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#TChat Preview: How Disruptive Technologies Will Empower The Future Of HR

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The TalentCulture #TChat Show is back live on Wednesday, May 20, 2015, at its new time from 1-2 pm ET (10-11 am PT).

Last week we discussed why true relationship building rises above social, and this week we’re going to talk about how disruptive technologies will empower the future of HR.

The next 5-10 years will bring unprecedented change to the workplace and the role of Human Resources. There will be those disruptive digital HR technologies that will influence the form and function of HR in a myriad of ways including how and where we work today, how we recruit and hire, and how we train and develop the workforce.

Not every technological disruption will be adopted nor will it transform HR for the better, but the fact remains that empowering a better workplace and workforce has already started today.

Sneak Peek:

We hope you’ll join the #TChat conversation this week and share your questions, opinions and ideas with our guests and the TalentCulture Community.

Thank you to all our TalentCulture sponsors and partners: Dice, Jibe, TalentWise, Hootsuite, IBM, CareerBuilder, PeopleFluent, Silkroad, Predictive Analytics World for Workforce and HRmarketer Insight. Plus, we’re big CandE supporters!

#TChat Events: How Disruptive Technologies Will Empower The Future Of HR

TChatRadio_logo_020813#TChat Radio — Wed, May 20th — 1 pm ET / 10 am PT

Join TalentCulture #TChat Show co-founders and co-hosts Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman as we talk about how disruptive technologies will empower the future of HR with this week’s guest: Alexandra Levit, Future of Work speaker, writer and author of “They Don’t Teach Corporate in College.”

 

Tune in LIVE online Wednesday, May 20th

#TChat Twitter Chat — Wed, May 20th — 1:30 pm ET /10:30 am PT Immediately following the radio show, Meghan, Kevin and Shep will move to the #TChat Twitter stream, where we’ll continue the discussion with the entire TalentCulture community. Everyone with a Twitter account is invited to participate, as we gather for a dynamic live chat, focused on these related questions:

Q1: How would you define disruptive technologies for the workplace and HR?  #TChat (Tweet this Question)

Q2: What are the potential top 3 disruptive HR technologies emerging in the near future?  #TChat (Tweet this Question)

Q3: How are tech companies and HR partnering to improve end-user adoption?  #TChat (Tweet this Question)

Until then, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed, our TalentCulture World of Work Community LinkedIn group, and in our TalentCulture G+ community. So feel free to drop by anytime and share your questions, ideas and opinions. See you there!!!

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How Would Picasso Design Your Org Chart?

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We typically think of organizational charts as a set of vertically stacked boxes that represent people and their job descriptions. Additionally, the chart illustrates who reports to whom and the hierarchy of the company. And this is generally how we think about organizations: who is the boss and what are they the boss of?

I’m declaring my disdain of those charts and the vertical structures they represent. I am dedicated to the end of the org chart as we know it!

With that in mind, I’ve created the “Top 10 Reasons I Hate Organizational Charts” list:

Top 10 Reasons Why I Hate Org Charts

  1. They are vertical, not horizontal.
  2. People are represented as boxes.
  3. You can’t see the informal relationships of an organization.
  4. They are a myopic internal vision of a company.
  5. There are no customers represented.
  6. There is no community, social or otherwise, represented.
  7. You can’t see the stage or language of an organization.
  8. No core value, noble cause, purpose, mission, or vision is visible.
  9. They don’t promote leadership and mentorship, learning or teaching at multiple levels.
  10. They don’t support creativity, innovation, uniqueness, and greatness.

Check out this video to learn more:

Rebecca Onion wrote about what is considered the first org chart by New York and Erie Railroad on Slate.com. Besides being historically significant, the chart is beautiful to regard. Designed by McCallum and drafted by G.H. Henshaw, a civil engineer, the chart draws from the natural motifs popular in the Victorian aesthetic. Looked at from afar, the whole resembles a tree laden with fruit or blossoms. Up close, the individual “branches” illustrating groups of employees who worked on the trains have the rough, natural look of vines, twining alongside the straight lines of the tracks that they service.

Henry Mintzberg was the creator of the Organigraph. He was on the right path in terms of freeing us from hierarchy and silos. You can view his sample and see his liberating tool. But even dear Henry didn’t foresee our ability to be completely free to design our true vision.

Your assignment, if you choose to accept it, is to get out a gigantic piece of flip chart paper and redesign your org chart with great imagination and vision.

What would it look like if you used the following list as a guideline?

  1. Create a metaphor that represents your business. (What would Picasso do?)
  2. Draw your values, noble cause, and vision in this picture. Remember that your heart is central.
  3. How do people intersect with each other, customers, and your community?
  4. How do people REALLY (informally) interact?
  5. Are you cross-functional or departmental? Can silos be replaced?
  6. How do you make and spend money? Can you represent that in the nature of the drawing?
  7. What communal language do you speak? Are you talking about individuals or about groups, community or greatness?
  8. Where is your leadership or mentorship pipeline, and how do you illustrate it?
  9. How do you represent roles, titles, and hierarchy in the picture?
  10. Place yourself in the picture. Specifically, place yourself where you want to be rather than where you may find yourself today.

Is your picture different from your reality? Can this new org chart set the stage for your strategic plan? After all, a strategy is simply the steps you will take to make your vision come true. What will you need to think of, innovate, start, or stop to develop a strategy that represents the vision represented by your picture?

As of right now, let’s ban the traditional org chart and in its place put organizational vision. This is a critical step toward creating unique organizations that we want to be part of, rather than being defined by the hierarchy of an organization. As we design our organizations, let’s ask ourselves this question: “What Would Picasso Do?”

About the Author: Ruth Schwartz is an internationally certified business leadership coach, motivational speaker and author. She owns High Performance Advocates, a management and leadership coaching company.

photo credit: frankieleon via photopin cc

Talent And Transformation: A Delicate Balance

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Change: It’s not what it used to be.

As the availability of new information and technology continues to proliferate, there are direct implications for how organizations adapt and grow.

Within many companies, what used to be considered radical transformation is now merely change — often thrusting smaller organizations into a world once dominated by the Fortune 500. With each “out-of-nowhere” success, we become more accustomed to watching one disruptive innovation after another arise from startup status and send status quo players to the realm of obsolescense.

With each wave of innovation comes more knowledge — and with knowledge being the byproduct of information and context, we are becoming increasingly aware of the change around us. For most people, that is scary.

Change vs. Transformation

It wasn’t long ago that businesses ran with modest, almost unnoticeable change, year after year. Business inertia meant that employment was a lifelong commitment for many employers and employees alike.

For the human psyche, this was ideal. That’s because deep down people don’t like change. It isn’t so much because change is a bad thing. Most people in fact would probably suggest that change is a good thing.

However, the same group of people will become scared, resistive, or even combative when they feel change that affects them. That is because, regardless of their opinion on change, if change is unexpected and/or unprepared for it tends to yield less than satisfactory results.

So, if change creates problem, what happens within an organization when transformation rears its beautiful yet unforgiving head?

The idea of transformation vs. change (for anyone who is wondering) is that transformation takes the very definition of change and makes it exponential across all axes.

During typical organizational transformation, employees can quickly feel lost. Sometimes this is due to their own fear of what they see coming. With fear and change looming in their minds, this can trigger a mass exodus of those affected, or perhaps even worse, the loss of key employees who are outside of the “transformation planning” sphere.

When this happens, companies must face a myriad of problems, not the least of which is turnover, which can be cancerous within a delicate corporate culture. Beyond cultural disruption, turnover is extraordinarily expensive and it slows down the transformation process, which is how we arrived here in the first place.

To add insult to injury, some organizations choose to blame the exiting employees. While this is easy (kind of like sales saying “price” is the reason you lose a deal), it is often nothing more than a scapegoat. Simply suggesting that some employees weren’t “moving with the times” reveals both a lack of character and a lack of class. Further, it is most likely not true.

Leading The Way Through Transformation

This brings us to the best course of action. First, as an organizational leaders, we must continuously evaluate our workforce, focusing on which employees demonstrate the strongest cultural fit, and ability to adapt to change. Then we must do everything in our power to motivate those who best fit our culture to align their efforts with the company’s direction.

Finally, it’s essential to re-center our thinking and focus on control. After all, as leaders we are ALWAYS responsible for setting the sails of our proverbial ships, and we all know that a ship will move faster and more true to course with all hands on deck. Just look for that “Motivation” poster in your office…you know, the one that says “Teamwork.”

Of course, we can’t control the entire domino effect that occurs as organizations shift, we most certainly have control of most of it. This includes the messaging, the process of continuous communication that is required between leadership and the team, as well as the creation and cultivation of a culture of change.

The transformational organization isn’t going away. In fact, the velocity of change and transformation is only going to continue increasing. (This is emphatic, although I have no science to prove it). Just look at what is happening around us for the cues.

While we cannot reverse the trend, we can control our outcomes. This starts with a culture of resilient people, and ends with great leaders who value and protect that culture, as it embraces the future..

Shift happens. The essential question is: how will you make the most of it?

(Editor’s Note: To discuss World of Work topics like this with others in the TalentCulture community, join our online #TChat Events every Wednesday, from 6:30-8pm ET. Everyone is welcome. Learn more…)

(Also Note: This article originally appeared at Switch & Shift. It is republished with permission)

Image Credit: From Black Swan by Fox Searchlight

Want To Be Your Own Boss? Try This First

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By Hans Balmaekers, Founder and Director, sa.am

Plan B: Entrepreneurship?

Many young professionals quickly discover that corporate life falls short of expectations. Do you relate? You probably feel you have more to offer than your job requires. You may even think you could outperform your manager. If so, you’re not alone.

It’s no secret that Millennials tend to score lowest in employee engagement. Many of us feel that, if only the economy weren’t so bad, we could have started our own companies by now and could proudly call ourselves entrepreneurs.

The great stories of leading self-made innovators like Elon Musk make it easy to see ourselves standing in their shoes, building companies and disrupting industries just as they did. And because corporate life can be so frustrating and unfulfilling, it seems attractive to completely jump ship and do our own thing.

Perhaps if you burned your bridges, you could soon be the next Steve Jobs, on stage, presenting the next big thing, with the world at your feet…

News Flash: Entrepreneurship Is No Ticket to Success

Ready for a wake-up call? The truth is that your dream isn’t likely to become a reality.

Most young-professionals-turned-entrepreneurs don’t even come close. They aren’t even entrepreneuring. They often do the same kind of work as before — but as consultants. (What else can they do with only a few years of experience?) These free agents chase clients, network like crazy, stick their toes in social media and market themselves, but they find themselves still unsatisfied and earning less than before. Has being brave ever felt less appealing?

Another Path

Maybe you shouldn’t leave and become an entrepreneur. Maybe there’s another way to use your talents and ideas and channel your frustrations about how your organization needs to change. Leaving is not your only option. Why not take a deep breath, stand up, rise above your desk and shout out, “Enough! I’m making changes around here!”

Sure, that might seem a bit theatrical. But be honest. Doesn’t that statement actually describe how you feel?

Start A Secret Intrapreneur Mission Now

If so, try a more subtle way to go about disrupting the status quo — start a secret mission to become an intrapreneur. That means you can use your entrepreneurial mindset and skills to create the job you love and generate better results for your company.

Read that again — a job you love that generates results for your company. Is that possible? Sure it is. Many have done it. Not all openly call themselves intrapreneurs, but the population of these inspiring and talented people is growing. They are changing their companies’ cultures from within, and launching hugely successful products. Think of companies like 3M, Sony, Vodafone, Dell and Google, just to name a few. Intrapreneurs are absolutely essential to these organizations. Most of them started their careers at the same point as you. They experienced the same frustrations as you. And just like you, they knew change was needed.

They had similar ideas and the same urgency to challenge the status quo and figure out how to get things moving. But instead of walking away from those challenges and leaving their employers, they decided to drive the change they envisioned.

Being a change-maker takes passion, persistence, patience and resilience. It’s not the easy road. And it’s not how our generation was raised. We’ve been told that the choice is always ours, that we can have whatever we want, and that participation is optional.

GenY operates with the mantra, “If we don’t like it, we don’t do it.” If you don’t like your job, it might seem easier to quit, but that will not necessarily help. You may still end up feeling unfulfilled, with no stage and no audience (plus a lower salary, or none at all).

Isn’t it more exciting and rewarding to show colleagues, managers and senior executives that we Millennials can fulfill our promise of being innovators, connectors, change-makers and leaders?

The next time you envision yourself as Steve Jobs, picture yourself on the same stage announcing the same breakthrough innovation — but wearing a shirt with your current company’s logo. A successful and happy intrapreneur. Doesn’t that feel more fulfilling than endlessly chasing gigs? You still get your monthly salary, and if you do it right, you’ll grow your income faster than you would as an entrepreneur.

Still Not Into Intrapreneuring? Consider This

Like many GenY workers, you may feel inspired to play your part in changing the world for the better. Multinational corporations and other big organizations play a major role in change-making, believe it or not.

You can take a shorter shower to save water, but compared to the consumption of big industrial corporations, it’s a droplet. You can talk for hours about the financial crisis, but as long as big banks and institutions don’t change the way they operate, will it ever be solved? Transforming education is a must, but if there’s no work for hundreds of millions of young people, why care?

Multinational corporations and big organizations are crucial in changing the world for the better. And the only way to make them frontrunners in that process, rather than followers, is for next-generation employees to drive change from within.

What’s Stopping You?

Ready to apply yourself to the ideas that will help you become an intrapreneur, rather than an entrepreneur? The best way to start is by learning how to perform better at your current job and in less time. Your time can be better spent investing in interesting side projects, engaging in more strategic relationships, and building your reputation.

Are you in?

Hans-Balmaekers-founder-sa.am_-001(Author Profile: Hans Balmaekers is the Founder and Director of sa.am, a resource for young professionals who care about their future, want to make a difference, and want to develop the mindset and skills to become change-makers. This month, sa.am is launching an online intrapreneurship course to prepare aspiring and new intrapreneurs for success. Connect with Hans on Twitter, or on LinkedIn.)

(Editor’s Note: This post was originally published by Brazen Life, a lifestyle and career blog for ambitious young professionals. Hosted by Brazen Careerist, the blog offers edgy and fun ideas for navigating the changing world of work. Be Brazen!)

Image Credit: Stock.xchng

Quantum Change: Embracing Innovation #TChat Recap

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Last night at #TChat forums, we came, we saw, and we disrupted. But this wasn’t random disruption. It was organized chaos — all in the name of knowledge sharing among talent-minded professionals. (For tweet-by-tweet highlights, see the Storify slideshow below.)

Business technology analyst Jim Lundy helped lead the TalentCulture community conversation this week, as we explored the most disruptive innovations on the horizon, and discussed their potential impact on the world of work.

As Jim explained in a blog post yesterday, innovation is at the heart of how we measure companies today. Organizations must have a robust approach to managing innovation. Although disruptive innovation is based on technology, its success actually depends upon how well people understand and apply it in real-world environments.

What Is Disruptive Innovation?

The concept of disruptive innovation was first coined by the soft-spoken Harvard professor Clayton Christensen in 1997. Think of it as technology that transforms a market or sector by introducing simplicity, convenience, accessibility and affordability where complexity and high cost are the norm. At first blush, a disruptive innovation may seem inconsequential or unattractive, but ultimately it can radically redefine whole industries or sectors.

In this brief video, Professor Christensen describes how he introduced the theory to former Intel CEO, Andy Grove:

The Value of Innovation: Big Dollars In Disruption

Disruptive Technologies_NewYorkTimes_McKinseyGlobalInstitute

See the disruptive innovation chart and article at the New York Times

What does all this mean, in terms of business benefits? A new McKinsey report examines the economic impact of 12 emerging disruptive technologies — led by the mobile Internet and knowledge work automation. As the New York Times illustrates, by 2025, these 12 technologies are expected to create a whopping $33 trillion a year in global business value.

Linking Disruption With Employee Engagement

Why and how can leaders encourage employee engagement via disruption? Recently, TalentCulture founder Meghan M. Biro examined this question, in response to a Gallup poll that indicates 70% of American workers are either actively or passively disengaged at work. Business collaboration and knowledge sharing tools can make a big difference in supporting connections and professional development that help employees feel empowered and appreciated.

In addition, talent strategist Gary Kastenbaum recommends that business leaders approach employee engagement with a disruptive mindset. He outlines three guiding principles:

  • Lesson 1: Corporate social responsibility programs and cause marketing are linked and drive employee engagement.
  • Lesson 2: Engaged employees are proud of your organization’s values and they are loyal to your company.
  • Lesson 3: Engaged employees are recruited, not created.

What do you think of this framework for “disruptive” engagement? How far into organizational process should “disruption” reach?

Big Issues — Big Ideas

This week’s events challenged each of us to take a fresh look at our personal and organizational attitudes, values and behaviors when it comes to technology and innovation. But we’ve only just begun to push the envelope! Thanks for contributing your thoughts and concerns — we look forward to hearing more from you on this topic. In case you missed any of the #TChat action, we invite you to review highlights in the slideshow below, along with other related resources.

#TChat Week-in-Review: Technology Disruption and Adoption

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Read the Preview Post now

SUN 8/11:

#TChat Preview: Our Community Manager, Tim McDonald, outlined the week’s topic in the preview post: Tech Disruption: Too Much Of A Good Thing?

MON 8/12:

Forbes.com Post: Several previous posts from TalentCulture CEO, Meghan M. Biro underscored technology advancements, and their implications for today’s workplace. Read:

•  “5 Trends Defining The World of Work and Leadership in 2013”
•  “Your Employees Are Engaged: Really?”
•  “Employee Engagement: Every Leader’s Imperative”

WED 8/14

TChatRadio_logo_020813#TChat Radio: This was a fascinating warm-up before the main Twitter chat event! Our radio hosts Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman talked with Jim Lundy about today’s hottest technology advancements, and their impact on business organizations. Listen now to the radio show recording.

#TChat Twitter: Immediately following the radio show, Jim joined the entire TalentCulture community on the #TChat Twitter stream for an open conversation about disruptive technologies in today’s workplace. If you missed the action, or want to review highlights, check out the Storify slideshow below:

#TChat Twitter Highlights: Technology Innovation: Disruption and Adoption

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Closing Notes & What’s Ahead

GRATITUDE: Thanks again to Jim Lundy for generously sharing insights about today’s most innovative workplace technologies. It’s exciting to peek into the future of work with experts like you!

NOTE TO BLOGGERS: Did this week’s events prompt you to write about innovation, disruption and corporate culture? We’d love to share your thoughts. Post a link on Twitter (include #TChat or @TalentCulture), or insert a comment below, and we’ll pass it along.

WHAT’S AHEAD: Next week, our “summer restart” series continues, with a look into the strategic business value of workplace flexibility. So plan to join us, and check for details this weekend on TalentCulture social channels.

In the meantime, the World of Work conversation continues everyday. So join us on the #TChat Twitter stream, on our LinkedIn discussion group. or on other social channels. And feel free to explore our redesigned website. The lights are always on here at TalentCulture, and your ideas and opinions are always welcome.

See you on the stream!

Image Credit: Stock.xchng