In 1972, Edward Lorenz wrote a paper called \u201cPredictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly\u2019s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?\u201d\u00a0 In this paper, the flapping of a butterfly\u2019s wings, a minute, very low mass, and quite insignificant action, represents a small initial and remote condition that can lead to major downstream impacts.\u00a0 Chaos theory is actually the study of initial conditions that lead to large divergences in outcomes.\u00a0 ((I know you guys don\u2019t like when I talk science, it shows in the hit rates for this site.\u00a0 But here goes anyway.))<\/p>\n
I\u2019m always complaining about meteorologists (I actually long since stopped watching TV news, so now I complain about weather.com).\u00a0 But considering the numerous possibilities and dynamics of how weather can change, it\u2019s no wonder they can\u2019t quite get the formula right.\u00a0 I mean, how many butterflies are there in the Amazon in Brazil anyway?\u00a0 The possibilities are so staggering that any predictability is pretty good \u2013 so while they can\u2019t take into account every possible variance, it is possible to look at large inputs that are happening fairly close to the near future and impending events.<\/p>\n
HR is quite similar \u2013 we have so many individual contributors (pun intended) that watching every employee in the organization, every conversation, IM and email is rather impossible.\u00a0 But we do know that our ability to engage our workforce happens through communications, whether it\u2019s manager to employee, from project managers giving cool work to people, vendors making good or bad promises, executives steering the company direction with the board of directors or communicating to employees.\u00a0 It might be the random water cooler conversation that spins out of control and becomes an avalanche of employee sentiment (good or bad).<\/p>\n
So while we can\u2019t monitor every single interaction in our workforce, we can indeed monitor major trends that are going on.\u00a0 We know that wind direction is blowing east at 10 miles an hour in a particular region, and that atmospheric pressure is dropping somewhere else.\u00a0 We understand that as these two conditions might hit each other, certain predictable events happen.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m talking as much about tragedy, a change in benefits providers that leads to major losses in employee engagement, as I am talking about those huge gains, increases in a specific competency that drive the next major innovation.\u00a0 Our jobs in HR are so incredibly complex as we as we create service delivery, technology and processes that foster growth while at the same time combing through predictive analytics that avert disaster at every turn.\u00a0 It\u2019s our job to understand those trends in current and fan them so they become stronger or weaker.<\/p>\n
The breadth of currents that we look out for is also amazing \u2013 from all things rewards which is already extraordinarily broad, to talent which is also extraordinarily broad, to core HR, ER, PR, and whatever else R.\u00a0 We constantly adapt, to new legislation to new processes, technology and theories.\u00a0 There is so much \u201cwhy we hate HR\u201d out there, but we accomplish so much it\u2019s often staggering.<\/p>\n
So here, on my 1,000th post, I wanted to offer my congratulations to all of you out there \u2013 my readers \u2013 for all you do, all you are, all we create, and all we contribute.\u00a0 We control the chaos.\u00a0 And while you do it, thank you for reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In 1972, Edward Lorenz wrote a paper called \u201cPredictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly\u2019s Wings in Brazil set off a Tornado in Texas?\u201d\u00a0 In this paper, the flapping of a butterfly\u2019s wings, a minute, very low mass, and quite…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1805,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[23,37,28,10,8],"tags":[446,453,293],"class_list":["post-1761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blogging","category-change-management","category-communications","category-engagement","category-strategies","tag-blogging","tag-change-management","tag-post-1000"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1761"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1811,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1761\/revisions\/1811"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1805"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/systematichr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}