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    Friday
    Nov222013

    VIDEO: Robots and our gadget addiction

    Off topic for a rainy Friday - check out this amusing 4-minute look at our need to always have the latest and greatest gadgetry, (email and RSS subscribers will have to click through), brought to you by the folks at Big Lazy Robot, and perhaps not surprisingly, featuring some adorable robots.

    IDIOTS from BLR_VFX on Vimeo.

     

    All we are is just another robot sheep, marching silently in line to obtain the next thingamabob that we probably don't really need...

    Happy Friday and put down your phone at some point this weekend!

    Thursday
    Nov212013

    What if we had fewer managers?

    For a few minutes yesterday I dropped in on the always interesting #Nextchat on Twitter which was on the always popular HR and Talent topic of employee engagement. In the discussion most of the comments and observations around the topic of engagement were what we have come to expect, (and know to be true). Nevertheless, there were some excellent insights shared by many of the participants.

    But you know the story around engagement, right?

    Employee engagement is a reflection of the 'extra effort' people choose to make or not make, bad company culture drives much of the measured low levels of positive engagement, and most interesting to me, that managers are the prime drivers or enablers of engagement in the organization.

    If the organization has bad managers, or not enough good managers and then you will have an engagement problem, (and a retention problem and a recruiting problem, and on and on). Managers need to be engaged themselves in order to have a better chance at rank-and-file employee engagement. Managers are often the barrier to engagement, as they simply don't know or realize the importance of engagement in a broader organizational context. Managers are the devil's spawn and their mere presence haunts the hallways of the company headquarters.

    Ok, that last comment was not really stated, but you get the idea. The manager as the key to engagement, (and lots of other really important talent management practices), was beat to death.

    After watching the discussion carry on in that manner for a bit, I finally (at least to me), offered the only suggestion that might actually have an immediate impact, (not necessarily a positive impact, I admit).

    Here it is:

     

     

     

    I was kind of being a wise guy but not totally.

    If (bad) managers are truly such an important driver of engagement and talent management, and we have known this for ages, and at least according to the consistently poor engagement levels we see in many if not most businesses we are doing a terrible job of selecting and coaching these managers, then wouldn't it make sense to simply have far fewer of them?

    Find the 20 or 30 percent of the managers that actually are really good at engaging teams, guiding career development, challenging employees to reach their potential, etc. and just let them manage everyone.  Take the rest of the managers that aren't good at those things and either let them focus on the actual work they are good at or let them move on.  Or make them sort of 'technical' managers that don't have the messy 'people' manager side of things and can focus on the work, sort of like how football teams have offensive and defensive coordinators that set strategy and tactics but don't really have to deal with the players on an individual and personal level.

    I don't know, it just seems like after years of lamenting about the shortcomings, disinterest, and general imperfections of 'managers'  that at least some of the problems could be solved by having fewer of them.

    What do you think?

    Wednesday
    Nov202013

    70 is the new 50?

    Overheard from one of the talking heads on CNBC this morning in the context of a discussion on the potential candidates for new CEO of Microsoft: (Note: I am paraphrasing the below exchange as best as I can from memory, as I was still a bit groggy waiting for the coffee to brew).

    Host - Now how do you feel about Alan Mulally from Ford to be the next Microsoft CEO?

    Expert guest - I think he'd be fantastic. He's done an amazing job at Ford, he has ties to the Seattle area, and would be able to turn around that company.

    Host - But is he able to take that job and do it well for say another 7 years? Isn't he something like 68 years old now? (Note: Mr. Mulally was born on August 4, 1945 making him, indeed, 68 years old).

    Expert guest - Sure he could. Why not? 70 is the new 50 after all.

    (Chuckles around the table).

    Except that it really is not all that funny.

    The issue really isn't whether or not Alan Mullally would in fact make an excellent CEO for Microsoft and even at 68 years old still has the energy, drive, good health, mental agility, etc. necessary to succeed in such a big, complex job. 

    Rather, to me, what made me stop what I was doing and shake off my still-waiting-for-the-coffee early morning stupor was the really casual way in which none of the show's other participants really pushed back on the notion that '70 is the new 50'.

    Is that really accurate? And is that how folks working today need to contemplate their working lives? Planning for a future where you will need to (or be expected to), be churning out the widgets at 70?

    To me this is not some long term trend playing out over decades and decades, it seems much more like a one generation shift. 

    I suspect most of the folks reading this blog are in what we'd consider their 'prime' working years, probably between 35 and 55. And probably most of the folks can look back just one generation, to their parents, and see how the arc of their professional lives looked much, much different and sets up in contrast to the '70 is the new 50' point of view.

    And since I don't know your specific story, I will share mine, (and assume it resonates, if not, please share in the comments).

    My Mom was mostly a stay at home Mom until the kids were older and two of the three of us were out of the house. She then had a few different part-time jobs, a couple that she really liked, but then opted out of the workforce for good at about 55 or so. 

    My Dad, after leaving the Army, worked for one company his entire professional career, held various management and administrative roles, and retired for good at about 62 years old, (and was 'ready' to retire way before that).

    I suspect the stories of your parents are similar. And I'd also suspect at least for many of us today, we expected our stories to play out along similar lines. But it does seem that, in just one generation or so, these expectations, borne out of a combination of economic necessity and some measure of changing cultural and societal pressures, are being rapidly altered.

    The talking head on CNBC might have been (kind of) joking when he said '70 is the new 50.'

    But let's pretend for a moment it was not a joke, and it really is more representative of how more and more of our careers will look.

    Are we ready for that?

    Are our organizations ready for that?

    Will you ever see your Grandkids while they are still young enough to spoil?

    Tuesday
    Nov192013

    5 Reasons Why I hate this #HR blog post

    Presented in no particular order... (and yes, I admit my guilt in having committed some or all of these transgressions)

    -----------------------------------------------------------------------

    1. The title of the post starts with a number. 

    Each time another post like '7 Ways To Rock Your Cubicle' or '13 Tips to Become a More Social Leader' gets published a little puppy dies. It's true.  Please, no more '3 Ways You are an Idiot at Work' posts

    2. It contains no less than four links back to other posts on your own site

    You know what is really cool? Coming up with some kind of half-baked thesis about the future of work, or automation, or robots, or hipsters and using as your reference material just a bunch of stuff you have previously written. Readers just love learning more about what you think. Truly.

    3. Infographic!

    Below is just one of the top infographics I found by doing a Google image search for 'Inane infographics'. But look how pretty!

    4. It includes any one of the following:

    A. Advice on cover letters and/or resumes

    B. Tips to make your LinkedIn profile 'stand out'. Note: These kind of posts are almost always combined with 'List' posts, as in '37 Ways to Jazz up your LinkedIn Profile!'

    C. It mentions Marissa Mayer and Yahoo!. 

    D. It pretends to know more about running Yahoo! than Marissa Mayer does.

    E. It pretends to know more about anything than Marissa Mayer does.

    F. Starts with 'A reader sent in this question....' Can't you come up with your own ideas? Do you have to steal them from the readers?

    G. Contains a picture of an adorable puppy

    H. Uses a Twitter hashtag in the post title. (I have done this one a bunch of times, and I feel like I need a shower after hitting 'Publish'.) 

    I. Has a really bad premise, but about 400 words in it is too late to bail out (and lose the 28 minutes already invested) and simply plows through to the end

    So let me tell you about cover letters. No one reads them! Or check that, some times people read them. So you should write one. Oh, and be sure to customize your resume for each job you apply for. Because in the six seconds that a recruiter spends on your resume it is really important that they don't sense 'Generic resume' by about the fourth second. And that recruiter somehow, might have read one of the other 2,159 resumes you have sent out in the last 18 months. Or not. Wait, what we we talking about again?

    5. It follows the below sure-fire workplace/HR blogging formula:

    One part recent current event

    One part celebrity name drop

    Dash of sports metaphor

    Links to mainstream press articles on above mentioned items

    Dash of homespun HR wisdom 'What can we learn about management from....'

    Mix thoroughly, (and use some bold type at about the half way point to wake up the reader)

    Finish with common sense observation on human nature, (e.g. all humans are terrible).

    So did you catch all the drama with the Obamacare website rollout? I mean, there is no way that a Bill Gates or Steve Jobs would have botched a product launch like that, you know what I mean? If there is one thing that the legendary basketball coach John Wooden taught us, it's that we need to prepare to prepare in order to prepare to succeed. HR leaders can take away some important lessons from all this mess for sure. Don't be incompetent I suppose is one.

    Those are my five reasons why I hate this blog post. Feel free to add yours in the comments below!

    Monday
    Nov182013

    Do not attempt

    Did you watch any TV over the weekend?

    Of course you did. We all did. And please no comments along the lines of 'I don't even have a TV' or 'I only stream Hulu to my iPad'. If you are one of those people, you are still the outlier, still the exception, still kind of annoying.

    So over the weekend I caught a new (I think new) commercial from the good folks over at Jeep. The spot (embedded below, email and RSS subscribers will need to click through), was one of those artsy kinds, with lots of quick cut scenes of people out and about in the woods or on trails or climbing up things, a soundtrack of an old Bob Dylan song with his typical incomprehensible lyrics, and an overall message of 'When you were young, you could do anything, be anything, go anywhere. Now you are older and you think you can't do all the crazy, adventurous, exciting things you used to do, (or wanted to do, but never got around to them before you took a boring office job, signed on for a (too big) mortgage, and became 'responsible.' But you still can do these things, well, if you drive one of these cool, off-road capable but probably won't see any terrain more dangerous than the mall parking lot on Black Friday, new Jeeps!

    It actually is a decent commercial as these things go, and in its final, dramatic, inspirational image we see someone about to embark on a base jump, leaping off a canyon or ridge of some kind, about to hurl his or her mini-parachute in the air that will ostensibly help guide them down to safety below. The voice over reminds us that 'You can still throw yourself at the world head first again' while we see from behind this amazingly exciting, probably dangerous, and likely something 99% of us would never try, leap off of a perfectly good mountain.

    But as we watch that tremendous leap of faith and adrenaline and courage, and internalize that since we are listening to an old, obscure Bob Dylan track that this must be cool, a tiny disclaimer appears on the screen. 

    Do not attempt.

    No, this amazingly exciting (potential) life and set of adventures we portray in our Jeep commerical, they aren't really meant for you to try. (We really just want you to buy a Jeep. And be careful.).

    And we don't want to be held responsible just in case anyone watches our little minute and one second of inspiration and actually thinks that yes, they can crawl out of their cubicle and climb mountains, walk around shirtless, and stare pensively into campfires.

    And yes, there are lawyers somewhere that told us we have to place Do not attempt right over the images just in case someone out there is crazy enough to Attempt and ends up lying in a broken heap at the bottom of the valley.

    What's the point of all this?

    As usual, there is not much of one.

    Except to think that maybe on some if not all of the 10,249 articles that will be published today telling you how to better engage your employees, or how to manage people, or to find and recruit 'top talent' that at least some of them should come with the same disclaimer.

    Do not attempt.

    Have a great week!