Governance
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Symphony: Scope of Sight
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From where the conductor stands, she sees and hears everything. This is the perfect place from which to direct and convey small changes in vision. The conductor is perfectly situated so that everyone can see her, and she can alternatively see everyone back. If the conductor was anywhere else, she might hear one section louder…
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Collaborative Teams
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04-20 I’ll admit that as much as I talk about web 2.0 and collaboration networks, collaboration is simply not a set of tools. Collaboration can be made more efficient with tools and tools can enable certain types of collaboration, but in the end, I think collaboration is about culture and governance. In my opinion, collaboration…
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Symphony: A Light Touch
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One of the secrets of good conducting is to have a light touch. What actually happens is when a conductor tries to force movements or over-emphasize and overpower the music, the symphony as a whole will generally rebel and do their own thing. The conductor’s job is to simply convey their own vision for the…
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Symphony: Trust Your Section Leads
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It’s pretty amazing when you watch a symphony or orchestra work. You see the conductor doing her thing front and center. You see violins sitting together in perfect coordination, and all the other instruments doing the same. What is actually happening is sometimes a surprise. Most members of the symphony are only taking casual direction…
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Changing Governance Based on Complexity
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So I suppose first and foremost, I’ll need to admit that I didn’t even read nearly the entire article I happen to be referring to in this post. I’m really much more of a decision support guy that a decision-making science guy. I’m not sure I really understand the total complexities that define the differences…
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So, do you really want to know what your consultant thinks?
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As we all know, many consultants are simply “yes men.” They tell you exactly what you either want to hear, or already know. In many cases, there is really nothing wrong with this. They tell you what you already know simply because it is the general truth. Consultants often go through many hours of interviews…
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String Theory and Particles
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As long as I’m writing about the Hadron Collider, I might as well write about string theory. I’m not sure how to simplify this for non-scientists (I’m not one either obviously) but here goes: String theory basically states that within the molecule, there are atoms, within the atoms, electrons, protons, and within each of those,…
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What is a Center of Expertise?
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In our traditional 3-circle HR service delivery models (Ulrich model really), one of the major components is the center of excellence or center of expertise (COE). The COE has never really evolved over time, but perhaps it’s ripe to do so now. Traditional COE’s have always been benefits, compensation, recruiting, etc… However, this may not…
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Why We Don’t Need HR
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Simon Baker wrote a piece that was not as inflammatory as the well known “Why We Hate HR” article a couple years ago. I found it quite entertaining and thought it deserved a response. Simon has a couple of good points, but also it’s discouraging to see his opinions from both a management and strategy…
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Diagramming Web 2.0 versus Enterprise 2.0
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I like pictures. CIPD published a paper that was honestly quite annoying, but contained a couple of little gems. I was annoyed because the paper was entitled Web 2.0 and HR, but it never got past defining what Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 are and getting to the point of how all this is pertinent…
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Why HR Can’t Implement Web 2.0
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Joel Cheeseman wrote an interesting piece on Web 2.0 a couple months ago in the Industry Insider. An outsider is led to believe such cutting-edge tactics in the employment space are the rule. In reality, it’s the exception. The percentage of companies publishing blogs full of embedded YouTube videos, Flickr photos, a roll call of…
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Why Technology Projects Fail 1
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You take on a project to change something in your organization. If you’re reading this, often you’ll be implementing some sort of technology. Why do projects fail? Often, it’s because there is no change in processes prior to implementing technology. After all, why would you implement technology to change your underlying delivery model, but not…
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On Blackberry Use and Bad Governance
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Not to offend anyone in particular, but I’ve noticed a trend among companies I visit: Organizations where (under the table) blackberry use during meetings runs rampant tend to have really bad governance models. Conversely, organizations where people are engaged and participate in meetings they attend tend to have good governance models. This is not to…
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HR as Sales
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I often think that senior HR practitioners don’t think about sales as often as they should. Too much of the time, HR thinks that their performance in the delivery of services is enough. Even if those services are the delivery of strategic reporting (such as detailed workforce analytics helping to chart the future direction of…
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Universal Best Practices
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It’s funny to me that these are even called best practices. First of all, there really are no “best practices”. Perhaps these should be called “leading practices” or even “common practices”, but something that does not state that this is the way to go all the time. It is simply not true that we have…
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How Do You Identify High Potential Employees?
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The Institute for Corporate Productivity (is there an institute for everything?) recently conducted a study on high potential employees and the practices of organizations around them. If you want to be groomed for a leadership position, then it pays to be viewed as a “high-potential” employee, or “HiPo,” for short, according to a recent study…
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Game Theory and HR
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If you haven’t figured out by now, I have a degree in Economics. Game theory as published by the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosohy is “the systematic study of interdependent rational choice. It may be used to explain, to predict, and to evaluate human behavior in contexts where the outcome of action depends on what several…
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Sometimes Being Strategic Is Not What’s Next
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February 11, 2008 A long time ago (I’m behind on my reading) the HR Thoughts blog had a piece about not trying to be strategic all the time. While it’s nice that managers, directors and VP’s of HR get to think so, the reality on the ground is not that simple. The state of network…
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Social Media Best Practice #1
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I don’t know whether the other Systematic (systematicviewpoints.com) intended for his first post on social media best practices to infer that this best practice (#1) is also the most important. However, I’m taking it that way and I haven’t even read the others yet (because they are unpublished – his is one of the sites…