The summer of 2015 is behind us, and it was quite a special summer for me. Repurposing HR: From a Cost Center to a Business Accelerator hit the bookstores, and I hit the road to share my message.  The feedback has been overwhelming and is greatly appreciated. And it feels good to have accomplished this personal goal. 

 

I learned an interesting lesson too, this summer. Preparing for the book launch was fraught with tension. I knew that I would have to promote the book and that is a very uncomfortable thing for me to do. I have watched authors and consultants sell their wares for a long time, with social media making it far easier (and more frequent). Some do it very well, and some make me a little sick; the self-promotion is over the top. The reality is however that the noise in today's connected world is so great, that in order to have a message rise to the top, it has to be promoted. Frequently.

 

But I didn't want to be that author - the one whose self-promotion makes others  ill. So I began watching more carefully, and a light bulb went on. Those whose helpful message was being promoted were interesting and professional.  Those whose promotion was personally self-serving were the ones I scrolled past quickly.

 

Hmm, something to think about.  Do I have that helpful message that I believe in, myself? A message that I truly believe will help others? 

 

Heck yes, I do.  That epiphany helped (at least a little) get past the discomfort of self-promotion.

 

It helped to have Fortune, Forbes, McKinsey and Harvard Business Review all publish articles damning HR. I thought my "Chapter 3: The Indictment of HR" had a pretty strong message about the need for HR to add value, but these publications between April and August 2015 took the indictment to a whole new level, including HBR wanted to "blow up HR."  Having business thought leaders like Peter Capelli and Ram Charan focus so much time and energy on "fixing" HR makes a pretty clear statement that HR is broken.

 

Why did it help? Because I believe that I have a solution. It is a solution borne of over 30 years in the profession both as an HR executive and as an external consultant that only became clear to me once I left corporate America and began my research.

 

It is a simple solution, but a complex paradigm shift. We [HR] have built our profession around managing the risk of leaders who don't know how to lead. What we have built is bureaucratic, process-heavy and not seen by operational leaders as adding value.

 

In building the profession, we have inadvertently assumed the risk that rightly should be assumed by operational leaders. We have chased them through the halls to get their performance reviews done, pleaded with them to follow progressive discipline processes and cajoled them to improve the engagement of their teams. And, the leaders have let us assume this risk; after all, leading people is hard work!

 

We cannot afford to continue this way; we must shift the risk back where it belongs - with the operational leaders of the organization. There is only one way to do that - to start with the business reason for change.

That is what the RoadMap in Repurposing HR is all about - HR shifting from being a cost center that simply adds expense, to a real business leader, leading the people part of the business. The RoadMap suggests a series of real business questions that can be tackled by cohesive HR teams in partnership with their operational leaders.

So I take a big leap into self-promotion with this newsletter, with blog posts and with speaking engagements because I believe in HR. I believe that we not only can add value, we can fundamentally change the business paradigm.

I want to hear from, and work with executive leaders who want to raise the expectations of value-add for their HR teams.  HR cannot make this strategic shift without executive leaders who believe in the future of HR, and stand ready to partner.  By using the RoadMap, there's a real possibility C-Suite leaders might find a new and productive way to connect with their HR team.

 

I want to share my message as widely as opportunity presents itself within the HR community as well, whether it be a strategic planning session with an HR team, helping an HR team assess their value to their customers, coaching HR leaders who want to move beyond risk management, or partnering with HR teams to shift the paradigm and build real value.

"People" is the name of the business game, and we have to get it right.

Let's talk.

Are you ready to #repurposehr?  

They say "perception is everything." Indeed, how you are perceived by others can make or break an opportunity.

I've been on a journey of self-discovery probably all my life. Years ago, I realized that I was behaving in a way that was actually hurting the perception others had of me.

As an introvert and a perfectionist, I worked really hard to make sure that no one had to correct me - I would beat them to the punch. If I did something that was, in my rather critical opinion, less than perfect, I would tell people first, so they didn't have to tell me.

And then I realized - they might not have seen it, heard it or considered it a mistake!  Eek. I'm my own worst enemy.

So I tried to stop doing that, and in the long-run became much more lenient on myself.

Now my journey continues with building the courage to promote what I believe is a solution to a real problem. 

What journey are you on for your own personal development? How's it going for you?

I promised when I started writing this newsletter, that I would try to offer something that pushed readers to think about their own development. So often, we focus so hard on others, we forget about ourselves.  These development plans are simple, but powerful.

The Method to the Madness

The reality is, if you don't promote yourself (to you and to others) and you instead wait for someone else to do it, you may be waiting a very long time.

 

 

Let me know how it works for you!  

 

Note: I wish I knew who to credit for this awesome picture. If anyone knows, please tell me.