Kevin W. Grossman, Author at TalentCulture

The Year Of Living Inspirationally

I checked my latest Instagram/Facebook picture post and one of the comments read: “You really should have your own reality show, Kevin.” I smiled. KevTV, I thought. Nice ring to it. But no – the movies The Truman Show (1998) and Edtv (1999) and the onslaught of “real” reality TV shows since have turned me off to that prospect. Overexposure and exploitation now, as well before the “Twitters” really took off way back when, continue to raise the bar on offensive banality. However, I’ll bet some folks who know me well, or not so, raised their eyebrows at my own brand

The 2015 Painful And Pleasurable Prediction

“We can go from boom to bust, From dreams to a bowl of dust…” – Neil Peart On December 31, 2014, I jokingly predicted on Facebook that the next day would become a new year, maybe even a happy one for many of us. And lo and behold, my prediction came true, at least the part about being a new year the next day. A happy one remains to be seen… No, I am no soothsayer or Jedi or outlandish wizard – I am but a mere mortal who occasionally gets visions. Wait! I feel another coming on. Yes, there it

A Wave-Making Christmas Miracle

I still couldn’t believe our car wasn’t back yet. The local auto shop owner shrugged and shook his head. “Sorry Kevin, but I’m going to have to lock up. I don’t want you to have to wait in the rain either, so I’m happy to give you a ride home. You don’t live far, right?” I stood right in the front of the garage watching the rain come down and the street beyond for our car to magically appear. “Can’t you call him? I mean, he is driving my car around to test the heater, right? Doesn’t he have a cell

The Hot Potatoes Of Social Screening

“The vacant laugh Of true insanity Dressed up in the mask of tragedy Programmed for the guts and glands Of idle minds and idle hands…” —Neil Peart (musician and writer) That’s when I saw the photo — a full view of a man’s naked back severely cut open from multiple slashes of some kind of large knife. Before even knowing the context (and not really caring at first), I cringed and rolled my eyes. I’ve seen a lot of inappropriate images online since I’ve been playing and working in online networks, usually the more social of the bunch like Facebook, Google

The New Workplace Social Contract of Go, Go, Go

I remember the fear of actually finishing something. Then the fear of executing that something. And then the fear of never quite being good enough. And then the fear of being crushed under the weight of overcritical judgments again and again. And then again, I remember the pleasure of being pushed to perform, even in the face of failure, to reach for the sky. Get to 80 percent and go, go, go. No words have ever been sweeter for employees today. I heard them recently. Have you? I certainly hope so, because if you work in a risk-adverse, top-down-tyranny culture where

24/7 Employee Engagement (Megatrend Remotra Vs. Godzilla)

“History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men.” —Blue Öyster Cult, “Godzilla” The floor beneath me cracked open when the cable guy knocked on the door. My youngest daughter Bryce shrieked with joy. My conference call had just started and I put myself on mute. The crack under my feet widened. Sulfurous smoke billowed up and I heard a low, guttural rumbling, like an animal trapped in a cage. The house shook. Bryce howled with laughter. Somebody on the conference call asked me a question and I quickly unmuted. “Um…yes,” I answered. Silence on the cell

Bang Your Head – E-mail Health Will Drive You Mad

The bell sounds woke me. They were continuous and getting louder by the second. Ding-a-ling-ding-a-ling! I raised my head and there they were – dozens of them! Then hundreds! Falling from the virtual clouds around me into MS Outlook like a deluge of rain filling bucket after bucket. Ding-a-ling-ding-a-ling! Then there were thousands! I tried to reach up, to shut Outlook down, but my hands were bound behind me in a tight jacket of some kind. I writhed and jerked, but couldn’t budge. Ding-a-ling-ding-a-ling! They kept coming, like a flash flood at first, then a tsunami. I tried to kick away

The Bravery Of Being Fearlessly Authentic

“We play the game With the bravery of being out of range We zap and maim With the bravery of being out of range…” —Roger Waters (musician and writer) Small craters pocked the desk around her laptop dock. Tiny tendrils of sulfurous smoke rose from each one, like poisonous snakes entranced by music only they could hear. Pens lay strewn like bodies left behind on a war-ravaged beach. Jodi rubbed her eyes with shrapnel scarred hands and gazed again into her laptop screen. She thought, Where did it go? The email — it was right there with all the others earlier

Wanted, Preferably Alive And Having Fun With Your Company Culture

“The grim fightin’ hero’s troubles are always private – He wants to know where ‘I fit in’ in herd wars – Sometimes you see villains so ancient… …you gotta go a long way in the West to find a good man –” –William S. Burroughs, from “Old Western Movies” That’s when the tumbleweed rolls by, followed by a swirling dust devil. You look at the ragged brochure in your hand and think, This wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. You’re smack dab in the middle of Main Street, the baked earth of road ahead splits rows of empty

Happy Work Folk Are Huggers, Not Walkers

June 30, 2009 “They call them Walkers.” Rick the recruiter whispered the words like a desperate prayer while he stood at the 10th floor window looking down on the street. Nishi, Rick’s new boss, was puzzled. “Walkers?” “Yes, Walkers,” Rick echoed, and wiped his dry mouth with the back of his hand. Nishi waved a hand in front of Rick’s face. “Earth to Rick, what are you talking about?” He pointed to the street. “There.” Nishi’s eyes tracked along his arm and hand down to the street. Hundreds of people drifted aimlessly toward the front entrance of their building, bumping into one

But First, A Single Source Of Business Truth

“He picks up scraps of information He’s adept at adaptation Because for strangers and arrangers Constant change is here to stay…” —Neil Peart (musician and writer), “Digital Man” So I’m standing there and this HR VP walks up and asks: “What does the ‘predict’ mean?” At first I don’t get it and am not sure what to say; repetitive tech talking with waves of people stretched over time can dull one’s focal strength, like trying to blow bubbles with stiff old gum that lost its flavor hours earlier. Then he points to the one of the panels in our PeopleFluent booth

Workshifting Will Get Better Working Together

These days, I work from home. Mostly. My “workspace” is upstairs in a special section of our master bedroom I call my corner office nook, complete with a window backyard and neighborhood view. My workspace is fluid as well, flowing into the living room, the backyard, even the bathroom sometimes. What? You’ve never participated a conference call sitting on the toilet in the wee hours of the morning with your phone on mute? C’mon. I used to have coworking space (leasing office space shared with other entrepreneurs, consultants, contractors, remote employees and startups). Plus, I did have my home office in

For HR to Empower Up

“Wilderness of mirrors World of polished steel Gears and iron chains Turn the grinding wheel I run between the shadows Some are phantoms, some are real…” – Neil Peart, “Double Agent” Welcome to your new job! Now, put on these chains and fill out this form… And then fill out this one… And then fill out this one… And then fill out this one… Darkness descends… …and excitement slowly seeps away… We’re talking old school. Not quite the workplace dungeons of the industrial revolution, but definitely of the pre-internet realm. Instead of empowering new employees from before day one, some companies

This Slaphappy World of Work

“A tired mind become a shape-shifter Everybody need a mood lifter Everybody need reverse polarity Everybody got mixed feelings About the function and the form Everybody got to deviate from the norm…” — Rush, “Vital Signs” On my flight to the third annual Candidate Experience Awards and the first-ever Candidate Experience Symposium, I fell asleep. And I sort of daydreamed… It was the year 2030. A new world of work startup called SlapHappy had developed a dramatic new biometric nanotechnology, taking sentiment analysis, work/life integration and employee engagement to an unprecedented place. The early adopters were few, and while the rest

Serving The Return With A Smile

What? You’ve never heard of it? <smile – snap – post> It’s all the social media rage. <smile – snap – post> And all the kids are doing it. <smile – snap – post> Heck, not just all the kids either. Some of us older folk are doing it, too. <smile – snap – post> Because we want to be found. We want to be seen. We want to be known. <smile – snap – post> And is that so wrong? <smile – snap – post – nope> I’m talking about the selfie – the uninhibited, self-promotional, narcissistic, look-at-me-I-rock photographic posting

The Amplified Moments of Every Single Pitch and At Bat

He threw heat like a wild man, his bulging arms and legs flailing from wind up to release. Every third pitch winged my at-bat teammates causing them to duck, or swing their midsection backward or forward. And every time he threw his mad-hatter ball, he smiled a mouthful of perfect pearly whites. Sometimes we hit his fastball, and sometimes it hit us. Four and a half innings into six of our Little League playoff baseball game, our team, the Indians, trailed the Yankees by one run with only one out. The Yankee parents hurled insults at ours; the Yankee players hurled

HR Conversions Stick To The Ribs And Souls

By the time she met with me, her discomfort and exhaustion were evident. She was vulnerable and it showed: her tired eyes avoided direct contact and her hoarse voice betrayed her disgust. She slowly slid my paperwork in front of me. “Mercy me,” I said. She nodded and closed her eyes. We were all vulnerable that fateful day, our proverbial hearts on our sleeves, each and everyone wondering what we were going to do next, severance packages in hand. Earlier that afternoon, our HR director’s mood had been much more upbeat and empathic when she embarked on processing layoff after layoff,

Forgive Yourself a Prayer, But Never Surrender to Bad Culture

“You can surrender Without a prayer But never really pray Pray without surrender You can fight Fight without ever winning But never ever win Win without a fight…” –Neil Peart, “Resist” The final shame of not asking nearly overshadowed my extreme physical pain, but not quite. No, the visceral memory of my hands buried deep between my tense thighs pulled close to my crotch while I’ll leaned in as close to the crafts table as possible, has never been purged from memory. It was 1972 and I was seven years old. The first day of Bible school. Church friends recommended that my

When Our Workplace Culture Is On Fire

“The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. We don’t need no water let the m-f burn.” –The Bloodhound Gang At least, that’s the melodic hip-hop mantra many of us have wanted to repetitively belt out at some point in our world of work lives (with an unapologetic emphasis on the unabbreviated curse word, of course). Not because we’re having so much fun dancing around the water cooler, or in the break room, or the conference room, house music thumping in our heads, but because our workplace culture around has all but burned out our aspirational goals. Many years ago

Passive To Active In Less Than 90 Seconds

Yes, you do it, too. Don’t deny it. When you’re gainfully employed, happily or not so, and you actually make the time to update your LinkedIn profile, for whatever reason, you uncheck the box in your account settings that reads: Let people know when you change your profile, make recommendations, or follow companies. LinkedIn even adds a footnote for you that calls out why you would uncheck the box: Note: You may want to turn this option off if you’re looking for a job and don’t want your present employer to see that you’re updating your profile. There you go. Sure

The Complicated Nuance Of Workplace Bullying

I just didn’t want to go anymore. She made it nearly unbearable. It didn’t start off that way, though. When we first started working together as colleagues in the same department, our relationship was amicable and tolerant. We because fast friends and got to know each other very well, including our spouses, lives and everything in between. The first time it happened, it made me flinch inside a little, but not enough to rethink our relationship. The tenth time it happened, I felt sick every time we ran into each other in the office. She became obsessed with my life and

That Single Source of HR Data Truth

“Memory banks unloading Bytes break into bits Unit One’s in trouble and it’s scared out of its wits…” —Neil Peart, “The Body Electric” She looked at me as if I’d pushed her. Her cheeks flushed and her eyes blackened like collapsed stars where no light escapes. “But according to this Bloomberg Businessweek article, ‘the National Academy of Sciences, the American Medical Association, the World Health Organization, Britain’s Royal Society, the European Commission, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, among others, have all surveyed the substantial research literature and found no evidence that the GM [genetically modified] foods on

The Halves And Wholes Of Leadership

“Love is born with solar flares From two magnetic poles It moves towards a higher plane Where two halves make two wholes…” –Neil Peart We simply made it up. Neither of us had really had any formal lessons; I know I never had them. My stiff “pin-hips” as my mom and dad had always pointed out were no match for any boogie-woogie, hustle or swing, not even the tipsy white-boy sway I recalled trying to pull off one too many times. Also, rock and roll air guitar and drums do not count. Ever. On the other hand, my now wife, then

Talent Engagement and the Dissed-Engaged

What to do with a productive outlier? Especially when she’s a smart problem-solver, who is sometimes collaborative and works well with others, but who’s also a headstrong, impulsive, independent, opinionated and throws tantrums like baseballs from a wild fast pitcher, tantrums that take what feels like an inordinate amount of time to extinguish; a fuse lighting itself over and over again like a trick stick of dynamite. One minute she’s figuring everything out, and the next, she’s blowing up. Sizzle. Hiss. Ka-boom. Of course, she’s only four years old and my youngest daughter. Wait, what? You didn’t see that coming? According

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Kevin W. Grossman

Kevin W. Grossman

The 2015 Painful And Pleasurable Prediction

A Wave-Making Christmas Miracle

24/7 Employee Engagement (Megatrend Remotra Vs. Godzilla)

Bang Your Head – E-mail Health Will Drive You Mad

The Bravery Of Being Fearlessly Authentic

Wanted, Preferably Alive And Having Fun With Your Company Culture

Happy Work Folk Are Huggers, Not Walkers

But First, A Single Source Of Business Truth

Workshifting Will Get Better Working Together

For HR to Empower Up

This Slaphappy World of Work

Serving The Return With A Smile

The Amplified Moments of Every Single Pitch and At Bat

HR Conversions Stick To The Ribs And Souls

Forgive Yourself a Prayer, But Never Surrender to Bad Culture

When Our Workplace Culture Is On Fire

The Complicated Nuance Of Workplace Bullying

That Single Source of HR Data Truth

The Halves And Wholes Of Leadership

Talent Engagement and the Dissed-Engaged

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Kevin W. Grossman

Kevin W. Grossman

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