In loving Memory

 John William Groth

July 17, 1944 – Dec 29, 2008

Not a blog post about Talent or Social Media, so thanks for your patience.  Instead I’m writing a words in memory of my father’s only brother.

My uncle was a proud Marine, a 35-year member of the Retail Clerks union and recently served on the board of directors for his local water district.  He was also genetically predisposed to a heart condition, suffered a recent stroke and was a committed  smoker for several decades.

This is the third family member I have lost early, aided by a nicotine addiction.  I would like to appeal to anyone else I care about, to seriously consider giving up smoking.   I know it’s your right, I know it’s your body and I really do know it’s addictive.  It’s not an easy thing to stop doing, but I’m convinced it’s a very fast way to cut your life expectancy by at least 15 years. 

Believe it or not, my general social agenda is to mind my own business, and I promise to get back to that ASAP, but writing and printing obituaries really sucks.   Try to think about my needs for a minute and consider a lifestyle choice that is less predictable.

Happy New Year everyone, hug your family and count your blessings.  Wishing you all health and happiness in 2009 and sending love to my Aunt and Cousin who are going to miss John immensely.

Some Great Books from 2008

Here are ten books that are very good and if you haven’t read them yet, you might want to check them out. The list is restricted to books published in 2008 that I read (there are several others published in 2008 that I have on my reading list). The list is somewhat in order of recommendation, although since the topics vary, you should let that be your main deciding factor.

 

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies by Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li

 

Excellent survey of what’s been going on in Social Media, both in between companies and consumers as well as between companies and employees. It presents some good frameworks for structuring your thinking about how to best approach social media and has lots of real world examples.

 

Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin

 

This is a small, but thought-provoking book with some fresh thinking covering the well-worn topic of leadership. It focuses on how we can all be leaders and it’s whether we are willing to step up and create change, as there are people everywhere, more accessible than ever, willing to follow.

 

Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery (Voices That Matter) by Garr Reynolds

 

PZ is an inspiring book that shows how to break out of the “Death by PowerPoint” presentation mode. It’s an easy, fun read that guides you towards how to think about and structure your presentation such that your audience is engaged and retains the major points you are trying to get across.

 

The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam

 

This book doesn’t just tell you how to draw pictures to get your point across; in fact isn’t really about drawing. It dives deeper into how visualization and thinking about problems visually helps you not only get your point across, but it is central to helping you understand the problem better so that you develop a better solution that in turn you can better present to your client.

 

Web 2.0: A Strategy Guide: Business thinking and strategies behind successful Web 2.0 implementations. by Amy Shuen

 

This is chock full of real-life case studies about ways companies were able to implement Web 2.0 technologies to solve particular business problems. The case studies are backed by strong analysis of business models and comparisons to other approaches.

 

Talent on Demand: Managing Talent in an Age of Uncertainty by Peter Cappelli

 

This book is an excellent overview of the general problem of Talent Management, starting with a historical perspective, before there ever was HR, and taking us through the various changes in the business landscape in terms of regulation, technology, globalization, etc., showing how those factors affected the way Talent was viewed and managed, both in terms of acquisition and retention as well as training and development, all based on the supply and demand economics of the time and industry. It then lays out four major principles to act as guides for companies to address their Talent needs.

 

slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte

 

An excellent companion to Presentation Zen, this book is a deeper dive into the specifics of creating a presentation (color choices, layouts, graphics, etc.). Whereas PZ is more the kind of book you’d read straight through and then occasionally refer to refresh your memory about it’s way of thinking, slide:ology is more of a reference manual you would go to for help on particular design questions.

 

The Science of Fear: Why We Fear the Things We Shouldn’t–and Put Ourselves in Greater Danger by Daniel Gardner

 

Links the concepts from psychology research brought up in books like “Predictable Irrationality” (e.g. Recency Effect, Anchoring Rule, etc.) to the agendas of major institutions like business, government and media and how they use those effects to further their aims. Does a great job showing how statistics are warped and misrepresented to push the populations and markets towards actions they’d otherwise not take, mostly through fear, one of our strongest evolutionary survival traits.

 

The New Human Capital Strategy: Improving the Value of Your Most Important Investment–Year After Year by Bradley W. Hall

 

A clear, well-structured approach to the problem of figuring out which of the actions that you are taking with your workforce are actually giving you the results you are looking for. It takes a “systems thinking” view of the problem, designing a blueprint for the problem and then building the system from there.

 

Financial Intelligence for HR Professionals: What You Really Need to Know About the Numbers (Financial Intelligence) by Karen Berman, Joe Knight, and John Case

 

Despite the drab title, this book is actually quite fun to read (really!) and since HR has been told that speaking the language of business is key to being a strategic partner, this is a great way to start learning. It’s written in a friendly style that comes right out and tells the HR reader which things matter, how they matter, and which things really aren’t as crucial to know so you don’t get distracted by them. Each section is loaded with examples from recent history (especially scandals) linking HR areas of responsibility to financial problems for companies.

Career Planning & The Methodist Church

When you’re looking, you find mature talent practices in the oddest of places. Like the Church, for example.

My father-in-law is a Methodist Minister. He is “retired” now, but I have always been amazed by his career progression. He moved his family every 5-8 years to a larger church community and then finished up at a smaller, pre-retirement gig (in Carmel, no less). After a part-time overseas exchange, he now fills in at neighboring churches, having no “flock” of his own (other than the hundreds spread out around the world he still manages to keep in touch with).

Yesterday, he explained the placement practices of the Church. In January of each year, the central board asks each minister if he/she a) wants to continue on at the same church, b) wants to move to a different church, or c) is open to either. Meanwhile, the board queries the church committee in the same manner.

If it’s time for the minister to move on, a matching process commences. Moving does not necessarily mean a promotion, but it does mean a new experience and hopefully a good fit. The minister identifies the desired characteristics of the next church and may even have some specific churches in mind. The church committee also specifies criteria. A short list is identified and the committees/ministers go through a rigorous interview process. At the same time each year, placements are finalized and there is plenty of time to prepare.

My in-law’s address book is evidence that they never actually “left” any particular job, but instead continuously added new experiences and connections. At the same time, they created opportunities for others to develop their careers and really my in-laws (the minister and the nurse) are all about helping.

Pondering Greatness and deliberate practice

Was watching an excellent Charlie Rose last night where he interviewed Malcolm Gladwell and Geoff Colvin on their books about Talent, Performance and Achievement.  Some excellent thoughts came through:

1. IQ doesn’t make much difference to your performance.  After about 120 IQ points,  it no longer gives you that much of an advantage.  This probably rings true for most of us, as I think we can all name someone who clearly has a high IQ but is not be the most effective person overall.
2. Natural talent is mostly a myth.  There is such a thing as natural talents, they are necessary but not sufficient for greatness.   People who are great at their craft are not great exclusively due to natural talent. 
3. Deliberate practice is the key.  Those who do better, are those who are always looking to improve.  Those who push themselves to learn more and perfect their craft.  Trying harder really does make the biggest difference. 
4. You need a lot of practice to be at the top of your craft, 10k hours  (approx 10 years) at least .   The more the better and after the ten year mark you seem to hit a stride (that I would guess is both about expertise acquired AND commitment to improvement) that begins your path to greatness

Of all that I pondered from this program, number four was the most interesting for me.  In thinking of my own career in Talent, I often wonder if I’ve been doing this too long, if maybe there is not enough left for me to learn and moving on might be the right strategy.  With this new insight I realize that I’m between 25 and 30k hours into this field, really just hitting my stride.  Instead, my time would be best spent continuing to put deliberate practice to work into this field perfecting my craft.

So as I look to 2009 I plan to challenge myself with deliberate practice by

• reading more — staying aware of the progress in our space. 
• sharing more — blogs, twitter, conversations, etc. 
• growing more — working on communication strategies to help others benefit from those 30k hours, taking on some new skills, etc.

That’s my list, what did I leave off?  Help coach me toward greatness readers.

Who moved my job?

I’ve been in the same role now for nearly twelve years and I have a pretty good idea what you’re thinking, because lately I’ve been thinking it too: How could I possibly have stayed in the same job for twelve years without losing my mind?  (Okay I totally set myself up here, so feel free to enter all the snarky responses to this rhetorical question in the comments section.  I totally deserve them.)  I guess the easy answer is I haven’t really been doing the same job – because the job I was hired for in 1997 has changed – a lot.  In some ways this has been a blessing, because for starters I probably would have lost my mind.  But there’s a downside as well, what I think of as job creep – when the requirements of the job grow or change so dramatically that you wake up one day and realize you’re no longer interested in, or worse no longer qualified to do, your job.

 

Part of me wants to blame the HR department for this problem; because, after all, aren’t they responsible for ensuring the job I was hired to do is actually the job I’m doing?  But the truth is the overworked, under-appreciated and mostly befuddled HR department probably can’t even provide me with a copy of my job description, let alone ensure it’s still valid.  This leads me to wonder whether there’s something I can do to help control job creep, or a least soften the impact of accepting that the job I fell in love with more than a decade ago has left the building.

 

Optimist that I am, my heart (and my head) tells me there isn’t going to be a quick fix for this problem.  The world and the market place in which we work are evolving so quickly now that successful companies, with any hope of remaining competitive, require an adaptive and agile workforce.  Though the speed of this evolutionary trend varies by geography and industry (the technology sector for example moves at nearly the speed of sound – or at least the sound bite) few organizations will be completely immune.  So, if fixing the problem is at best a long shot, then perhaps the next best thing is to find ways of coping with it.  Here are a few survival strategies I’ve tried to adopt. 

 

First, you have to become compulsively proactive in assessing and developing your core competencies.  To start, ask yourself, when was the last time you participated in some form of learning (formal or informal) that resulted in a tangible improvement in your proficiency level or performance?  If your answer is, “more than three months ago”, or “I can’t remember”, then it’s time to dust off the login ID for your leaning management system and enroll in a course or two.  Don’t have time to attend a class?  Then head to your local bookstore or library and try a little self-directed learning.  Unless you’re fortunate enough to live in France, where employee development is a legislated benefit, you have to own and manage your learning and development plan to same extent you do your 401K.  It’s your career after all, so hop in the driver’s seat and take it out for spin.  Oh, and don’t be afraid to head in an entirely new direction – new skills often result in new opportunities.  

 

You should also be constantly mindful of your attitude.  Most managers will tell you they would rather have an average employee who has a great attitude than an extraordinary performer with the personality of a baboon (surly, anti-social, arrogant – you get the picture).  Change is always stressful and when the job you have loved and nurtured changes to the point where you no longer feel capable of managing your responsibilities, it’s easy to respond by lashing out at others.  Don’t’ make this mistake.  Remember, that keeping your attitude in check is one way to demonstrate (and develop) you’re ability to adapt and change.

 

Finally, you need to be brutally honest in accepting that you and you alone are master of your vocational destiny.  Most of us are hired at will – meaning the company for which we work, as a general rule, does not need to provide any reason to end our employment. But at will employment is a two way street and you ought to be ready to make a change when an opportunity presents itself – even if you’re still totally in love with your job.  You’re résumé, list of references, academic transcripts, social networking profiles, and nicest business suit should always be ready for their close-up – long before Mr. DeMille (a.k.a. the next round of layoffs, reduction in force, restructuring, or whatever euphemism your company uses) arrives.  As our preeminent Punk Rock HR expert says so succinctly in her post, Signs you need to start your job search, “you should never stop looking for a job.”  Great advice Laurie!

 

In the mean time, if you find yourself standing on a soccer field in your ballet slippers and tutu, don’t despair.  There’s a very good chance that just down the hall there’s some poor guy standing on a beautifully polished stage in cleats and knee high socks, anxiously wondering what he’s going to do when the curtain goes up!  Cheers!

 

TalentedApps Interviewed in Human Capital Vendor Space

William Tincup was kind enough to give us the opportunity to answer his questions about how we got started, what keeps us going, our future plans, and who our favorite human capital blogger is.

William (that’s him to the left, there), has created several blogs. Human Capital Vendor Space is a terrific blog and William’s writing style is refreshing and candid. We highly recommend you add it to your reader if you haven’t already.

Reese’s and Enterprise Social Networks

Continuing the food analogy of the “Web 2.0 Oat Bran” post (it’s the holiday season), let’s say we’re all agreed that better integration of social networks with enterprise applications is a good thing. In that post, the assumption was that the enterprise application would incorporate the social network information. But is that the only way to look at it? Does it make sense to flip it around and have enterprise application functionality within the social network? This would be akin to having an Amazon Facebook App instead of an Amazon site with access to the social network. The oft-used “Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup” analogy comes to mind:

Person A: “You got peanut butter on my chocolate!”
Person B: “You got chocolate in my peanut butter!”

In other words, the combination of social networks and enterprise software is good, but which of the two ingredients is the container and which is being contained? In the case of Reeses, they choose chocolate as the container ingredient for very practical reasons. With software, though, we aren’t so limited. Perhaps it depends on the perspective of the user and what they are trying to do that drives whether it’s an app that has social network information or a social network that contains apps. Does it matter much which way it is, as long as it serves the purpose? Does the purpose vary depending on the user’s way of doing work and/or the task they are trying to accomplish? Should both approaches be available then?

The View Keeps Me Coming Back

I have a great view from my *home* office window of the walnut tree in my back yard. I watch squirrels chasing around and storing nuts. It’s a great visual lava lamp while I’m focusing on the conference call I’m on or working hard at getting a point across. But the best thing about this view is it keeps me coming back. Yes, I work with great people and I truly enjoy my job. But the fact that I have the flexibility to work from home most of the time with zero commute and only 5 minutes away from my 6 month old ranks way up there with things that keep me loyal to my company and my job.

I know how lucky I am, but it really surprises me when I hear someone say their company doesn’t allow telecommuting or allow for some flexibility. I think some organizations don’t understand how committed that employee is to the job because they know what a good thing they have and wouldn’t want to mess things up.

My team has some pretty fun ways of keeping connected when we’re not all sitting right next to each other. Of course there’s the phone, web conferencing and instant messaging. Those are the basic requirements of telecommuting. But what really gives a sense of team awareness are things like Twitter and Facebook and blogging. These really let me follow the mental processing of my coworkers. What are they thinking about when NOT in a meeting? What are they reading? What new ideas are inspiring them? And because they put those ideas, links and hooks into their posts, I can follow right along with them. Mental proximity can be much more intimate than physical proximity. And in many ways I feel much more connected to my peers now than when I sat in the next office over from them all day.

So, the next time someone asks if they can work remotely… make sure they’re Twittering.

Using the Right language

I have to admit I was horrified by Bob Sutton’s recent post on squirmish business words. I realized immediately that I was a bingo winner shoe-in. But, more specifically, I reflected back on the torment I have inflicted on my husband over the years. Insisting he accompany me to work parties. Claiming how “fun” and “cool” my co-workers were. “Yes” he would say, “but I can’t understand anything they say.”

“Functionality?!?” he would say. “That isn’t a word!”

Sadly, now he uses it. What have I done?

In the meantime, I have started to notice an emphasis on word choice in my business situations. What word can’t we use because it is too threatening? What word will get us a “yes” answer? What word will make everyone feel comfortable?

I don’t think any of us want to use jargon and old, tired words. But, we do want to communicate with eachother, put eachother at ease, and most importantly, get what we want.

There is a real need for Business Language 101. Bob, I’m hoping you have an “in.” Please teach us.

Personally, I like Boggle more than Bingo.

Managing a global workforce

When I hear talk about hand wringing about flex hours and how do you keep people focused when working from home I must admit I don’t get it.  That’s not to say I don’t understand the comments, I do, it’s just that I have been working with a remote/global workforce so long I’m not sure I really remember what it was like to wonder how to make it work.  My first India + US HQ + Random other location work team was in 1995.  Back in the good old days when connectivity between India and the US was dicey at best.  We did, however, have email. 

Of all the companies that I’ve worked for I have to say that Oracle has this mastered better than anywhere I’ve seen.  Global workforce is not the exception, it’s the only rule (at least in development).  My own situation is having a boss in the UK and staff in several US locations, 2 India locations and Australia.  My peers teams are even more distributed.  If you are new to a global workforce here are some tips I’ve gathered over the years you might find helpful.

1. Communication skills are a competency that you can no longer consider optional or nice to have.  This is especially impactful for engineering teams where personalities might find this challenging and education often downplays the need.
2. Webconference tools are used every day.  At Oracle we are lucky to have our own tools for this, but if you don’t, you need to get favorable pricing for usage, since rarely do I attend a meeting where a webconference is not used.
3. Technology helps a lot.  VoIP, record/playback, Forums, Wikis, Microblogging, Social Networking.  You name it, we need it.  Making it possible for interactions that happen via technology can be used (and reused) is critical to spanning the globe.
4. Flexibility is critical.  Every team has to share the load of precious “real time” communication.  Supporting split shifts and shifting work schedules for early morning and/or late evening meetings is a part of life.  This is not just working from home, it’s starting meetings from home at 9pm.  A full scale cultural norm shift of what it means to be working is required.
5. Timezone awareness is not optional.  Knowing that Friday afternoon is the weekend in Australia is something you just have to know.  Having a good tool to keep you in sync (I’ve been using iGoogle’s widget these days) and having someone on your team to remind you when daylight savings gets everyone off for a few weeks, can make or break critical deadlines.
6. Nothing is more critical than relationships.  Using travel wisely and focusing on relationship building will make all the difference when times are tough.  If you are just a random name or email account you are easily ignored.  If you are a known person you will have a hope of rising above the noise when you need help from a teammate in a different part of the world
7. Surprisingly a photoshop competency on the team is useful.  How else would you ever get a full team photo?

Working globally is not something that every industry is going to embrace, at least not at the level that we have here.  I will tell you that the insight, value, collaboration, joy and experience that you have with a diverse and global workforce is the best of the best.   While the hype will tell you that around the clock productivity is the benefit, I would argue that around the world talent trumps that by a long shot.