Wrap Up of the SHRM Atlanta 20th Annual Conference: Sports, Greatness, Social Media & Creativity

Without making this too long I will try to do my wrap up the SHRM Atlanta 20th Annual conference. I started off my afternoon with an intriguing title. I mean how can you resist a session called The Shift Has Hit the Fan? Presented by Michael Hanson of Jobs2Web he talked about some of the difficulties (and solutions) in dealing with Talent Acquisition in today's social media world. The SHIFT (Is that a silent F?) has been going from newspaper ads ---> Internet and job boards-----> to a myriad of social media sites. He talked about the nessessity of having your job postings present in the bigger picture and not just a select few. He emphasized that most job searches start on a web brower, e.g., Google, rather than a job board or a particular company site. He did emphasize that just posting jobs is push marketing and a company is better off in engaging both active and passive candidates by being available easily through social media. The information was interesting, not currently in my sphere of work, and he got a tiny bit "sales pitchy" at the end but there were quite a few questions from others in the room so he was relevant.

A second afternoon session was Creative Leadership: Making the Case for Creativity as a Core Leadership Skill. This was presented by Paul Reali. Paul made the observation that creative thinking in today's business world is less prevalent than it has in the past. He feels we should be teaching creative thinking and problem solving as leadership skills. I happen to agree with him. He took us through a couple of exercises to show us that sometimes knowledge and context can be limiting factors on creativity. He had us think of as many uses for a brick as we could in a minute or two. The range of solutions went from 6 to about 17. Most of us came up with 10-12 and include things like: build something, hit something, weigh something down, break a window, act as a water level raiser, etc. Not really all that creative. He said giving that same test to children, who have no real context for a brick, their lists often top 20 or 30 uses. Including a brick being a stand in for a Barbie funeral scene. None of us in the room of adults got that one.

He showed that there is a structure for teaching creative thinking and a structure for applying it. Given the limited time frame we had for the session we did not get too deep into that. But he did offer some of us a book that explains it further. This book is H2 Solve Wicked Problems. I have promised him I would review the book on this blog so stay tuned. Just leafing through the book it looks like interesting stuff.

In the previous reports I failed to mention the keynote address for Monday evening. The speaker was Don Yaeger former sports writer now turned inspirational speaker. I must confess I was somewhat skeptical of what a sports writer might be able to offer to a group of HR people. But he was an excellent speaker and he has developed a list, based upon his work with great athletes, of 16 Consistent Characteristics of Greatness. His delivery was excellent and he entranced the audience. Even if you did not know some of the athletes you got the point of the speech. Most people left that evening pumped up.

This was a pretty good conference. I was able to reconnect with old friends, reconnect with students who had been in classes years before and I was able to make many new connections. As one of the speakers, Vicki Hess, said, there is power in your associations. So I am energized. I will be working with SHRM Atlanta to help put on a spring event to help connect small business with professional HR. I will be one of the speakers and I am pumped about it. So stay tuned.

And by the way, congratulations to Keith Hicks of Radient Systems, Inc. and Gary Jones of Grizzard Communications for being presented the SHAPE Awards. Two older guys in a sea of women that won awards! Right on!

Where Great Ideas Are Born

The inspiration for the title of this post actually comes from an article in Inc. in the May 2010 issue. (I am a bit behind in reading, but better late than never.) The online version can be found here at Incubation Nation. The article itself does not have anything to do with human resources. It is about 20 centers of innovation around the United States where new ideas and new start up companies are fostered and developed. It is an interesting read to find what and where. The relationship to HR comes from the fact that reading this prompted two questions to me.

First, where is the innovation in HR coming from? Are there "centers" of HR thought? Are there any HR thinktanks? (Cornell perhaps?) I am not sure if this can be tied to a location. It can certainly be tied to an event, that of HREvolution. (Hey Trish... when and where is the next one? I would suggest Atlanta, which will also be the host city for SHRM in 2011. We could have a convergence of meetings and a divergence of thought all at the same time.) It can also be tied to a number of people I consider "thought leaders." These include Trish McFarlane, Kris Dunn, Laurie Ruettimann, Steve Boese, Jessica Lee to name just a few. (The ranks grow each day. There is some very creative stuff coming from very creative people that you won't find in the mainstream HR literature. You need to read their blogs. It is encouraging to see, however, some of this stuff starting to seep into some mainstream channels.) Perhaps you, the reader, can someone you consider to be a thought leader in HR? Who is the engine leading your train of thought?

The second question this article prompted was one for you, yes you! Does your company have great ideas being born? Do you have centers in your organization where creativity runs free? Or do you have an organization that lets convention run roughshod over creativity? Do you reward it or punish it?

What about you personally? Have you had a great idea that you have been able to implement? Was it easy or hard to do? If it was hard for you then it is probably hard for others. What can you do differently in your organization to foster "great ideas"?

I know, this is more questions than answers. I am looking for the answers from you. Give me examples, give me names, give me ideas....

Where Do You Fall?

Blogger Carmine Coyete in a blog called Slow Leadership talked about the number 1/9/90. Carmine's point about this number was that 1% of people do, 9% comment or refine and 90% do nothing. "Maybe just one in 100 people will come up with ideas for change and decide to try to see them implemented.....Maybe between 5% and 9% of people will respond by taking up the idea and looking to see if it has any merit. They will discuss it and add to it, maybe alter it somewhat, and exhibit at least some willingness to see it turned into action.....The remaining 90% will almost certainly do nothing, and outwardly register little or no interest either."

The point about the 1/9/90 Law is a little deeper than what I have portrayed, so you need to read the entire blog. But it got me to thinking about HR people. Many times I have heard HR people complain about only being reactive. Never being proactive. Yet they seldom do anything about it. I wondered if this fits the 1/9/90 Law profile. One percent of HR will do something proactive, 9 % will applaud it and work with it and 90% will either ignore it or complain about.

What do you think? Click on the link, Slow Leadership, to read the entire blog.