HRE Column: The Big Trends in HR Tech and the #HRTechConf

Here is my semi-frequent reminder and pointer for blog readers that I also write a monthly column at Human Resource Executive Online called Inside HR Tech that can be found here.

This month, I took a look at the program for the upcoming HR Technology Conference (which if I can pat myself on the back for a second, put together), and tried to tease out some of the trends and themes that have risen to the surface from months of planning and literally hundreds of pitches.

I came up with three big trends that I tried to describe in my HR Executive column. From the HRE piece:

Organizations of all sizes now have access to powerful technology solutions in support of all the functional areas of HR. It will be incumbent upon the HR leader of 2015 and beyond to make the best technology choices in order to successfully develop and execute the organization’s people and talent-management strategies.

When I review and reflect on this year’s HR Tech conference program, several key themes emerge:

Data and analytics continue to drive HR and talent management.

A continuing theme in 2015 has been the realization and maturation of the importance of bringing more analytical approaches and rigor into the HR discipline. The importance of data; the strategies to gather, compile, assess, and make meaning from that data; the role technology plays in support of these efforts, and the ways that data enhances our understanding of people and talent will be explored at this year’s event. Large organizations such as IBM, Unilever and Wawa Inc. are using data, analytics and the modern tools that have become increasingly available for HR and business leaders to efficiently manage this barrage of data and, in time, make more effective and efficient people decisions and set talent strategies.

We will also hear how analytics are being directly applied in specific functional domains such as recruiting, learning and succession planning, and are not just being carried out for their own sake.

Finally, the popular “Awesome New Technologies” demonstration sessions will once more have a heavy data and analytics slant. Many of the new innovations that will be presented showcase new ways to capture, present, analyze and make actionable HR and workforce data.

Building on a theme from 2014, the HR Tech Conference program will once again reflect the continued confluence of marketing, social media and technology with HR, and how these trends are being exploited in functions such as talent acquisition, employer branding and employee engagement. The program lineup will feature interactive panel discussions and conversations with HR, business and talent-acquisition leaders from organizations such as Glassdoor, Cisco, United Health Group and Marriott on the ways modern HR is advancing the application of best practices, borrowed from classic consumer-marketing approaches, to execute talent strategies...

Read the rest of the HR Exec column here 

Good stuff, right? Humor me...

If you liked the piece you can sign up over at HRE to get the Inside HR Tech Column emailed to you each month. There is no cost to subscribe, in fact, I may even come over and wash your car or cut the grass for you if you do sign up for the monthly email.

Also, if you are interested in the HR Technology Conference you can learn more, see the full agenda, and register to attend at the HR Tech website - www.hrtechconference.com.

Have a great weekend!

Learn a new word Thursday, I mean Wednesday: The Dunning-Kruger Effect

I know that the wildly popular 'Learn a new word' series on the blog is meant to be a semi-regular Thursday feature, I didn't want to let this new term I just came across languish for another 24 hours, hence we have the first iteration of 'Learn a new word Wednesday.'

Today's word/term helps us understand the problems we have had in our own careers and in our own organizations with an element of the traditional performance management process known as the 'self-assessment' or 'self-rating.'

You know, that component of the typical performance management process (usually positioned at Step 1), where you and everyone else is meant to attempt to quantify your own skills, competencies, progress towards meeting whatever goals were set for you way back when.

Let's see, do I give myself a '3' or a '4' for 'Tolerance for Ambiguity?' If I go with the '4', does that make me look like someone who is just trying to prop myself up above the other jokers in the group? But if I only give myself a '3', then that will make it easier for my manager to rate me as average too, since if I only think I am a '3' then why should she disagree with me?'

It's a nightmare, no doubt.

Which brings us to today's Learn a new word. Let me introduce, (apologies if you have heard of this before, it was new to me over when I saw it) - The Dunning-Kruger Effect.

From our pals at Wikipedia, (so you know this is true):

The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias wherein relatively unskilled individuals suffer from illusory superiority, mistakenly assessing their ability to be much higher than is accurate. The bias was first experimentally observed by David Dunning and Justin Kruger of Cornell University in 1999. Dunning and Kruger attributed the bias to the metacognitive inability of the unskilled to evaluate their own ability level accurately.

Their research also suggests that conversely, highly skilled individuals may underestimate their relative competence, erroneously assuming that tasks that are easy for them also are easy for others

There it is, scientific proof that shows that we are all, the skilled and the unskilled alike, (substitute skilled and unskilled for 'average' and 'high' performers and you see where I am going), pretty much incapable of accurately assessing our own ability.

It makes intuitive sense, kind of, that the unskilled or even average performers would assess themselves a little too favorably when given the opportunity - after all who likes to actually admit they are not very good at something? Add into this tendency the crazy pressures and power dynamics that come from the workplace performance management process and you can easily see how self-assessments become really dubious in terms of their value.

On the flip side, the Dunning-Kruger effect tells us that highly skilled performers will over undervalue themselves and their abilities. If I can do this easily, that must mean it is easy to do, goes their thinking.

This is likely the fundamental reason why in sports so many of the very greatest players don't actually succeed in post-playing career efforts at coaching. Playing the game at a high level came so easily to them, that they can't see why it does not come so easily to the normal or average players that they have to coach and mentor, resulting in frustration and suboptimal outcomes.

You might have had a sneaking suspicion as an HR pro of the shaky and questionable value of the self-assessment process. If you did, you know have a fancy term to attach to your POV. 

Don't blame the player. Blame the Dunning-Kruger effect. 

Job Titles of the Future #14 - Cultural Intelligence Agent

What kind of organization do you think would benefit from someone who could 'Harness industry trends, insights and resources to help fuel an environment of disruptive growth and innovation?'

Additionally, the person who would excel in this role would also be able to 'Mine the cultural landscape to identify emerging trends and influences in the areas of Music, Gaming, Design, Tech, and Culinary.'

That all sounds really cool and fun and vaguely hipsterish. I am pretty sure I am not qualified.

But to go back to the initial question, what king of organization in what type of industry would you guess is right now looking for someone with these skills? 

Smart guesses would be advertising, media, (especially 'new' media), entertainment, or maybe even old school publishing. How many guesses would you have to make before you arrived at Soft Drinks and Snacks? Because at least in today's specific example, the company that is right now looking for this kind of talent for a role they call a 'Cultural Intelligence Agent' is PepsiCo.

More details from the PepsiCo job listing:

PepsiCo is looking for a Cultural Intelligence Agent with a passion for culture and experience working within or across creative industries including Music, Design, Gaming, Tech &/or Culinary. This role will be responsible for leading a team to harness industry trends, insights and resources to help fuel an environment of disruptive growth and innovation. As an Agent in the Creator Culture Catalyst group, you must demonstrate the ability to become a trusted advisor and thought leader to cross-functional business, brand and innovation leaders. The Agent also will drive and manage cross-functional projects that support creative initiatives and foster innovation

What do knowledge of music, gaming, design, etc. have to do with the ability to create and sell Pepsi?

Well maybe nothing directly. But indirectly, understanding, interpreting, and responding to cultural trends helps you understand people. And understanding people is pretty much the key to success in any business.

Cultural Intelligence Agent sounds like a pretty awesome job. Not quite as fun as Relief Pitcher for the Mets, but still pretty sweet. I hope the folks at PepsiCo see this post and let me know how the recruiting for this position turns out. Because the kind of person who will make a great Cultural Intelligence Agent sounds like a really fun person to know.

What about in your organization? Does understanding culture matter?

Note: Further reading for anyone interested in how culture impact business: Chief Culture Officer by Grant McCracken.

Have a great week!

Superhero T-shirts, Ranked

You probably own a superhero t-shirt. You might even be wearing a superhero t-shirt right now. But you probably never have considered the question "Which superhero t-shirt is best?" Which makes you pretty normal, I think. 

Without further delay, here is your incomplete, subjective, unscientific, and 100% accurate ranking of superhero t-shirts.

Note: I am not going to get into the methodology, criteria for inclusion, etc.. because frankly who cares?

12. Iron Man

11. Hulk

10. Daredevil

9. Spider-Man

8. Fantastic Four

7. Wonder Woman

6. Superman

5. Captain America

4. Punisher

3. Batman

2. Flash

1. Green Lantern

Have a great weekend!

The Mindset List

I am such a mark for Beloit College's annual Mindset List, a look at some of the important and sometimes really surprising changes that have occurred in the last 18 years or so, or expressed differently, just how much differently this year's crop of college freshmen have experienced and view the world compared to us older folks.

Right off of the bat, Beloit reminds us that this new group of students, (mostly born in 1987), have never known a world where hybrid cars were not mass produced, South Park has not always been on TV, and among those who have never been alive in their lifetimes are Princess Diana, Notorious B.I.G., Jacques Cousteau, and Mother Teresa.

The Mindset List is always an interesting read every year, but the odd thing about the list is that while it describes and highlights the world view and perspectives of 18 year olds, they are the ones who are likely the least interested in the actual contents of the list. Their world and world view is just what it is. They don't stop to try and think of or conjure up a time where free Wifi did not exist in every Starbucks in the world. It is the modern version of the classic 'I had it much worse than you' line that every parent in every generation for the entire history of time has at one point leveraged to try to make their children feel guilty about how good they have things.

I am serious, the first evidence of this phenomenon in recorded history was from some primitive cave drawings and inscriptions found in France. Loosely translated, they read, 'Sure kid, it's so easy to kill that antelope with that accurate, sharpened spear. When I was your age, all we had to fight for our lives with was a big rock.'

These kinds of admonitions have only weakened over time. I can recall on more that one occasion lamenting to my son that he did not understand how good he actually had things, since when I was his age my TV remote WAS ACTUALLY ATTACHED TO THE TV WITH A LONG CORD.

Hard times for sure.

There are some real gems on the Mindset List for this year of course, here are a couple of my personal favorites. Incoming college freshmen:

They have never licked a postage stamp.

When they were born, cell phone usage was so expensive that families only used their large phones, usually in cars, for emergencies.

Their proud parents recorded their first steps on camcorders, mounted on their shoulders like bazookas.

There are plenty more gems like that on the list, and I recommend taking a few minutes to take a look at the entire piece.

I know it is a little obvious, and maybe seems kind of unimportant to most of us but it is really, really easy to lose sight of just how much the world and technology and society and work and everything else changes in a relatively short time. 

It is good, no matter how old or young we are, to think about how folks not quite like us see and understand the world.