What Team Building Sometimes Reveals

I apologize for pulling the Graph Jam card for the second week in a row, but when I saw this take on organizational team building, I could not resist:

see more Funny Graphs

Funny, and probably with just enough of inherent truth in the cold assessment of what organizational team building often tells us about ourselves. No doubt at some point in your career you've been subjected to a trust fall or a ropes course or a 'Build a complex Lego kit while blindfolded' while Marge from Accounting shouts the instructions that have to be relayed via the new guy in IT that you aren't even sure actually works at the company since no one has ever seen him in the office before.

Sure, team building usually kind of stinks, but is it really as awful as the Graph Jam point of view? 

I admit I never really understood the classic Team Building approaches. I mean, I understand what they are attempting to do - to help the team get to know each other a little more, to open up the lines of communication in a less structured and more free setting, and to try and create some shared experience from which more effective teamwork can build. I do get that. 

What I don't get is why anyone thinks trust falls or riding for an hour in a school bus (sort of like prisoners heading out to clean up the side of the highway), is the right or best way to accomplish those goals. But perhaps I am too cynical. Maybe.

What do you think? Is there still (or has there ever been) any value in corporate Team Building events or exercises?

Or do you fall more in line with the folks who say they'd be happy to work more effectively as a team, provided we get a whole bunch of better players?

Notes From the Road #5 - Regional Candy

NOTE: This is the latest in an ongoing series of quick dispatches from the trail - things I pick up from airports, hotels, cabs, meetings - anywhere really, in hopes that at least some of the observations will be interesting and even worthwhile. And also, since being out on the road for work usually throws off the schedule and gives me less time to worry about the little blog here, these Notes from the Road pieces have a internal timer set at 15 minutes. Whatever ideas, no matter how half-baked or thinly developed, get the 'Publish' treatment at the 15-minute mark.  

Ready, set, go. Fifteen minutes starts now.

Sometimes when you travel quite often the cities, towns, streets, airports, rental cars, and restaurants start to blend together into an almost indistinguishable collage of, well, 'somewhere else-ness.' You can really easily see the places you go and the organizations and people that you see as not being all that different from the next organization you've just visited, or the one you'll be calling on tomorrow or next week. The uniform blandness that is perpetuated by the endless series of 'pretty much exactly the same so you know what to expect' series of Starbucks, Applebees, Outback, Marriotts, and McDonalds that you encounter pretty much where ever you go. Ever had one of these?

All this 'sameness' is comforting in a way, I suppose. The challenges and stress of business travel often drives us to make choices that are low risk and low reward when in comes to lodging, eating, socializing, etc. It is hard enough to be away from home and the home office, who needs to wander lost in a strange town trying to find a local gastropub to sample some free-range chicken and a microbrew. Not when 5 dollar foot-longs are just off the interstate.

Last night I was driving home, from Cleveland to Rochester, about a 260 mile drive. On the one stop I made for gas and a Diet Coke, (at a small, non 'name brand' gas station), I picked up a handful of chocolate candies, one of them (the only one I did not eat), is pictured on the right. It is called an 'Ice Cube', and I had never seen them before. I asked the clerk about them, and she said they were really good, and it was impossible to have only one. I took her at her word, and she was right. They are really good. I bet I ate 5 or 6 in between Erie, PA and home.

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I actually have no idea if 'Ice Cubes' are a local, Ohio or Midwest delicacy or not. They could be sold anywhere and everywhere for all I know. But I had never seen them before, and the only way I would have seen them was by stopping in this local station somewhere east of Cleveland. I probably never would have bought some unless I took a minute to ask the clerk about them.  And its quite likely I may never have them again, unless I have to bo back to Cleveland.

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But I was glad that I did sample some of these little treats. If nothing else they gave me a good reminder that while we can allow ourselves to be fooled into thinking that the places we go, the people we see, and the organizations that we work with are really kind of the same, and therefore our strategies to working with and helping them can be the same as well; that often the small differences in these situations are the important ones to notice. Understanding these differences is often the key to truly relating, understanding, empathisizing.

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We can't always try and apply our Snickers bar solutions in a place that loves their Ice Cubes.

Put down your iPhone for a second, we're strategizing here.

A prediction for 2012: There will be about 17,294 '2012 Predictions' blog posts and newsletter articles stressing the importance of mobile technology for workforce tools, marketing, branding, recruiting, gaming, training - you name it, chances are you will be warned that you'd better have a 'mobile strategy' for all of it.

And you better. So get on that now. And as the funny and apt cartoon from the Marketoonist reminds us, you might need to put down your toys for a few minutes while you sort that out.

Hello? Bueller?

Jokes aside, the correct approaches to mobile technology and the mobile-enablement of current workplace technologies probably present a set of challenges, (and certainly opportunities), unlike previous or last generation problems that needed to be solved. 

Needed to make sure the time and attendance system met your needs? Well, since everyone used to report to the office, the process of badging or punching in was fairly simple. As long as the data was passed to the payroll system, you had most of your problem licked. 

Today that same system and process might need to be supported on 5 mobile operating systems, on dozens of devices, and multiple languages. Not so simple for sure. And that doesn't even begin to touch upon the issues surrounding preferred usage styles and form factors on these devices, and just what workplace functionality should be mobile-enabled and what perhaps should not.

All in all, you will be told that in 2012 mobile will get even more important for getting work done, for engaging with employees, candidates, and customers; and for competing globally.

What you won't be told is that you'll need to sign off of Angry Birds and Flipboard for a few minutes to sort it out.

Wait, maybe we can build an Angry Birds extension that equates punching in at work to smashing a few pigs?

Making a Half Million Dollar Ask? Maybe a Little Prep Makes Sense

You have to love the openness and transparency in (most) of the public sector. As my friend Mark Stelzner so accurately pointed out a few weeks back, the Freedom of Information Act and other local regulations often require that meetings, documents, contracts, and proceedings of various governmental bodies are regularly made available to the public and/or posted online for all to see.I'd like $500K please.

Case in point - a recent article describing a meeting of the San Antonio, Texas based Alamo Community College District, a collection of Texas Community Colleges having about 6,000 total employees, where the Vice Chancellor of Human Resources pitched a close to $500,000 purchase of some new HR software to the college system's Board of Trustees. Making the pitch as an HR leader to the ultimate decision makers for a big outlay for HR software is never easy, but as the article in the Ranger online aptly demonstrates, making said pitch without ready and defensible answers to some of the obvious questions that responsible budget holders are bound to ask is a recipe for failure, (and a little embarrassment).

Some highlights in case you don't read the entire Ranger piece: (questions and answers edited a bit for clarity)

Trustee Question #1 - Why are we doing this, i.e. why do we need to drop half a million on HR software?

HR Leader Answer: "We just really don't know a lot about how we're developing or if we're developing the talent we have out there waiting for us."

Eek. While that is likely true, when presented in that context it does not really inspire much confidence in the HR function. Make the case be about what the new tools will enable HR to do in order to help the organization meet its goals and develop talent sure, just don't state, 'We really have no idea what is doing on with our people and we need help.'

Trustee Question #2 - Are there any other similar customers using this solution, specifically, any other community colleges?

HR Leader Answer: "I don't know."

Ack. I don't completely blame the HR pro on this one. Not totally. Any vendor rep that had a clue what they were doing would have prepped the HR professional for this question and provided her with a list of references. But budget authorities the world over are not typically known for their willingness to embrace risk. Not having an answer to the question just makes HR seem more out of touch with business risk and reality.

Trustee Question #3 - What happens if we don't buy this software now?

HR Leader Answer: "Nothing really. If we wait until after December, then we will have to pay a higher price. 

Trustee follow up - How much more?

HR Leader Answer : I am not sure.

You get the idea by now I am sure. Walking into the room, making the big money ask, and not anticipating an preparing for the obvious questions related to the software, the benefits, and the simple risk mitigation strategies associated with large software implementation projects just makes you look unprofessional, and ill-prepared to handle a costly, complex project.

The answers to these questions are not always easy, but the questions are easy to anticipate. If you can't answer them, then maybe you're not ready to sit at the grown-up table.

Consumerization, Technology, and HR

Tonight on the HR Happy Hour Show, (a weekly live internet radio show and podcast that I have been hosting since 2009), the conversation is going to be about Consumerization - specifically how the demands on Human Resources and HR Technology professionals are changing, largely influenced by developments in the consumer and personal technology markets.

Thinking about consumer technology and trends naturally forces one to consider the larger world in which our organizations reside, and how things like globalization, changing demographics, and even political and social unrest all contribute to and impact the workplace. The employees that work for us also live in the real world as well, and as the lines between work and personal time continue to move, shift, and cross; thinking a little more deeply about these environmental forces and how they shape workplaces is not only fascinating, but critical.

And when thinking about 'Consumerization' in the workplace, some other questions come to mind:

Who hasn't felt at times that the tools and technologies that are available at work are in many ways less appealing and effective than what we use in our personal lives?

How many folks carry around multiple mobile devices, one for 'work' that tends to be more basic and utilitarian, (and controlled by IT); and an iPhone or Droid to for 'fun' only to conclude the 'fun' device and its collection of carefully and personally selected applications create an incredibly powerful mobile computing powerhouse.

Finally, what consumer trends can be safely ignored, (for now), by HR professionals, and which ones should you make sure you don't miss?

Our guest on the Happy Hour tonight to talk about these ideas will be Yvette Cameron from Constellation Research. Yvette brings a wealth of experience and perspective as a business, technology, and Human Resources leader and will be sure to inform, challenge, and hopefully inspire.

The show will be live tonight, December 8, 2011 from 8PM - 9PM ET. You can listen live on the show page here - or using the widget player below:

Listen to internet radio with Steve Boese on Blog Talk Radio

Also, if you'd like to participate more actively with the show, you are invited to call in live on 646-378-1086, and follow the backchannel conversation on Twitter - just track the hastag #HRHappyHour.

It will be a fun and interesting conversation and I hope you will join us!