REPRISE: If Yahoo doesn't kill remote working, then Big Data will

Note: The blog is taking some well-deserved rest for the next two weeks (that is code for I am pretty much out of decent ideas, and I doubt most folks are spending their holidays reading blogs anyway), and will be re-running some of best, or at least most interesting posts from 2013. Maybe you missed these the first time around or maybe you didn't really miss them, but either way they are presented for your consideration. Thanks to everyone who stopped by in 2013!

The below post hits on a couple of topics that were beaten to death in the HR blogosphere in 2013 - the talent management decisions at Yahoo! and what technology and Big Data will mean for work and workplaces. The piece originally ran in March 2013.

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If Yahoo doesn't kill remote working, then Big Data will

A little bit lost in the continuing fallout from the decisions by Yahoo to end remote working arrangements for their staff, and Best Buy's move to end ROWE (Results Only Work Environment), at its corporate headquarters was this much more interesting, (and potentially more important), report in the Wall Street Journal, 'Tracking Sensors Invade the Workplace', that hints at a data-powered future workplace where 'being physically together' is not just mandated, but is tracked, recorded, and interpreted by algorithms and leveraged by management.

How exactly does Big Data, (which usually sounds kind of benign, or at least non-threatening), play a role in the future of telework?  Take a look at this excerpt from the WSJ piece:

As Big Data becomes a fixture of office life, companies are turning to tracking devices to gather real-time information on how teams of employees work and interact. Sensors, worn on lanyards or placed on office furniture, record how often staffers get up from their desks, consult other teams and hold meetings.

Businesses say the data offer otherwise hard-to-glean insights about how workers do their jobs, and are using the information to make changes large and small, ranging from the timing of coffee breaks to how work groups are composed, to spur collaboration and productivity.

"Surveys measure a point in time—what's happening right now with my emotions. [Sensors] measure actual behavior in an objective way,"

The next step in figuring out how people work, communicate, and interact in the workplace and with their colleagues involves wearing an always-on tracking device, (bathroom breaks optional), and harnessing all the data the device collects about who a worker talks to and for how long, how often they get up, when they hit the coffee room and vending machine, how long they stand waiting outside a conference room because the prior meeting ran long - all of this and more.  Mash up that 'experience' data with other electronic data trails (email, IM, internal collaboration tools, etc.), and boom - the data will be able to prescribe optimal amounts of employee interaction, recommend the timing and duration of breaks, send push notifications alerting you that the guy you need to connect with about the Penske account is two stalls away from you, and crucially - keep your managers informed about just what the heck you are up to all day.

But it seems really likely to me that if these workplace tracking sensors gain more well, traction, that organizations will quickly realize that the only way to really exploit them, and the data they collect to its fullest potential, will be in a traditional workplace environment - with all employees together in a physical location and 'on-duty' at the same time. Let's face it, for a remote worker wearing a tracking sensor probably won't produce much valuable data - unless its to try to 'prove' to a suspicious manager that a remote worker is slacking off.

The tracking sensors, if they catch on, will change the anti-telework argument from 'We need you to come in to the office so we can keep an eye on you' to 'We need you to come in to the office so we can track everything you do, say, touch, and feel all day.'

It's a brave new world out there my friends...

REPRISE: Christmas Past - Smokes, Guns, Chicken, and Beer

Note: The blog is taking some well-deserved rest for the next two weeks (that is code for I am pretty much out of decent ideas, and I doubt most folks are spending their holidays reading blogs anyway), and will be re-running some of best, or at least most interesting posts from 2013. Maybe you missed these the first time around or maybe you didn't really miss them, but either way they are presented for your consideration. Thanks to everyone who stopped by in 2013!

The below post re-runs my Christmas piece from a couple of years ago - a look back to a time when we were all far more innocent, less jades, and Christmas meant lots of firearms, booze, and smokes. 

Merry Christmas!

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Christmas Past: Smokes, Guns, Chicken, and Beer

Just a quick note to wish everyone a fantastic Christmas, Happy Holidays, and to simply take a well-deserved break from the hamster wheel.

Like many folks, sometimes I like to look back over the years and reflect on special occasions and holidays and think about what is different about them today, when compared to the sometimes sketchy recollections of wonderful and idyllic holidays of yore. Sometimes our memories deceive us, certainly, and we often color our memories to fit our pre-determined conclusion, whatever that conclusion might be.

After thinking about this carefully for some time, and trying hard to be as clear and unbiased as I could, I came to a conclusion: Christmas used to be WAY more fun. And here is the evidence that I submit in my argument that Christmases of year's past were much more of a white-knuckle ride of guns, booze, smokes, and chaos compared to the kind of tame celebrations of today.

Exhibit A - Nothing says Christmas like some unfiltered goodness. Ron Reagan would not steer you wrong!

Exhibit B - You know what is great to wake up to on Christmas morning? Guns!

Exhibit C - And after the gifts are unwrapped it's time to eat! Pass the bucket of chicken.

Exhibit D - Nothing like a cold drink to wash everything down. You know what would go perfectly with that bracelet? A cold Bud!

I could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.

Anyway, I hope you have a fantastic holiday, even if your holiday doesn't include smokes, guns, greasy food and booze.

Happy Holidays!

REPRISE: You call it 'culture' - to the talent it might just be 'policy'

Note: The blog is taking some well-deserved rest for the next two weeks (that is code for I am pretty much out of decent ideas, and I doubt most folks are spending their holidays reading blogs anyway), and will be re-running some of best, or at least most interesting posts from 2013. Maybe you missed these the first time around or maybe you didn't really miss them, but either way they are presented for your consideration. Thanks to everyone who stopped by in 2013!

The below post hits another theme that I kind of obsessed on in 2013 - what an often amorphous concept like culture means in the workplace and how it impacts how we manage talent. The piece originally ran in February 2013.

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You call it 'culture', to the talent it might just be 'policy'

Fresh off last week's launch of The 8 Man Rotation, 2012 Season free Ebook on all things Sports and HR, I am stocking the pond for the 2013 edition with another dispatch from the sports world - but one that I promise has more broad relevance and applicability.

In baseball, and perhaps in all of North American major professional sports, the New York Yankeesare the most famous, most successful, and most storied franchise in history. Legendary players, achievements, 27 World Series championships, and the occasional bit of controversy have been the hallmarks of the team throughout its long history.

With this long history comes tradition certainly, and traditionally the Yankees have continued to reinforce elements like their uniforms, which are the same design, more or less, as they have always been, and with no player names on the back, only numbers. The Yankees shun most of the other 'entertainment' elements that have become a fixture of professional sports - they have no costumed mascots or cheerleaders. They try for the most part to project a sense of professionalism in how they play the game, and how their players, (employees really), also project themselves when they are representing the team.

For players this means (among other things), an 'appearance' code - uniform shirts buttoned and worn a certain manner, and curiously enough still in 2013, a ban for players on facial hair.  Yep, you read that correctly. If you want to play for the Yankees that means no mustaches, beards, goatees, Van Dykes or facial hair of any type.

The Yankees ownership obviously feels, and has for a long time, that the facial hair ban helps to ensure and support their company brand and culture - professionalism, attention to detail, and very 'corporate' in nature. To them surely this 'rule' really is not so much a rule or a policy, but an outward manifestation and expression of that culture.  And it is entirely up to them as an employer to feel that way.

But one man's (or company's) culture is another man's policy - and in some cases this culture/policy has the effect of deterring otherwise 'top' talent from the organization. The latest example of this in action for the Yankees - check these quotes from the Tampa Bay Rays' pitcher David Price. Price is one of the best pitchers in the league, and when he becomes a free agent in a couple of years, would be precisely the kind of talent the Yankees would pursue. 

Here's what Price has to say about the Yankees and facial hair:

"If I ever did hit that free-agent market, there would be teams I wouldn't sign with simply because of the stuff that I've heard -- every rule they have."

Taking note of his beard, I told Price he'd have to shave if the Yankees traded for him.

"I wouldn't stay there very long then,” he responded. “I wouldn't sign a long-term deal there. Those rules, that's old-school baseball. I was born in '85. That's not for me. That's not something I want to be a part of."

Sure, you can get a little cynical here and tell me - 'If the Yankees offered him $10M more than any other team, he's shut up and sign the contract and shave the beard.'  That could very well be true, but that isn't really the important point to me. 

One man's 'culture' is another man's policy. Sure in this case maybe the culture/policy is having its desired effect - preventing what would possibly be a bad hire. Price, if he went to the Yankees would bristle over the facial hair ban, and probably lots of other culture/policy issues as well.

Not judging anyone here - the Yankees have been really successful for a long time doing it their way, and Price has an absolute right to his opinion and his desire to be treated as a professional.

Not judging, but just reminding that living up to and reinforcing your culture means sometimes turning away some fantastic talent that doesn't see your culture the same way you do. 

Observations from the NBA Summer League 2013

I spent this past weekend in Las Vegas, (either my favorite city in the world, or one I'd like to see nuked, more on that in a moment), with my 8 Man Rotation bros Kris Dunn and Matt 'The Professor' Stollak, taking in two full days of NBA Summer League action.

Regular readers of the blog, and of the rest of the 8 Man gang, know that we think sports is an incredibly great and transparent laboratory where talent management, recruiting, coaching, and team building, (all the things that sound really 'HR-ish'), play out live, in real-time, and in public. 

And the NBA Summer League is a fantastic place to see lots of these angles live, up close, and in a setting that for big-time pro sports, is almost impossible for regular fans to replicate normally. Summer league is about young talent fighting to show what they can do, for aspiring coaches and team execs to get some in-game experience, and for everyone else to play 'NBA General Manager' for a few days and sort out who will be the next star, or harder, the next 10th man on the bench for a mediocre club. 

But nuggets of insight abound, so in no particular order, here are some observations or takeaways or lessons that we will probably never truly learn from the weekend's action: 

1. German Rondo. One of the two individual players our crew spent the most time discussing was Atlanta Hawk first round draft pick Dennis Schroeder. Schroeder, out of Germany, resembles in body type, mannerisms, and in style of play, current NBA star Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics. Thus, our crew dubbed Schroeder the 'German Rondo.' Schroeder even displayed a little of the quirkiness of Rondo, who is let's just say a 'different' kind of dude when he, after discovering his shoe was untied, purposefully fouled the man he was guarding so that play would stop and he could re-tie the kick. While German Rondo was working on the double knot, the Hawks summer coach, Quin Snyder, (I really should write about that guy too one day), unceremoniously pulled GR from the game, being none too pleased with the young player's decision to foul in that spot.German Rondo

The HR/Talent point? With the real Rondo, and it seems like with German Rondo too, sometimes, maybe most of the time, super talented performers are going to act, think, do and say things you wish they wouldn't. But that is often the price of admission. 

2. Data and the ability to use it will separate the winners and losers in almost every field. Matty the Professor was the only member of the crew interested much in actually gambling in Vegas, KD and I being mostly kind of uninterested/boring.  But the real point to me was the Stollak 'system' at blackjack that Matt tried to explain to me that I really can't understand, but seems to work for him. The point? It is a new world my friends - the folks that can figure out how to analyze data, think about problems through a lens of information and likely outcomes - they are the ones that will be telling us all what to do in a few years. The geeks took over the world in the last decade, the next one will belong to the quants.

3. Every job is creative. I probably dropped in on three different casinos on the trip and of the hundreds of interesting observations one can glean from the combination of gambling, alcohol, lights, sounds, and despair - how about this one - that creativity matters in every job. Every casino had scores of video slot machines, each one having its own theme or 'creative' behind it to try and interest and entertain the player, (so they will lose more coin). The best one I saw was a Van Helsing machine, (pic on right). For whatever reason I found it incredibly interesting that somewhere there was a meeting in the video slot making company where someone said 'I know, what about Van Helsing?', and some decision maker type shouted 'Yes!'You want to feed this machine a $20 spot, right?

4. Context is everything. How you stack up depends on who else is in the pool. And if you are having trouble standing out, you either need to get better, (hard), or broaden the scope of who you're being compared to in order to look better, (also hard, but probably less overall work). Or said differently, if you want to feel a little better about your life choices, (as shaky as they may have been), take a stroll through a Las Vegas hotel lobby anytime between 4AM and 6AM. Not a lot of 'high achievers' out and about I would bet.

5. Not all progress is good. A recent trend that I think is pretty ridiculous is the increase in hyphenated last names. You've seen more of them in the last 10 years I bet than in the prior 50. The Summer League poster child for this affliction was Chris Douglas-Roberts, playing for the Los Angeles Lakers. CDR (what we called him since saying 'Douglas-Roberts' all the time is just a hassle), has had a checkered career. Lots of talent, great athleticism, but a seeming disdain for most of the parts of the NBA game that seem too much like 'work', (help side defense, rebounding, general hustle). I can't blame CDR's apparent squandering of all that talent on his silly last name, but it certainly doesn't help.  New Moms and Dads to be? Do us all a favor and don't drop a 'hyphen' on your kids. They will thank you for it someday. 

6. Your most important leaders need to think about talent all the time. If you're business rises and falls based on the talent level of your team, then your leaders better put in the time to evaluate that talent. While the Summer League rosters are made up of rookies, draft picks, and guys trying to claw their way back into the league, and very few recognizable players are actually on the court, the stands are chock full of elite NBA coaches and executives. We spotted head coaches like Eric Spoelstra, Tom Thibodeau, Mike D'Antoni, and Mark Jackson in the crowd at different times. These NBA head coaches were there to watch players that mostly won't even get training camp invitations, much less playing time when the real season starts. But the 11th man on the bench matters to a great NBA team, heck, even the 12th man on the bench matters, and if you really care about talent in your organization you don't stop caring after the starting five.  And your leaders are the ones that need to set that tone.

7. Development means everyone. That, is if you are really committed to raising the talent bar in the organization. The Summer League is not just about finding which rookies and draft picks can actually play in the NBA, it's a bigger industry talent play. Announcers, halftime entertainment, anthem singers, even the guys selling T-shirts - it's all about building a pipeline and figuring out who is ready to step-up. Sure, some of the 'performances' were a little rocky, but that is why you work out the new talent on a smaller scale, in a setting that is close enough to the real thing, but one where there is opportunity to learn, and not a lot of downside if you fail. Mess up the national anthem at the NBA All-Star game? You will be a YouTube sensation within five minutes. Make the same fool of yourself in front of 1200 fans in Summer League? You will have a laugh and the ability to bounce back much more easily. Young and inexperienced talent almost always benefits from these smaller stakes kinds of plays.

8. Your city (might be) gone.  At dinner one night the 8 Man crew, joined by special guest and longtime 8 Man friend Jennifer McClure, engaged in a pretty spirited discussion about our least favorite American cities, i.e. which one would you take out with a tactical nuclear strike if you were forced to pick one. There were a wide range of opinions and options slung around the table, (someone does not like New Orleans for example), but the oddest choice to me was when Jen dropped 'Las Vegas' as her pick for total annihilation. Odd in that we were having that discussion in Las Vegas. What city would you most want to take out if given the opportunity? Hit me up in the comments.

9. There's power in numbers. KD nailed this on his Summer League recap post as well. Next year the 8 Man Rotation Summer League trip back to Las Vegas is already on, and we want to go big. So that means you are invited. Yes, I mean you. Bros, gals, HR nerds - everyone.  Hit me up for details, or let me know you want to join our super-exciting NBA Summer League Facebook group where we will be sharing all the information to get ready for next summer.

Ok, at just over 1,500 words I am out. But just remember one last nugget from Sin City - there, and I suppose everywhere - you always want just the right amount of wrong, if you catch my meaning.

Vacation Week - Read this instead #5

Note: The blog is on vacation this week, so you should read this instead...

‘Oh, I’m So Good at Math’: Lessons From the Jay-Z Business Model

From the piece:

The nature of those rules was revealed in the spot’s final second, when the words SAMSUNG GALAXY flashed on the screen. Viewers were directed to a website, where they could make out—amid stylized redactions—directions that allowed Samsung users to download a free app, which would in turn give them the album five days ahead of its general release. Samsung paid $5 each for a million digital copies, assuring the album of platinum status before it even appeared, while also giving Jay-Z the benefit of free advertising. The Wall Street Journal valued the partnership at $20 million—a figure that shocked an industry battered by piracy and declining revenues.

The deal was about much more, however, than solving a distribution problem. Before the release, the free app worked as a machine for data-mining and promotion, trading scraps of information, like lyric sheets and cover art, for access to users’ social networks. Though some critics objected to the crass intrusiveness—“If Jay-Z wants to know about my phone calls and e-mail accounts,” the Times’ Jon Pareles groused, “why doesn’t he join the National Security Agency?”—it didn’t much affect his standing with fans. A total of 1.2 million people downloaded the app, creating a mailing list at the very least and potentially offering something more, like the core audience for a music-streaming service.

Read the rest here...

Have a great weekend!