveness and a safe afterlife for their well intentioned curiosity. The Magi found Christ in this science. Today, science along leads to the bleak prospect of a dark extinguished death buried in a cold earth or turned to ashes in a jar. Our spirit and deeds lost forever unless others put a value on some part of them and make a record. Man's deeds and activities are directed at creating meaning. Humans have an instinctive flaw to seek meaning outside of satisfying our physical needs. The more we seek that meaning, the further we get from our instinct and internal integrity. Our compass continues to provide a direction, however, we have forgotten how to access it. My point here is to find your compass. We can have incredible science grown inside belief of the unseen and magical.

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Feedback and Reflection

We do a lot of things in a search for understanding. Whether we want to see things through others' eyes or simply to be understood ourselves. The world gives us infinite amounts of input designed to guide and protect us. Our friends, enemies, colleagues, and family provide us with advice and reactions designed to direct our behavior. The important thing to keep in mind is that this guidance all comes from their frame of reference and their personal reality. We do not have a responsibility to validate their reality by altering our own. When you get feedback, think it over, reflect. Choose what you acccept, what you reject, and what you will act upon. No matter how much you respect the person delivering the message, take it under advisement and review how it fits. You are the only person protecting you from the resentment and frustration of trying to be something you aren't just to make someone else happy. Reflection does not require direct feedback from people around and not everyone that gives you feedback is trying to change you. They key is to pay attention and make your own decisions. The world gives us cues about our state that merit a response. Slow down enough to let your environment speak to you, sort out the junk and act in harmony with your higher self.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

The One With the Most Balls Wins

This is not a bad play on Christmas Tree Ornaments. I was watching a bad game show for children and their misguided parents called Hole In The Wall. When the game ends in a tie, the way to win is to jump through the final "hoop" with as many plastic balls as possible without leaving the game area or being dumped in the pool behind you. It struck me that this game is very similar to what gets rewarded and condemned in business. When you come out on top, the kid with the most balls, you are the hero. The risks are rewarded with praise and opportunity. When the wall sweeps you into the pool, you come out a wet loser. Same game, same risk, huge difference in the reward. Companies continue to let this zero sum game happen with their most highly motivated employees. We forget to give room for risk-taking that leads to high returns and innovation. These folks have to be able to fall down without fear. Unfortunately, HR often leads the charge of wretchid mediocrity by insisting that missteps are evenly met with progressive documentation. The drive to be "fair", because everyone wants it to be fair, stifles the type of risk taking that grows businesses. You can't win big unless you gamble big. You won't gamble big if you fear losing your reputation, livelihood and self-esteem. Now, what does it take for us to quit worrying about the whiners that want it all to be fair and let those with the most balls win?

All truths are easy to understand once the are discovered. The challenge is to discover them. Galileo

Friday, December 10, 2010

Year End Rant

Ghost Writer brings you her HR Leader rant, I mean perspective, on Compliance while Marti truncates another outlier.
    As an HR Leader, which means I'm a functional manager of some other something but have to get it done through people that may or may not report to me, I have to enforce existing systems and develop new ones all of which, of course, require compliance.  And there's a reason the cliche' "What gets measured gets done" exists -- it's true.
    So last January, yes that long ago month in the cruel dark middle of winter, I published TWO audit forms.  Yes, two.  One for compliance with a regulatory item.  One to evaluate a system that supports process improvement.  This is like a college student hearing from his or her professor, "This is the final exam.  Exactly as it will be presented to you at the end of the class.  Please, please, please read it, study it, know what you need to answer these questions with your book closed, and I will pass you."  Which one of us in college would have loved to have that gig?!  ME!  And everyone else...
    The sites I work with sign up for audits to these two forms at various times throughout the year.  Inevitably, there are a gaggle of them crammed into the last two weeks of the year.  Did they really believe I wasn't showing up?  Apparently. 
    The first site of the year was well prepared.  Led by a sage of some 30 years of experience, he read both tests, and even said during the compliance review, "I saw what was on the audit and entered some items into our system to demonstrate we were doing it."  While not sexy, it's clear he knew that the task was important, read the test, and prepared for it.  [His bar will be next year when I check to see whether it was done consistently throughout the year, or just did a few to seed the deck for audits.  I know this game, but I appreciate his honesty all the same.]
    The next two sites have had these two items being audited for some time.  The regulatory item was in good shape.  The internal system showed lack of closure.  Ok, I can live with that.  Crap happens, and the kids leave the door open after running into the house to gain shelter from a storm, too, inherently rendering the house vulnerable to said weather, but I digress... 
    Then we get to the mid-year site -- she's also a sage of some 30 years experience, but she was lulled by her success on series of polite customer audits that went in her favor.  Three hours into an eight hour audit, I walked out.  There was nothing to audit.  The test hadn't been read.  There was nothing prepared.  Game over.  THIS WAS THE BRIGHT LIGHT OF SUMMER!  One, 6 months existed to read the test and prepare.  Two, she had access to the results from the prior three site's reports.  [Did I mention these audits are posted on an intranet site, and every time the results of an audit are posted, an email goes out to the peers responsible for these systems?  Not exactly top secret.  So now you know the truth -- they get the test up front, get to see other people's results, and still fail.  Really?]
    Summer fades to Fall.  Winter slams into us from Canada on a screaming Alberta Clipper, and here we are.  The last three sites for the year crammed into one week.  Each site whines about what upstream internal suppliers aren't doing right while I'm saying, "But you aren't taking care of yourself!"  Yes, indeed, these three shining examples of manufacturing excellence all failed both the regulatory and the process audit.  Failed it in smashing fashion after 12 months and four examples of what to do/not to do. 
    As an HR Leader, I can rant about them behind their backs in this Ghost Writer format and get out a little energy, but in reality, I'm mad at me, too.  Really mad!  What did I do to make these people think I wasn't serious?  What did I do enable this type of decay?  It's all the boss' fault, after all, isn't it?  So now I get to start the business of serious personal reflection on how to change my behavior such that they see a coherence between what I say and what I do and what I expect and what I measure.
    ... or I buy them all shock collars for Christmas... Merry Christmas to all!

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Some Days are Really Hard

4 hours in a room with 2 lawyers and a court reporter talking about something you don't remember is only the beginning. Now you try to salvage the remainder of your day only to be confronted by poor judgment leading to a full blown investigation bleeding into the recruiting process combined with 3 other investigations and a nuisance call. Surrender and get fast food while you drive homee. Get the wrong dinner and discover that error 15 miles from the restaurant. Give up and eat something you would NEVER order. Reach out to your leadership for support for the second day without a reply. Have a good cry and then another good cry. Call your spouse, then cry some more. Thank him for tolerating your lameness. Continue the three hour drive home. Call a friend in another time zone and finally find your Zen again. Emotions are our purest instinct and the home of our integrity. There is always a breaking point where our instinct tells us we can't continue without jeopardizing ourselves. That is where the "good cry" comes from. We have a need to protect our mental health and our fragile ego from the onslaught of humanity around us. A while back I wrote about the fact that the boss is human and that applies to hard days. Our human brains will eventually give up, no matter how lofty our job title. When it happens, we usually hide and work past it. Today, I came to the epiphany that this too shall pass. There is nothing for me to control that will fix it today. Tomorrow, the things I can control will get better and the remainder truly rests on someone else's shoulders. Some days are just really hard. Have a beer and a piece a chocolate!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Chutes and Ladders

This message brought to you by the Ghost Writer while Marti prevents the Grinch from stealing Christmas, or Hanukkah, or Kwanzaa, or Ramadan, or whatever holiday you're into or not into this month.
 
    Chutes and Ladders -- the climbing, counting and sliding fun children's game no longer enjoys the same popularity it did in my 1970-something childhood, but it does serve as a metaphor for careers and quite possibly life in general.  For those of you unfamiliar with the game, a player starts in the lower right hand corner of the board and slowly but surely works toward the upper left corner where the person who executed a better strategy, and/or experienced less bad luck, beats the opponents. 
    So I started my career at the lower right hand corner of the board with a peer group that started about the same time and about the same age.  We saw ladders everywhere and start climbing.  Focused climbing.  Trying to beat out our peers to the next ladder or, in more competitive work environments, choking back a smile when the competitor hit a chute others strategically avoided. 
    Fast forward 10 or 15 years.  It feels suddenly like the strongest of the peer group converged on a single ladder, and there are chutes EVERYWHERE.  Where did those come from?  A career that started with a seemingly limitless supply of ladders and a solid floor now feels like a shaky platform with one way up and a field of ways down. 
    And the player is left with a lot of questions at this point.  Is that ladder worth climbing?  Do I like where that ladder leads?  Do I care if I win this game anymore?  Do I want to do what it takes to climb that ladder?  In my case, all of these questions resulted in a resounding, "No!"  Climbing that last ladder would have meant amputating my limitless energy and becoming a sheep in a herd of them.  (Not to mention a sex change might have helped in that company.)  The other dawning realization is the fact these questions deserve a thoughtful answer.  In our early careers did we ever even pause to think, "I won't do that to climb a ladder"?  It was never a thought.  Welcome to mid-career.
    As HR Leaders, and those who read People Platform regularly know I'm all about that label, what are we doing with our mid-career employees to help them ask and answer those questions?  Not in the heat of the moment when the employee isn't performing or creating a poor life quality performing quite well, but what are we doing pro-actively to help people look at the ladders and chutes available and choose among them?  
    My direct reports enjoy a space of frank conversation.  I ask a lot of questions.  I listen.  I offer options.  I never endorse a ladder or a chute, but I certainly am happy to analyze the ladders and chutes and help them answer their own questions.  Confronting the option not to climb can be scary, but with a compassionate HR Leader, this might be a better career mid-life... and possibly not a mid-life crisis.
    Reach out to your mid-career employees!  You could be the next professional Chutes and Ladders coach. 
   
 

Happy Freakin' Holiday

Four ways to suck the life out of the only cold weather holiday.

Number one - It is Christmas for me. What gave someone else permission to strip away my holiday? I have to wish everyone Happy Holiday because they are sad that their holiday isn't as popular as mine. God forbid that I miss someone's holiday and they get their undies in a bunch.
Number two - This is supposed to be a time of year to renew relationships and relax with family and friends. Instead, people run around getting presents, attending events and chasing around from house to house with barely enough time to see people open what we bought. Our pocket books are smaller and patience is shorter. Complaints go up and people make collosally bad decisions.
Number three - We eat more while trying to squeeze into our best outfits for church programs, holiday parties and seasonal reunions. Then we have the gaul to complain about all of the weight we gained during the time we suspended our better judgement for the sake of fudge.
Number four - What gives some people the right to create their own version of the South runway at the Ford airport? I'm all about some pretty lights and tasteful decor. However, if it takes 3 months to plan the layout, 1,000 bucks to rewire the service entrance and two weeks off work to decorate. Save the time next year and put the grand into therapy.

Bottom line - smooth out your undies, order some gift card online, priortize and turn down some events, watch what you eat cause your new year's resolution won't happen, and try a light wreath that is good for your bills and the environment.
 
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People Platform HR by Marti Nelson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.