Aspirational Cuisine

Last week as I was preparing to leave NYC at the end of the 2nd Annual Human Resource Executive Forum, I took a few minutes to stop at legendary city cupcake bakery Crumbs. The gourmet cupcake trend, while not exactly new, is kind of new to me - this was my first trip to one of these gourmet cupcake bakeries in any city. I bought a four-pack to go in case you were wondering, picture is on the right.

Cupcakes to seem to be everywhere these days, from the recent proliferation of gourmet cupcake bakeries even amongst other, less enticing aspects of city life; to reality TV.  Although, based on the sheer enormity and diversity of seemingly mundane occupations getting the reality TV treatment lately, having a reality show of some sort based on your industry or job function really is not all that novel anymore.

So what is the big deal about the cupcake shop you may be wondering? As I was looking at the piece in the Atlantic referenced above, it contained a link back to an older piece in a blog called Edible Geography, about then burgeoning rise of the gourmet cupcake industry, particularly in urban settings. In the post we learn about a study that was conducted by Rutgers University professor Kathe Newman that theorized that the development and growth of cupcake shops could "provide a more accurate and up-to-date guide to the frontiers of urban gentrification than traditional demographic and real estate data sets."

Sort of makes sense - if in a given neighborhood two or three cupcake shops open (or pet boutiques or gastropubs), then one can probably start making some broader conclusions about demographic and economic shifts without having to wait for 'official' sources of data like census information or real estate filings. Just taking a stroll around the block and actually noticing what is going on might be all you need to realize something is changing, whether for worse or better is a matter of judgment I suppose.

Perhaps an obvious point, but one I think often gets lost in our need, especially in our organizations, to assemble all the evidence, to compile all the data, then proceed to draw conclusions and make recommendations fully confident that all the angles were considered and all the bases were covered. We are most comfortable when data is processed through our traditional and expected filters, and packaged neatly for consumption in an easy-to-read set of PowerPoint slides.

Just like walking though a neighborhood and seeing new cupcake shops or artsy coffee houses is an obvious sign that things might be changing;  hearing that your top salesperson has resigned to work for a competitor, or that another competitor has just announced record earnings and had their stock upgraded from 'outperform' to 'buy' are sure signals that things might not exactly be all wonderful back at headquarters.

You could, in response to these kinds of developments, commission a committee or conduct a survey to adequately assess this changing landscape. Of course by the time your commission returns with its report and recommendations, four or five more gourmet cupcake shops may have sprung up.

That's the thing about new gourmet cupcake shops and bad pieces of corporate news, they aren't usually isolated incidents. Once the floodgates open...

Guess the Corporate Support Function

Take a guess at what corporate support function, and the nature and design of an increasing number of positions in that function were recently described by a senior executive at a huge, global corporation in the following manner:

...new jobs are being created that recognize the importance of both technology and creativity simultaneously.  So, as these left and right brains are thankfully mashed together in a singular role, job titles such as “creative technologist,” “marketing engineer,” and “information architect” are beginning to appear on org charts. We are looking at creativity and technology in the same glance instead of sequentially and that is tempting indeed. My bet is that these early “buds” will flower in surprising work and productive, new ways of conversing with our consumers and customers

Did you guess HR? Finance? Communications?

Actually, you probably sorted from the 'marketing engineer' title, that the quote was indeed about Marketing, and was attributed to Dana Anderson, Kraft Foods’ Senior Vice President of Marketing, Strategy, and Communications.  The quote is sourced from an interview of Ms. Anderson on the Forrester Interactive Marketing Professionals Blog here.

Why does a quote about what a big-time Marketing executive thinks is going to be one of the most significant changes in her field in the next 10 or so years matter to the (assumed) readers of this blog - HR, HR Technology, and perhaps recruiting professionals?

Perhaps not much. But in a semi-regular effort on this site to make connections between stuff I find interesting (sports, comic books, tech gadgets) and Human Resources issues - I'm going to give it a try.

If you buy-in to the idea that in HR, much of what you are expected to do as a leader, is quite a bit similar to what sales leaders confront every day;  and if you see the relationship between say something like recruiting and branding, or even performance management to a complex and coordinated PR campaign, then developments in the talent profiles for the next generation of marketing (and likely communications and PR), probably do matter to you in HR.

Take another look at the Anderson quote. She talks about job titles like 'creative technologist' and describes the next generation of talent in her discipline as possessing a blend of left and right brain thinking that should ultimately produce 'surprising and productive' work, and create 'new ways of conversing with our customers.'

Would you characterize any of the spots in your HR shop using similar language? Is there any room on your Benefits team for a creative technologist?  Anyone in the training group given the chance to develop and innovate using a mashup of their left and right brained selves?

If you believe at all in the idea of a 'war' for talent, and that convincing the 'best' or most capable people to come and join your organization, or even for internal talent to join your in-house function will result in competitive advantage, then understanding what the next generation of marketers, sales people, and communications pros will bring to the mix is really important to you in HR.

I'll spin it this way - if you were just starting out in your career, smart, good education and backround, lots of options to consider, which direction might you go?

Door Number One - towards the future of marketing, mashing up creativity and technology while creating new and exciting things.

or

Door Number Two - leading to the future of HR in your organization.

Come on, be honest - which one would you choose?

Have a fantastic weekend!

Imagine there are no 'A' Players; it's easy if you try

Peter Cappelli, Professor of Management at the Wharton School, delivered the closing keynote, 'Managing Performance in a Post-Recession Workspace' at the end of the first day of the Human Resource Executive Forum.

The presentation was equal parts entertaining, engaging, and challenging; in particular the preliminary results that Professor Cappelli shared around his analysis of the consistency of employee performance over time. 

Essentially the question that Cappelli's research aimed to answer was this?

How much does last year's performance appraisal tell you about what this year's will be?

Here is the basic methodology - obtain the performance review scores and results over a period of years from a large, established organization, thousands of performance reviews, and examine these reviews and scores to see if there is consistency and predicability in individual's performance reviews over time.

So back to the question - How much does last year's performance appraisal tell you about what this year's will be?

If you are like most of the audience, I'll bet you'd say that last year's review would tell you quite a bit about this year's review, most of the attendees felt like about 75% of the time performance results would remain predictive and consistent; i.e., last year's best performers would almost certainly be this year's best performers, and middle of the road performers tend to plod along year after year.

But according to the research, Cappelli indicated that only 25% of this year's performance review could be predicted from last year's results. The data set suggests that performance fluctuates much more widely over time that we tend to believe, and that he has found no evidence to indicate otherwise.

Cappelli elaborated on the implications of these findings, offering a series of smart, common-sense approaches to managing performance that would, if skillfully implemented, tend to improve performance over time, particularly performance for so-called 'troubled employees'.

But the most interesting observation was this - if performance does indeed vary widely over time, the entire idea of 'A' players and 'B' and 'C' players is overblown, if perhaps almost irrelevant.

If the data suggest that this year's top performers, those 'A' players that we constantly talk about, turn over every rock in the recuiting process to uncover, attempt to nurture and coach up through our organizations with 'special status' and development plans, might only be 25% of next year's 'A' players, well then, the entire notion of 'A' players doesn't make any sense at all.

If performance is highly variable, highly situational, and difficult to predict based on prior year data, then what does that mean for talent and performance management?

Is recruiting 'A' players highly overrated?

Are there really 'A' players and 'C' players?

What do you think?

Human Resource Executive Forum 2011

Today and tomorrow I'll be attending the Human Resource Executive Forum in New York City.  

Later this morning I have the great honor of participating in a panel discussion titled 'Leveraging New HR Technologies to Thrive in a New Reality', along with Josh Bersin, CEO of Bersin & Associates; Bettina Kelly, Senior VP at Chubb; Stephen Mirante, Senior VP at CBS Corp.; and moderated by Mercer's Patricia Milligan.

Clearly, the HR Technology landscape remains complex, fluid, and in many ways, in transition. From consolidation at the higher ends of the market, to the emergence of a slew of interesting and dynamic solutions at the edges of the market, and finally to the emerging importance and challenge presented by social and collaborative technologies; today's HR and organizational leaders are faced with both opportunity and decision points.

In organizations of all sizes, the need to understand workforce ability, alignment of capability to intended business strategy, assessment of current and future workforce needs, while simultaneously measuring, analyzing, and taking actions on data and information gleaned from these workforce technologies, combine to present the HR and HR technology professional with a diverse and complex set of requirements to address and technologies to evaluate and implement. 

And oh yeah, make sure these technologies are easy and engaging to use, can be deployed rapidly and on budget, work on an increasing number of platforms and devices, and be adaptable to a set of ever changing business needs. One more thing, these tools need to be 'social' too. Most people don't really know what they mean by that, but one thing we all agree on is 'social = good.'

Simple right?

Of course most of us agree that sorting out the new world of enterprise and workforce technologies is anything but simple, and that realization I think, is one of the main reasons that events like the Human Resources Executive Forum dedicate time on their agendas to specifically address some of these technology issues and challenges.

For my part, on the panel I will be talking about ways to transform data into information, and why that matters; some of the new, and non-traditional technologies that exist a bit outside the mainstream; and what the changing composition of the workforce and the demands that increased mobility will place on HR technology decisions and deployments.

I am looking forward to the session, and to attending the rest of the event.

Of course I will be tweeting and blogging from the event, if you are following on Twitter, look for the hashtag #HREforum11.

All these empty spaces

This morning’s drive from one suburb to the next, on a commute that I’d bet is quite similar to many of yours:

Signs are everywhere along this suburban two lane road, the kind of road that you’d see in the near and semi-near outskirts of every mid-size city.  Signs reading ‘112,500 Sq. Feet - Class ‘A’ space, will divide’. I pass four or five of these signs on my 10 minute drive each day. Not really from my drive, but you get the idea

These seemingly relatively new, perfectly adequate, likely inexpensive ‘Class A’ spaces going vacant, with buildings designed to hold dozens of tenants and hundreds of workers hanging on to the three or four anchor companies, while holding out the hope that as the economy and job market improve, so might the corporate real estate market.  And perhaps it will.

After I pass the last of these ghostly office parks I stop at the local coffee/bagel shop for a refill. The parking lot is always packed with cars.  The shop itself, (not a hip or trendy place at all), is buzzing with activity and energy. This morning, like most, nearly every table is populated with people talking, drinking coffee, and working.  Laptops are out, portfolios, resumes, project plans, blueprints - all to be found. This isn’t a ‘lone hipster hanging out all day in a coffee shop with a MacBook while looking 'pained' kind of deal’, these are the kinds of traditional, rudimentary, and entirely adult kinds of meetings that used to take place in some of that vacant Class ‘A’ space just up the road.

Heck, all the ‘work’ going on in the place makes it hard to even find some space to sit and hang out for a bit. Kind of reminds me of how it used to be impossible to score a conference room in the office. Which in is of itself one of the dysfunctional paradoxes in many traditional workplace environments - management and leadership insist that everyone congregate every day in a central location, for a fixed time period, but there is hardly any functional, effective, and even available space to actually work together. So most of us sit in our offices and cubes all day and email, IM, and occasionally call each other on the phone.

What should happen to all these empty office spaces?

Can communities and organizations re-configure, re-zone, re-deploy the spaces? Should we start by tearing down the inner walls, removing the acres of metal file cabinetry (the unfortunate by-product of the unfortunate excesses of paper creation), and put some old sofas and easy chairs? Set up a range of flexible and communal workspaces? Contract with the local coffee shop for a steady supply of caffeine that doesn’t taste like it was ordered from the same catalog as the industrial cleaning supplies?
 
Our attitudes about work are changing faster than our infrastructure. The designers and owners of places like the coffee shop can (and have) reacted more rapidly to these attitudinal changes and more expansive thinking about what the appropriate ‘place’ for work can be. They might have better and free wifi access than many offices, and they provide for many a conducive work environment without being restrictive, you can sit wherever you like, stay as long or as short as you care to, even, in the best ones, allow you to connect with people that may not have anything to do with your company or work, but just might provide the kind of inspiration and re-charge that most traditional office workers rarely get to experience.

In ‘Caddyshack’ the Al Czervik character, a real estate developer played by the great Rodney Dangerfield observes, ‘Country Clubs and cemeteries are the biggest wastes of real estate there are’. I think perhaps if Al observed all the ‘Class A Space Available’ signs and the coffee shops and bookstores packed with workers, he might add ‘Suburban office parks’ to the list.