Mid-Summer Carnival of HR: Education for HR

The mid-summer edition of the Carnival of HR is being hosted by Jennifer McClure of Unbridled Talent in her Online Degree edition. There are some very interesting and educational posts to be found and you can get a semester's worth of learning in a few hours just by reading these blog posts.

You can find learning material on leadership, corporate culture, diversity, technology, performance management, psychology, recruiting, social media, talent and much more.

So, if you want to be stimulated, educated, elucidated, and just made plain 'ol smarter then trot on over to Unbridled Talent and grab yourself some learnin'.

Creating Problems In Order To Solve Them

If you have been in management or HR for any period of time you have probably encountered an employee who always seems to encounter more problems than others, but seems to always successfully solve them. Sometimes you are happy they have taken care of them, other times you wonder why that employee always encounters the problems. Sometimes people get rewarded or promoted for their problem solving skills. Sometimes people make their reputations on their ability to solve problems and become known as turn around specialists.

It is always good to have a problem-solver in the fold, but sometimes you are suspicious. Just a gut feeling that things are not quite the way they seem. You suspect that the person is creating as many problems as they solve and in fact seem to be making them up to look good. Maybe to get a promotion, a raise, or just to get the praise. Well it turns out that this may be a more widespread problem than thought. In an article in the Monday, August 25th issue of the Wall Street Journal writer Phred Dvorak discusses a phenomena called 'Munchausen at Work.' Georgia Tech business professor Nathan Bennett coined this term to describe work behavior that resembles a rare psychological disorder called Munchausen Syndrome.

Munchausen Syndrome (click for the Wiki) is a disorder in which people make up illnesses or diseases in order to get sympathy or to draw attention to themselves. It is named after a real person, Baron von Munchausen, who used to make up fanciful tales about himself. (His story was actually made into a movie The Adventures of Baron Munchausen.)

Some of the symptoms of 'Munchausen at Work', according to Dvorak, include withholding help or key information until the last moment and then stepping in to save the day. Other examples include things like creating rumors among employees and then dispelling the rumors after having "talked to the boss" or "saving your job." Another example was a manager undermining relationships in his work group and then holding group sessions to improve relations. Managers create the workplace "illnesses" in order to cure the illness and thus draw attention to themselves.

Part of the problem may be of our own creation. We usually get the type of behavior we reward. So if we consistently reward problem solving behavior we may have created an "attention junky" (my term) who now has to create problems to solve in order to get the attention for solving the problem.

So, HR Manager, take a look at your managers. Do you have one that is always the "hero"? The White Knight who comes dashing to the rescue? If so you may want to look a little closer and see if what they are saving you from is not of their own creation. Hopefully not, but it doesn't hurt to be a bit skeptical and investigate. You might cure some more headaches. Then of course we would have to worry about you craving that attention too!!

Getting A "Seat at the Table": One Man's Perspective

“Your place at the table.” How many articles, conversations, blogs, moaning sessions, crying sessions and musings have occurred around this topic? Countless, yet the question continues to be asked. So I figured I would put in my “two cents worth.”

In my mind there are professional characteristics and personal characteristics that enter into this discussion. The professional characteristics include:

• You must be knowledgeable in HR. Yeah I know, obvious. But I mean more than just a cursory knowledge. This means you study. Be it in school (Masters degree), be it in continuing educations (SPHR) or be it on your own (reading books, magazines, websites, blogs.)
  
• You must be knowledgeable in business, both business in general and your industry in particular. This means more education. Understand how your company makes money and what it does with it. Assets, liabilities, debt, income statements, balance sheets and the other language of finance and accounting. Understand operations issues. Supply, demand, inventories, scheduling. You get this two different ways. Read! There should be several industry journals on your reading list. Relationships! Spend time with the finance and ops people.
  
• You must be knowledgeable in the world. This means you pay attention to and understand the impact of globalization, localization, politics, social trends, economic trends, legal trends and more. This means you are an environmental scanner.
  
• You must be knowledgeable in people. This means you are a student of psychology. You understand behavior and the principles of motivation and reward. You know group dynamics and team building.
  
• You must be knowledgeable in strategy and planning. Knowing “stuff” does not do any good if you cannot apply it to the current and future direction of the company.
  
• You MUST be competent and good at what you do. If you can’t keep a file straight or keep track of a new hire why in the hell would I want you at my side advising me, if I were the president of a company.
  
• It helps if you have worked in some other area other than human resources. Sales, operations or finance will all work. That gives you great perspective on the problems departments face on a day to day basis.

The personal characteristics you must have are:

• You have to be smart. Sorry, but it is the truth. There has to be the “horse power” in the cranium. There is a lot of stuff to know and apply and if you don’t have it you won’t make it to the top. You have to be able to see the big picture and read the future and that takes some brains.
  
• You have to be a hard charger. You don’t make it to the Vice Presidential level by coming in late and leaving early. You also don’t gripe about how hard it is. You eat the stuff up. You want more. PASSION!
  
• You have to have some “backbone.” If you are afraid of making decisions you don’t have the “right stuff.”
  
• You have to learn from your errors. Don’t be afraid to admit a mistake, but move on once you have.
  
• You have to have DESIRE. You want to have that VP role then you have to ASK for it. In this case the meek shall NOT inherit the earth.

Ok. That is my take. In my experience I have met few HR professionals that meet this standard. Nothing wrong with that. There are limited jobs at the top and the rest of us will be gainfully employed in some aspect of HR. But if you want to be the “lead dog” then you need to work for it and I hope this helps.

Feel free to leave me your comments, opinions, additions or suggest a deletion.