Shaking the Foundation: An Interview With Kris Dunn The HR Capitalist

I have been following the work of Kris Dunn for a couple of years. I read alot of his blogs on The HR Capitalist and Fistful of Talent. I watch his videos when I find them (this one on Raising Your HR Game is great. It was done with Tim Sackett, also someone to watch.) I read his presentations when I come across them. I recommend his blog to all my students and have a link to him on my blogsite (look down to the right). I am unabashedly a Kris Dunn fan. The reason? I think he is WHAT THE FUTURE OF HR NEEDS TO BE, only he is there today. (There are others in this arena and I will be trying to interview them as well. The first one I did was with Trish McFarlane.)
So without further ado here is the interview. It is worth reading every word.

MH: How did you "arrive" at HR? Fall in to it or seek it out? How and why?

KD: I fell into it. I was looking to relocate to the Southeast after working in market research consulting in St. Louis, and was working my limited network at the time. Some folks I had worked with in the past basically said, “Kris, we like you and want to hire you, but we don’t have anything in marketing. But, we think you’d be great for this HR Manager spot, and we don’t currently have anyone in mind for the job. Want to try that?”. And the rest, as they say, is history.

That just shows the power of the network and the fact that many jobs are closed without ever opening.

MH: You certainly incorporate social media into HR. How did you become a SM user? Any formal training or all by the seat of your pants?

KD: Seat of my pants. I think with any new tool you need a curiosity to learn, which I’ve always had. If you don’t have a curious nature, all the training in the world with any new tool isn’t going to matter, because you aren’t going to incorporate the tools into your life. I think that’s true with any new tool, and certainly with social media.

MH: Is there a "best" educational background for someone in HR?
KD: Something outside of HR. I’d say marketing, which is a skill that’s going to allow someone to think differently than many incumbents in the field of HR.

MH: Is there a "best" work background for someone in HR?
KD: Line management would be the best background – you’ve managed people and done well in that role. Marketing a close second.

MH: You come across as having a strategic point of view... how did you become "strategic" and how can others get there too?

KD: Read and think. I’ve read BusinessWeek and Fortune since I was 25. The more you read about general business strategy (Fortune) and execution (BusinessWeek), the more you think about the world outside of HR, which is probably required to even appear strategic. Also, go get an MBA at a real university. The school really doesn’t matter once you get down from Ivy League, what matters is that you’re involved in the subject matter in a case study method, which makes you think business first, HR second. I think you get strategic by thinking business first, HR fourth.

MH: You have expressed your opinion in the past that "status quo" HR is not going to make it in the future. What is your vision for the field of HR for the next 10 years? How does the field need to progress?
KD: It’s going to be a continued split between the talent managers (those that can recruit talent, then do cool stuff with that talent) and the administrators. Administrators will always be around, but they’ll have increasingly decreased significance as the ability to attract and leverage talent becomes the core skill set of the upscale HR Pro. (See Raising Your HR Game linked above.)

MH: Have any HR heros? Who in the field do you take as a role model.. if anyone?
KD: Can’t say that I have HR Heros, which is kind of sad. Some of the folks I’ve worked for in the past (Don Sykes, Marilyn Brooks, Lisa Bryant, Eric Freesmier) would certainly qualify from an HR perspective, but most of the heros I have are business and talent focused. I dig folks like Seth Godin and Michael Lewis for the big picture, and folks like Harry Joiner for the fact they’re brave enough to do things that others aren’t.

MH: You like sports both personally and as an HR blog topic. What lessons do you think all HR pros can learn from sports?
KD: I don’t write about sports because I like sports (although I do). I write about sports because it’s the most transparent industry related to all things talent. Whether it’s recruiting, succession, etc – you name the HR topic – you can find a transparent accounting of that topic in the sports world. It’s the best lens we have to talk about real examples in the talent industry.

Plus, I’d give it all up today if an NBA team called me up to work for 1/3 of what I make to be someone’s front office flunky. Believe that.

MH: Any words of wisdom for your fellow HR practioners?
KD: Do something from a project basis that feels like you might be risking your career in the next 6 months. You’ll feel alive, more passionate about what you do and this just in – you won’t really be risking your career – you’ll find that the people around you will be more supportive that you expected.


A little more information about Kris, taken from his bio.

Who am I? That’s an easy question. I’m the VP of People for DAXKO, a software company focused on serving the best membership-driven organizations in America. Prior to joining the team at DAXKO in 2009, I was a VP of HR for SourceMedical, a Regional VP of HR for Charter Communications, a HR Manager for BellSouth Mobility (subsequently known as Cingular and AT&T based on which round of consolidation you are referring to), and a Project Manager in the market research division of Aragon Consulting (gobbled up by IBM Global Services). With that track record in mind, I can now say what I thought I never would – I have over a decade in the HR biz.
 
A final word. You need to follow this man. He will be a major influencer in HR thought for decades to come. He is progressive, he is thoughtful, he is challenging, and he will shake your HR foundation if you let him. You will be the better person for it..

HR Development: Making HR Better

Several blog posts in the last couple of days stimulated my thinking about talent, skills, job security and development of HR professionals. I recommend these three posts to you and then offer my own thoughts. These three great posts are:

1. Want to Build a Winning Foundation? Don't Forget HR Development by Kathy Rapp of hrQ, post at Fistful of Talent. She talks about the importance of making sure your HR people are being developed.
2. A Fundamental Shift in Talent Management: Will "Active Job Security" Replace "Passive Job Security"? by Ann Bares at Compensation Cafe. Ann talks about the balance beam that employers must walk in order to stimulate workers, make them realize that they have to engage in "active job security", yet keep them at the company. She contrasts this with "passive job security."
3. HR Should Get Out of the Talent Game by Paul Herbert at Fistful of Talent. Paul points out that "talent", which is the big item discussed in HR, is not the most important thing HR can focus on. Rather HR should focus on developing skills to best leverage the native talents that employees have.

So what deep thoughts have these three posts prompted in my little brain?  (I feel like the scarecrow ... 'If I only had a brain....')

• The changes in the economic situation in this country have prompted a change in the mind set of employees. No longer do they want opportunity, rather they are interested in job security. Unfortunately the "old days" are gone and the traditional "passive job security" is gone. Employers no longer let you stay "just because." You have to perform. And employees know that they have some responsibility for their "active job security" yet they feel unprepared to deal with it.
• Companies need to seize this opportunity and do a GREAT DEAL MORE skill development. Take the "talent" that has been recruited and spend time and money on making them better at what they do. Impressing on the employees that improving their "resumes" on an annual basis is the best way to engage in "active job security." "And they reason you want to stay with us, is because we provide you with the opportunity to constantly get better and more valuable." I am a big fan of Tom Peters' idea of improved resume as performance evaluation idea.
• To faciliate this skills improvement, and to deal with the ever-changing, topsy-turvy world that HR is today, we need to have better HR professionals. Yet few, very few, HR departments demand that their professionals get better. Sure they may offer some encouragement, such as tuition reimbursement or extra money if you get a PHR, but few actually require this kind of development. I teach PHR prep and over my 12 years of doing so, most attendees are there on a volunteer basis. Some get their money back if they pass. Some get more money if they pass. Some employers even arrange for a class to be taught especially for people in their organization. But even then attendance is voluntary.
• To me, the CEO of an organization should demand that his/her HR professionals be the best in the business. In an economy where most of the companies assets are the tied up in the brain power of the people working for the company, having an HR department that can handle this is of utmost importance. Thus HR at all levels needs to be developed, not on a voluntary basis, but as a requirement of continued employment. Don't want to learn and improve? Then leave and make room for someone that does!
• Not everyone can earn a PHR/SPHR. You have to hold an exempt position in HR to qualify. But that doesn't mean non-exempt HR should be ignored. Classes can, and should, be structured to give EVERYONE IN HR, a learning experience to make them the best. All professional, exempt level, HR should be required to achieve the PHR or SPHR designation. Beyond that,  if there are other professional designations that can be earned, such as CEBS, then these should be required as well. The good news is that if for some reason you are ever let go, you are much more employeable as a result of this training.

I know this is pretty intense. But if an organization is truly committed to having the best HR pros, in order to have the best employees then this is the kind of committment needed. I have not yet run across any companies yet with this kind of committment to HR.

Do you kow of any? Wish to profile your company's committment to professional HR?

Top 5 Monday "Reads" for the HR Professional

It is hard to keep up with reading blogs. There are just too many good ones. So to help you out here are 5 that I consider a good way to start off a new week.

1. Ann Bares writes on Mission Critical Skills: The Haves & The Have Nots. She talks about realities of the marketplace today and what skills are necessary for a company's success. She offers insights into the importance of communicating those skills to the employees that don't have.
2. In my opinion business is under assault. One way is in the crackdowns the US government has instituted. One of these is the crackdown on independent contractors. Dennis Westlind of World At Work, talk about this in Federal Government to Crackdown on "Misclassified" Independent Contractors? He talks about the IRS' increased attention and provides a link to a handy guide.
3. My favorite consulting guru Alan Weiss talks about the pursuit of perfection and how useless that can be. Lance Haun, a great HR blogger, echos the same sentiment in The Useless Goal of Perfection. He takes it on a personal level, but it has lessons galore for all of us.
4. One of the primary strategic skills of an HR professional is environmental scanning. The Human Markets blog provides us an opportunity to exercise that skill by discussing Long-Term Unemployment and the implications to our companies and our future recruiting. Exercise some foresight and read this. Food for thought.
5. Paul Herbert, in a Fistful of Talent post, tells us that our core values as an organization do not have to suffer in the name of diversity. His post, called Looking for Diversity? Look for a Difference of Opinion Not Value shows a variety of opinions will introduce productive diversity in your organization.

Well there you have it. Start of your week with a BIG dose of learning in small amount of time.

Performance Evaluations, Proper Metrics and Fairness

In my "home town" of Atlanta there is a big controversy regarding potential cheating on standardized tests in the Atlanta School System. The cheating does not involve the students. It involves teachers and administrators. Late last year a principal, and several others were convicted of erasing answers and "correcting" the tests in order to inflate the scores from their school. Now several other schools are showing similar patterns of erasures and answer changing. So an investigation is underway.

The underlying problem is not student cheating, but student performance. Principals and teachers are measured on the success, or lack thereof, of their students on standardized tests. Now there is alot that goes into a student being successful beyond just the teacher. These include parent involvement, home environment, peer pressure, cultural considerations, outside influences and more. I am not here to discuss these issues, rather I want to focus on the subject of performance evaluation.

The key to effective performance evaluation is having the right metrics. That is why an "off the shelf" evaluation form is not worth the paper it is printed on. To my way of thinking here are the key components:

1. You have to understand the job,
2. You have to know what needs to be measured,
3. You have to explain it to the employee,
4. You have to get their agreement that those measures are important,
5. You have to course correct as appropriate through the evaluation period (after all, you can't continue to measure sales of a product that is no longer made 6 months in),
6. You have to define the behaviors that are important to the organization (such as NO cheating or erasures),
7. You have to show the employee that they met the standard or did not,
8. You have to administer the system with even handed fairness, and
9. Finally, you have to take action based upon these results. Reward, or don't. Correct or terminate.

In my 20 years of consulting with small business I have found few managers who are willing to put the time or effort into developing an evaluation system like this. I suspect the same may be true of bigger businesses as well. In the school system issue I am not sure if they have the right metrics or not, or the right measure of student success. I will leave that to "the" experts. But it is clear they have not reinforced the no cheating aspect of performance. The consequences of that remain to be seen.

Performance evaluation seems to be a hot topic today. Wally Bock, of Three Star Leadership, addresses this in terms of Presidents day in President's Day and Performance and Tim Sackett of Fistful of Talent  discusses Forced Rankings Are for Winners. Both are excellent discussions of aspects of performance and are well worth the short time it will take to read them.

How have you address the issue of effective performance evaluation in your organization? Educate us with a comment.

Carnival of HR April Edition and Other Stuff Too

In case you missed it the Fistful of Talent blog site posted the April version of the Carnival of HR. Great reading in human resources all in one place.

On April 5th Dan McCarthy will host the Leadership Carnival at his blog Great Leadership. I will have a post in there as well. Good reading on leadership.

On Thursday, April 9th I will have a blog post appear in the Atlanta Journal Constitution Online version in the HR Roundtable column. So check it out on Thursday by clicking here and looking for the recent post on vacations.

In the meantime I will be on vacation. Out of touch, no computer. R&R. Hiking, waterfalls, reading and coffee in the mountains of Western North Carolina. See you in a week or so.

Suggested Reading: Some Blog Referrals

As I have been brousing some blogs today and here are some posts I thought you might find interesting, I did.

1. The HR Capitalist starts a discussion on Malcolm Gladwell's Outliers in a post called How Your National Origin Can Impact Your Performance.... He discusses the concept of the Power Distance Index, a concept developed by Geert Hofstede in his Cultural Dimensions. This discussion is in terms Korean Air Lines pilots and a series of accidents. Make sure you read the comments.



2. In Dan McCarthy's Great Leadership blog he writes about The Only Reference That Really Matters . The Dilbert cartoon is worth the trip and Dan's discussion of the reference process is excellent. I agree with this assessment.



3. Ann Bares writes in Compensation Force about Bonuses and Other Profanities and the impact on current events on the proper definition and use of bonus dollars and what a commuication and PR problem HR now does have.



4. At Fistful of Talents, Kris Dunn (in his alter ego), writes about All Workplace Jerks Don't Have to Scream - The Information Hoarder... I don't know about you but I have worked with some people like that before. "I am more valuable because I know something you don't know."



5. Over at Slacker Manager, Phil Gerbyshak has a guest auther, Steve Farber writing on How Do You Get Back Up? A Counterintuitive Approach to Thriving in Challenging Times. Some good advice on what to do when things don't go your way.

So take a look at these I think you will find them interesting, insightful and useful. I did.

It Is Nice To Get Recognized

HR Observations is pleased to announce that it has made the top 25 best blog list hosted by Fistful of Talent. We made the list at #14.

Read the list by linking to the FOT site. You will find a wealth of great blogs that will educate, elucidate and titillate your HR senses.

BTW, there is an HR lesson in this. The title of this post is "It is nice to get recognized." And it is. We all feel that way. So remember that with your employees.