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Leaders Dive Into The Workplace Cloud

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I only sometimes talk about technology here. Yes, my inner nerd is still alive and well for those of you wondering what I’ve been up to lately. I’ve been hanging out in the clouds pondering this enormous topic. I assume, like 90% of us, it is there, meeting my needs, and don’t worry overmuch about marketing labels. Leaders have a way of offloading (ignoring?) many of the technical details as we hurry about our over-scheduled days.

“The Cloud” is one of those technology marketing terms which represents a shift in the way technology is delivered; after all, you’d have to really be tuned out to not hear the word ‘cloud’ at least once every 15 minutes.

Oddly enough, though, cloud computing is the ultimate it’s-been there-a-long-time technology. And it is forcing leaders and HR practitioners to sit up and take notice. Why?

At its core, ‘cloud’ is really about optimizing the effectiveness of IT and systems in the workplace. Cloud computing is the successor of distributed computing, client-server and utility computing, a model where defined services depend on standardization and customer satisfaction depends upon optimization of those defined services.

Furthermore, as concepts go, it’s an abstract one, and as most tech stars will tell you, every problem in computer science can be solved by adding a layer of abstraction.  So, if you’re a techie, you know cloud is just a way to deliver computing resources.

If you’re an end user, you may think cloud is a way to get the computing resources you want without necessarily having to understand, or pay for, the ramifications of your decisions.

For those of us less technical Luddites, there are a couple of areas where the eventual impact of cloud seems greatly underestimated.  I’m speaking, of course, about  HR, especially recruiting and job search, as well as leadership, particularly as it relates to human capital management.

But when it comes to the cloud, what do leaders need to know?  Here are a couple critical cloud questions for organizational leaders & talent managers:

1) What does cloud mean for hiring and managing people?

2) What do leaders need to know about the cloud?  Are leaders struggling with any misconceptions?

Chances are most leaders will answer “no” for #1; for #2, most will likely not be sure of their answer.  But while the concept of cloud computing, like leadership, is a complex one, it underscores a far simpler truth:

The cloud is already in your workplace.

All that recruiting and HR software you use, delivered via the Software as a Service (SaaS) model? It’s cloud. Online networking and career sites like Facebook and Monster? Delivered via the cloud.

Do you use Gmail to connect with prospects? On some level this could be translated as Cloud. Store your resume online, or keep files in Box.net? Cloud. And so on.

As you can see – It’s everywhere – including your organization.

For users, the changes may be subtle. Many leaders perceive these changes strictly as benefits, and there are many – no servers to buy, no on-site IT guy to worry about. But there are also – especially in HR – areas of concern, like security, multi-tenancy (shared services within the cloud) and reliability/availability (there have been some spectacular, recent cloud crashes).

Here are 3 common misconceptions about cloud computing and what leaders really need to know:

Security in the cloud is one of the challenge areas where misconceptions abound. At its most basic, security in the cloud is the same as security in an enterprise data center: policies and processes must be in place to ensure uptime, adequate resources must be provisioned, reliable and proven backup and disaster recovery procedures must be in place – and audited, and security must be in any contract you sign with a cloud provider.

In fact you must be able to define your requirements for data security. Part of the discussion should be which applications or data to put in the cloud, because not all data and applications should be in the cloud. Quiz – no, grill – your cloud provider about the security of its offering and the practices it employs to keep your data secure.

Multi-tenancy is a bit different. There are three general forms of clouds – public, private and hybrid – and three ways in which cloud services are provided: IaaS, or infrastructure as a service; PaaS, or platform as a service, and SaaS, software as a service.

If you choose multi-tenancy because it’s less expensive, you must also realize that your data and apps will be sharing space with someone else’s data and apps. You’ll be a tenant among tenants. One of your security safeguards will be gone. Just something to think about, and negotiate.

Reliability (also known as availability) is the stuff of Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Make sure to set requirements – SLAs – for uptime, reliability and availability, and negotiate penalties into your contract in the event they’re breached. Don’t accept a contract that lacks a financial penalty or for which the remedy is a service ‘credit’. This is your business, after all. It’s your data.

So leaders, go to the cloud by all means, but go with your eyes open. Ask hard questions. Cloud is an innovation that promises massive efficiencies. Make sure you’re on the right side of those promises. Protect you business, your data, your people.

In IT adding a layer of abstraction may help solve problems; chances are, in HR, an added layer of abstraction will just make it harder to know who’s doing what to whom, and if it’s really the desired outcome.

So go to the cloud, but remember: be careful out there.

Also posted by Meghan M. Biro on MonsterThinking Blog

Business Leaders Go Niche or Go Home

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A friend asked me this question: “If you could give a client only one piece of advice, what would it be?” Easy answer: Choose a target market.

On the one hand, it seems to make sense that if you sell your products or services to a vast set of demographics, you will make more money. However, the exact opposite is true.

Most entrepreneurs are resistant to defining their niche usually because of the following beliefs:

  • If I choose a specific, niche market, I will lose business.
  • If I choose a target market, I will be stuck with it forever and I thrive on variety.
  • The more I have to sell, the more money I’m going to make.

I hear those statements all the time and at best, they are false. At worst, operating in those beliefs will sink your business.

In his book “Purple Cow,” Seth Godin tells us that the market is very good at ignoring you, just as you’re good at ignoring the market. Think about all the emails you delete before reading, the times you click “unsubscribe” and the T.V. shows you Tivo so you don’t have to watch the commercials. What’s the solution? The answer is “niche.”

Benefits of Having a Niche Market

Defining your target market:

  • Allows you to become an expert to that market
  • Multiplies your referrals – the more specific you are about who you serve, the easier it is for people to send business your way
  • Keeps you focused
  • Streamlines your marketing efforts and dollars

If you’re still not convinced, sit back, relax and prepare to laugh. This YouTube video says it all: Why You Need A Niche

There’s No Going Back From Global: #TChat Recap

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Today’s recap is written by Caty Kobe, a member of the TChat community and the Focus Community Manager.

Last night’s #TChat made one thing was clear: globalization means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. People from all corners of the Twitterverse came forward to share thoughts, ideas, definitions, opinions and suggestions based on years of experiences across a wide variety of cultures.

Many agreed that globalization is creating incredible new opportunities for both workers and their employers, but cautioned that certain opportunities may come at the cost of exploiting other people and cultures. Technology and social media are certainly aiding in breaking down linguistic and physical barriers, yet we agreed there’s no way to automate the dissolution of cultural barriers. In other words, nothing will ever replace the good ole fashioned handshake.

Corporate America has a lot to learn from their counterparts overseas. For years we’ve been perceived as operating under the assumption that the American Way is the only way, but globalization is quickly proving this false. In order to succeed, US businesses must invest in diversity programs, language training and offer flexible work schedules. We must be willing and able to accept other cultures as equals.

So how do we attack this daunting to-do list? Leadership teams and employees all share the responsibility in commencing change. Cultural shifts will likely start from the Top, but don’t wait for your boss’ permission to learn a new language or nurture relationships through the web. Globalization has forever changed the way we do business. Better to embrace it and learn the strategies required to succeed in this rapidly shrinking world.

One last thing before I go, please be sure to mark your calendars for Wednesday August 31st. #TChat Radio returns to Focus.com with an all new live episode! We will be featuring a few special friends from the 12 Most Blogging Community! Look forward to sharing more details with you soon. Our goal is to bring two live radio shows every month along with our regular #TChat on Twitter which happens every Wed from 7-8pm ET.

You can read the #TChat preview here, and here were last night’s questions:

Q1: How is globalization changing the world of work?

Q2: What lessons can US workers & leaders learn from their international colleagues?

Q3: What role does workplace or business culture play when working internationally or with global teams?

Q4: What can leaders do better to meet the needs of a global or international business?

Q5: How is technology or social media influencing the rise of global business?

Q6: What are the biggest opportunities for organizations going global?  Biggest drawbacks?

Going Global: Workers Without Borders: #TChat Preview

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Originally posted by Matt Charney on MonsterThinking Blog

The History Channel recently rolled out a series called, “How States Got Their Shapes,” a topic so complex that it warranted a serial treatment so intricate it would make Ken Burns blush.

But, Adams-Onis treaty aside, Laurie Ruettimann pretty much summed up the key geopolitical takeaway of history in this recent post on the Cynical Girl blog:

“States — NY, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Illinois, California — are so arbitrary…. We are now loyal to imaginary boundaries and self-contained hamlets. Preferences and cultural divisions emerge, but it’s so stupid to display loyalty to a geography that can’t love you back.”

The arbitrary nature of borders extends to all territories, foreign and domestic, and while we’ve become adept at handling intrastate commerce, but when it comes to global business, the boundaries are more than arbitrary: they’re engrained into the fabric of most organizations.

Historically, many companies have, for reasons ranging from taxes to supply chain efficiencies, separated out the operations of their international business into a complex structure that’s separate, but rarely equal to, the home country, and business culture, which each respective company calls home (or, more commonly, ‘headquarters’).

While many global companies divvy up territories and regions like they’re hashing out the Treaty of Paris, the increased interconnectedness, not to mention economic interdependence, of today’s workplace necessitates a new approach to the challenges of international business.

This is particularly true when it comes to recruiting and retaining top talent, whose skills, experience and expertise transcends borders; international teams and work groups are not only becoming an increasing reality, but an important consideration in today’s talent and diversity strategies.

While, as Ruettimann pointed out, “preferences and cultural divisions emerge,” these, like any comprehensive recruiting strategy, are differences easily bridged, both through technology and the shared experience, and desires, shared by workers everywhere.

Concepts like stability, the opportunity for growth, the chance to earn a decent living and so forth might mean different things to different people, but that’s got less to do with location than personal preference, and it’s that preference that creates the only cultural division that really matters anymore: that of corporate culture.

And while, as Ruettimann suggests, “it’s stupid to display loyalty to a geography that can’t love you back,” when it comes to the world of work, it’s that loyalty, and engagement, that create a company’s most significant competitive advantage.

Going Global: Workers Without Borders

#TChat Questions & Recommended Reading (08.10.11)

This week, #TChat moves to its new day and time Wednesday nights at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT, but it’s always 5 o’clock somewhere, and we’re excited to kick off our new time slot with a topic that’s truly as big as the world of work.

While our #TChat community comes from around the globe, it’s our shared passion for career and talent management, leadership and workplace culture that keep the conversation going.  We hope  you can bring your international perspective this week; no matter where you are, this week’s topic is truly universal.

To help prepare, and inform, your participation in this week’s #TChat conversation (or if you can’t make it!), here are this week’s questions along with some recommended reading that’s not required, but provides some great background and insight about where global business is at – and where it’s going.

See you Wednesday (that’s August 10 on your calendars) night at 7 PM ET!

Q1: How is globalization changing the world of work?

Read: Gear Up to Compete in A Global Economy by Rusty Weston

Q2: What lessons can US workers & leaders learn from their international colleagues?

Read: 5 Best Practices for Engaging With A Multinational Team by Kevin Sheridan

Q3: What role does workplace or business culture play when working internationally or with global teams?

Read: Global Recruitment: How to Make Your Company A Magnet For Young, Global Talent by Rob Salkowitz

Q4: What can leaders do better to meet the needs of a global or international business?

Read: Is The CEO the new Chief Talent Officer? by Sanjay Modi

Q5: How is technology or social media influencing the rise of global business?

Read: Global Technology Stepping Up Collaboration in the Workplace by Daniel Newman

Q6: What are the biggest opportunities for organizations going global?  Biggest drawbacks?

Read: 7 Tips to Help Your Business Take on the World by Anne Field

Visit www.talentculture.com for more great information on #TChat, as well as other great resources on careers and hiring.

Monster’s social media team supports #TChat’s mission of sharing “ideas to help your business and your career accelerate — the right people, the right ideas, at the right time.”

We’ll be joining the conversation at our new time this Wednesday night as co-hosts with Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman from 7-8 p.m. (Eastern) via @MonsterCareers and @Monster_Works.

Global Technology Stepping Up Workplace Collaboration

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For anyone that can remember the time that a latest and greatest technology emerged to bring business to the next level, we can say that it is profoundly interesting the impact that these advancements actually make on companies.

Some can probably remember the days before email and before cell phones when letters were either typed by hand and traveling sales people had to actually stop at a pay phone to verify an appointment or call home to check in.

More than ever management need to be watching technology trends and making sure their organization is equipped.

Times are changing, the proliferation of technology is moving faster than ever, and businesses are the ones that are benefiting.  At least they should be!

There are many ways that technology is leading to better business practices.  There are systems for managing customers, accounting, communications, and operations.  We are connected 24×7 if we so choose and we are able to reach all ends of the world instantly via the click of a button.

As a proponent of successful businesses being comprised of people that use technology and not just technology alone, I believe that nothing in business may be affected by emerging technology than Human Resources.  Recruiting, talent development, and employee retention are all seeing a significant boost based upon what advances in technology have to offer.

Two of the specific technologies that are revolutionizing talent and professional development more than any are IP (Internet Protocol) Based Communications such as Skype, VoIP, and Video Conferencing as well as the rapid emergence of Social Media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Google+).

Let’s take a look across the scope of Talent Management and explore how the aforementioned technologies as well as a few others are facilitating success for so many companies.

Recruiting New Talent

It used to be a newspaper ad or a sign in the window.  Your audience was narrow and your options were thin.  It was difficult to reach the best talent leaving positions to be filled by less than ideal candidates.

  • Communications – With the ability to inexpensively bring employees in via the network  either by voice, video, or perhaps a combination such as Webex, employees can now be sourced from and potentially located anywhere.  Productivity tools allow companies to hire the BEST candidate from any location and get them integrated with the team whether they are near or far.
  • Social Media – Depending on the specifics of the job, talent can be sought through massive global social networks such as Linked In, Facebook, and Twitter.  These networks allow a help wanted ad to reach millions of users who may or may not be actively seeking employment.  Recruiting and searching for talent has also never been easier due to profiles, recommendations, and other affiliations that can be easily found online using Social Media.  As an aside, Social Media has also helped many companies decide who not to hire.

Talent Development

It used to be a quarterly or yearly trip to headquarters for remote employees and or classroom learning for those already in town.  Coordinating training was intensive and time consuming.  With technology advances now learning can be routine, meaningful, and completed on demand.

  • Communications – Similar to the recruiting process the continued education of employees can be accomplished using technology tools.  Webinars, Distance Learning, and E-Learning platforms all pave the way for continued education for employees regardless of where they are located.  On top of being able to create content and have employees learn and develop on demand, it also helps companies to utilize global resources to provide the education.
  • Social Media – Intranets have existed for companies for some time however they were rarely used all that effectively.  With professional usage of social platforms employees can learn from one another as well as competitors by following, reading, and embracing the information that is widely available.  Content is created and shared regularly and it allows company talent to keep their finger on the pulse of the industry and any important changes within.

Employee Retention

It has been discussed to no end the impact that turnover has on a business.  Whether near or far from headquarters, companies need to focus on how they can keep people satisfied, growing, and engaged.  In the past when companies would hire remote employees they oft felt isolated and/or disconnected from the organization.  With emails and phone calls perhaps being the only regular communication eventually the employee may choose to be with an organization where they feel more involved.  Technology has changed that, and if used correctly it can assist the organization with retention allowing it to focus on strategy with key employees rather than on replacing them.

  • Communications – Hearing a voice on the line is fine, it is practical, but like long distance relationships in life, eye contact means a lot.  With offerings from Free (Skype) to immersive telepresence costing millions ( Cisco, Polycom) and everything in between companies and their employees can now sit across the table and make eye contact with the click of a mouse.  Now as easy as a phone call, video can be accomplished and the quality is really good.  Video is not only beneficial for the employee, but also for the company as it forces focus and regular collaboration (We all know how easy it can be to multi-task on the phone).  Another item that is critical to many employees is flexibility, with tools that allow productivity anywhere and everywhere, (pending signal) companies can be more flexible with their resources allowing both parties  to benefit.
  • Social Media – Social is a medium for even smaller companies to build their brand and create an identity for their employees. This effort can often aid in the development of company community and in some cases successful out of work friendships.  While peoples out of work activities generally don’t bare much success for the organization, happy people tend to generate more productivity.  People that feel connected to their brand and feel that they are a part of something special tend to work harder and drive greater results.  Social Media is a growing vehicle for accomplishing this.

For as long as business has been business, companies have only been as good as their people.  In almost all cases where a great product or service fails it isn’t the product or service at all, rather it is those behind it.  With emerging communication technology and proper social media integration you have the chance to be ahead of the curve.

Now technology of course isn’t all free, and choosing the technologies that are best for your organization may take some work, however, it is time well spent.   You can all but assume that the competition are looking at all the options too, some are integrating, some are watching and waiting, and you can only hope that a few are oblivious.  Nevertheless, technology will continue to advance making companies faster, smarter, and of course full of better talent.

The question is, are you embracing it, or are you hoping to ride to prosperity on the tired old horse that got you to where you are today.

Image Credit: Pixabay

Keep the Engagement Lights on in Rolling Economic Blackout

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While the global economy continues its rolling blackout – and who knows what will happen this week with the US at AA+ – we keep talking by candlelight about employee retention, employee engagement and all workplace things touchy-feely as if they’re inspirational anecdotes of an alternate universe we should all be living in.

There are some exceptions of course, but we usually don’t live in that electrified looking glass.

For example, are you employees doing a lot more with a lot less? Are they burned out? Do they tell you they are? Are they looking for a way out? Are you recognizing all their hard work? Are they struggling to keep their families afloat?

And what about you and your business? Is your management not sleeping at night? Are sales flat and revenues in the tank? Are you burned out? Are you investing your own savings and/or playing credit card roulette to make payroll every month and just to keep your own family afloat?

Whether you’re a consultant, a business owner, executive management, or HR and people management professionals in larger companies, hopefully you’re tuned in to your people and are aware of their stress as well as your own, and are trying to do something to alleviate it. You may not be hiring right now, but you’re probably doing everything you can to keep what you have and who you have until the power grids are fully firing.

Listen, I’m sure you’ve seen enough survey research recently to make you pass out from the stressed out and unhappy workers you manage everyday. But here’s another one:

According to a recent study referenced in an HR Executive article, the University of Zaragosa in Spain found that two key factors — workplace stress (mainly monotony and feeling overburdened) and a perceived lack of recognition — are the prime factors in employee burnout.

Regardless of the type of burnout, however, the result is emotional exhaustion, cynicism and a lack of productivity, the researchers concluded.

You and the rest of your management team may not think about these things, or even care much right now as you try to stay afloat, but the reality is you should care a little if staying in business with top talent means anything to you. It’s comes from the top down, and if you’re struggling to keep your business relevant and viable, as well as your very professional existence, then you’ll practice what you should be preaching with the smart meters on.

Here are some suggestions you should consider from the experts in the article:

  • Encourage authentic communication that fosters a sense of belonging between employee and employer.
  • Periodically take the pulse of your employees to identify their specific areas of concern and link employee opinion to outcomes such as productivity and retention.
  • Ensure your employees that their opinions make a difference, and mean it. Practice what you should be preaching.
  • Offer effective training, either within or outside of the company, to enable advancement opportunities and give employees a sense that it’s possible change their environments.
  • Create “influence teams” who can look at ways to improve employee situations, including offering a paid month, 3-month, or 6-month sabbatical for long-term employees.

This list can go on and on. One final sentiment from the experts (and from me for what it’s worth): listen to your employees (as well as yourself), appreciate them, recognize and share in their successes (and yours as a business), reward their hard work (and your own), and never underestimate the power of touchy-feely, whether in full wattage or by candlelight.

It’s only when you’ve lived the rolling business blackouts and survived the economic changes in and around you and your people, can you truly know the difference between what’s real and what’s a sweet employee engagement bedtime story.

Hey, we’re just trying to keep the lights on here.

Internal Mobility for Your Talent Clouds: #TChat Recap

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If you want to make it rain inside and out, you’ve got to be able to control your talent weather.

More precisely, you must be able to understand the molecular makeup of your talent clouds, and how rapidly the combining and recombining of the molecules change the innovative power of your people.

Wouldn’t you rather be able to predict your weather rather than be carried away in the storm? That means having to look outward for talent sunshine, which is usually more costly in regards to attracting, recruiting, hiring, on-boarding and training. Necessary depending on who and what you’re hiring for, but more costly.

Companies today need talent insight on:

  • What happened before
  • What’s happening now
  • What will happen if I move the warm front to the cold front and back again…

I’m talking about understanding who you have now who can then help later when you need them then, over there, or over there. This can include selecting from full-time, part-time, temps, contractors as well as your own customers, partners and competitors (poaching is a lightning storm and story for another time).

Internal mobility has been mixed blessing for many organizations because although many would prefer to hire and promote from within, if they don’t have the right insight on their employees and teams, then it becomes difficult making those decisions.

Of course you can open up your position searches to internal folks and compare and contrast them and then hire/promote the most qualified, but that linear thinking doesn’t help when it comes to understand how your internal folks work individually, together, what their value is combined and recombined, and how they impact your business.

In the smaller organizations I’ve worked in, it’s easier to orchestrate your talent clouds. But in larger ones it can become the cliché of the resume database that stagnates like pooled rainwater that then breeds mosquitoes, not mobility.

The HR software available today gives organizations the tools to better orchestrate their talent weather, although we all know how glacial change management can be.  And you can’t have just-in-time sunshine if you can’t see through the clouds.

All right – enough with the weather. Internal mobility done right with insight can help the cost of hire be lower.

Right on.

You can read the #TChat preview here and here were last night’s questions:

  • Q1: What are some of the benefits to promoting/filling jobs with internal candidates?
  • Q2: What can business leaders do better to encourage internal mobility?
  • Q3: What can employees do to improve their chances at internal promotions or transfers?
  • Q4: How does social media fit into the internal talent planning picture, if at all?
  • Q5: Is internal mobility the responsibility of the employer or the employee?  Or both?
  • Q6: Can internal mobility hurt a company or career?  How?

A special thank you to @MattCharney and @Monster_Works for moderating last night’s #TChat!

PLEASE NOTE: Starting next week on Wednesday, August 10, #TChat will move to Wednesdays at 4 pm PT (7 pm ET). More announcements soon!

Internal Mobility Inside Look At Talent: #TChat Preview

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Originally posted by Matt Charney on MonsterThinking Blog

Perhaps nowhere is the divide between HR theory and people practice more evident than when it comes to the issues surrounding internal mobility.  In theory, employers and talent organizations almost always have a “promote from within” philosophy that formally or informally favors internal candidates.

In practice, however, internal mobility is frequently hindered by cumbersome processes, company politics and issues like salary compression which unilaterally matter more to HR than the business for which they’re recruiting.

Too often, recruiting is on a just-in-time basis, measured against the ticking clock of days-to-fill (or some similarly nebulous metric).  This ‘need it now’ mentality places a premium, particularly in middle management and leadership roles, on highly specialized skills and experience that are easier to acquire on the open market rather than plan, and promote, from within.

The byproduct of this, of course, is that top talent’s professional growth, and viability, often stagnates as soon as the job does – because just-in-time is not a long term career strategy, and if the next step for top talent can’t be within, it’s your organization that’s going to be without.

Tonight’s #TChat will examine internal mobility and its impact on talent organizations, business leaders and employees.  We hope you can join the conversation at 8 PM ET and let us know whether you think internal mobility is worth promoting or if it’s an issue that’s worth passing up.

#TChat Preview & Recommended Reading: 08.02.11

To help prepare, and inform, your participation in tonight’s conversation, here are some articles we recommend checking out for this week’s #TChat: “Internal Mobility: An Inside Look at Talent.”

Q1: What are some of the benefits to promoting/filling jobs with internal candidates?

Read: Knowledge Transfer: Whose Knowledge Matters Most by William J. Rothwell

Q2: What can business leaders do better to encourage internal mobility?

Read: Focus On Your Employees: The Key to Workplace Culture Success by William Powell

Q3: What can employees do to improve their chances at internal promotions or transfers?

Read: Getting Noticed At Promotion Time by Therese Droste

Q4: How does social media fit into the internal talent planning picture, if at all?

Read: Company Branding and Employee Social Networks: A Social Media Win-Win by Emily Bennington

Q5: Is internal mobility the responsibility of the employer or the employee?  Or both?

The 4 Ws of Internal Mobility by Rosario Longo
Q6: Can internal mobility hurt a company or career?  How?

Read: Ten Questions to Ask Before Making An Internal Move by Nancy Mercurio

Visit www.talentculture.com for more great information on #TChat, as well as other great resources on careers and hiring.

Monster’s social media team supports #TChat’s mission of sharing “ideas to help your business and your career accelerate — the right people, the right ideas, at the right time.”

We’ll be joining the conversation this Tuesday night as co-hosts with Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman from 8-9 p.m. (Eastern) via @MonsterCareers and @Monster_Works.

Change HR with Your Own "silly walk"

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HR is such an open, unique field that finds itself bound by the past. Organizations continue to churn and churn on HR programs and ideas that haven’t been current in years (or even decades). The difficulty facing folks is how to break away from the past.

We tout “change management” as a profession, but change is tough. People aren’t as open or adept to change as people may profess. Also, HR has a reputation of telling others what to do and/or what policies to step in line with. Not too appealing, honestly.

However, fear not! There is a great way to truly turn things around for HR practitioners which is well within our reach. To get our inspiration, you need to look no further than Monty Python.  You probably haven’t seen the Pythons listed as a business or HR resource in a post before have you?

Being a giant Python fan, I’ve found them to be the best “model” of comedy ever. Creative, scathing, brilliant and something that truly redefined boundaries of what was expected. One of my favorite sketches is the “Ministry of Silly Walks.” A person comes into the Ministry to try out his silly walk and it doesn’t turn out to be very silly at all. The cast then shows a myriad of fantastic silly walks which still gives me deep belly laughs.

The point of this analogy is this . . .

In order for HR to succeed in today’s business environment, we need to model the behavior we expect from others. We can’t continue to just tell folks what to do and expect change. So, going forward, try this approach:

  • Be consistent – Consistency in HR is huge! If you are consistent across your programs, policies and procedures, you’ll bring more equality in your organization than you’ve ever witnessed before.
  • Be visible – You can’t expect supervisors and managers to tend to their employees if your desk is more important than people. Get out amongst the masses.  After their initial shock, they’ll love (and expect) seeing you.
  • Be different – If you want true diversity, celebrate the vast differences everyone brings to work each day vs. trying to force conformity. It’s so cool that everyone has their own “silly walk.” Let them bring that out at work.
  • Be the example – HR that set the standard through modeling can’t be touched. People will literally clamor for what is going on because they’re seeing what you’re looking for in your own behavior.  It works.

Now, I need to saunter down the hall with a skip, two-toe pirouette, left heel drag and two leaps . . .

Everybody's Story Matters: #TChat Recap

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“Everybody’s story matters.”

That sentiment is from an amazing interactive storybook we’ve been watching with my older daughter on the iPad. It’s called The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore and it’s all about the importance and power of reading books and stories.

Everybody’s story, including yours and yours and yours.

As I wrote Monday, when TalentCulture founder Meghan M. Biro and I launched #TChat last November, we had no idea it would take off like it did. It’s been an amazing journey and we are more inspired more than ever to keep the conversation moving forward.

To now keep the stories moving forward and to actually elevate 140 character Twitter texts into the spoken word every now and again. And the fact is, stories were told aloud for thousands of years before they were Tweeted and read.

We launched #TChat Radio last night and you can listen to the replay if you missed it. A special thank you to all our guests and to everyone who dialed in and listened as well as participating on the #TChat Twitter channel.

We’ve nurtured a fantastic online community of professionals and enthusiasts that we hope to continue to deliver value and grow relationships with our World of Work audience. This eclectic group of fabulous talent is comprised of leaders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, HR, career pros, recruiters, business consultants, marketers, public relations and social media enthusiasts, bloggers, job seekers, and a variety of eclectic innovative passersby.

The stories we share are all about re-imagining how we lead, acquire, empower and retain our workforce today, with emotional connectivity and global cultural inclusivity. It’s about the intersection of Talent + Culture, the wickedly wonderful World of Work.

Businesses will come and go. Jobs will come and go. The economy will ebb and flow.

But everybody’s story matters. Thank you for yours.

Look for our next #TChat Radio show on Tuesday, August 30. We’ll be back next week with our usual #TChat Twitter Chat.

The #TChat Twitter Chat and #TChat Radio are created and hosted by @MeghanMBiro and @KevinWGrossman, and powered by our partners @Monster_WORKS, @MonsterCareers, @HRmarketer, and @Focus.

Sharing Accomplishments: Make Self-Promotion Easier

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I received a career-oriented email recently featuring an article for introverts on overcoming challenges in  job seeking and career advancement. Two days later, I attended a regional conference on innovation where a presenter remarked that Midwestern entrepreneurs are generally uncomfortable touting their business ideas to potential investors. The same week, someone I know was asked to write an article for an upcoming  magazine. The publisher said it would be great for the person to be able to say he wrote a cover story for an emerging print magazine. The potential author responded it would be cool, but he’d never put it that way since it sounded boastful.

Sharing Personal Accomplishments Can Be Challenging

We’re routinely subjected to over-the-top self promotion, especially via social media channels. Yet these three instances in quick succession suggest there are still many people (maybe all introverts) who find it difficult, even distasteful, to call attention to themselves. This discomfort can be present even when the self-promotion is completely appropriate given one’s personal accomplishments and distinctive talents. I’ve even run across this phenomenon during very open conversations with people who could in no way ever be considered introverts.

While I’m reluctant to contribute to any increase in the self-promotion din, it’s worth sharing a few ideas to help those of you who wrestle with beneficial and appropriate self-promotion. These five ideas can improve your performance in this important skill for career advancement.

Five Ways to Make Sharing Personal Accomplishments Easier

1. Ask others for the words and examples which appropriately describe you.

If you struggle to find the words to talk about yourself in the most positive light, ask someone familiar with your skills and talents to craft a recommendation letter for you. A long-time business partner asked me for a professional recommendation. I wrote a sincere, very favorable letter about the impact he’d had on our business. His comment back to me was, “(This guy) seems to be everything I doubt about myself.” Everything in the letter was true, but it was much easier for me to say these things than it would have ever been for him. If you’re in a comparable situation, a close friend or business confidant may provide all the words and phrases you need to better showcase yourself.

2. Create a daily “smile file” list of your personal accomplishments.

At a recent lunch with former co-workers, there was lots of discussion about what everyone was doing professionally – exciting projects, travel, even looking for new jobs. Lots of discussion – except for one person who was largely silent. He later admitted struggling with anything of comparable interest in his own career to share.  If your day-to-day routine doesn’t seem conversation worthy, make yourself create a daily list of accomplishments and noteworthy things you do. How long should the list be? Try as long as your daily to-do list. The discipline of tracking these items allows you to refresh your memory on personal accomplishments over time and makes it easier when updating a resume if you’re looking for a newer job, too.

3. Save nice things people say about you online.

If you’re providing value through your social media interactions and the content you’re creating and sharing, chances are people in your audience are saying favorable things about you. These tweets, comments, and updates can contain words and phrases to incorporate in your own self-vocabulary. Since these comments are crowd sourced, you should feel more comfortable and credible in using them. Favorite or copy the comments into an online file for future reference. If the positive comments are being tweeted, you can actually display them on your blog as an unobtrusive way to share positive comments with a broader audience.

4. Blog about your successes.

One benefit of blogging I’d not anticipated was how my blog has become a personal reference of what I’ve worked on and lessons learned through work assignments. Blogging also offers the opportunity to share personal accomplishments of which you’re proud and that you might want to share with others. Having them captured on your blog provides a convenient and understated way to share personal accomplishments via links in electronic versions of resumes and cover letters as further background.

5. Look at status updates from those prone to self-promotion.

We all have a list of people we know who are inveterate self-promoters through social media. Many of them are completely overboard. Others self-promote but aren’t nearly as egregious about it. If you’re currently blocking these people, start following them and notice what they’re doing. What are they sharing about themselves, both professionally and personally? Examine their social media updates, and ask yourself what you’ve done that’s comparable, different, or even more distinct. This exercise can prompt you to think of analogous situations you might have been downplaying as well as cause you to realize additional personal accomplishments to feature in conversations and in your own social media content.

Wrap-up

If you struggle with talking yourself up positively, implement one or two of these ideas. Try them and see what types of results you achieve, while keeping your humility intact. All the while, you’ll do yourself and the world a big favor by representing yourself more favorably and accurately.

What to Include in Your Executive Career Portfolio

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Conveying your executive career story can be daunting, especially as it relates to articulating a value-laden message during job search.

Where do you start? What pieces of the career portfolio puzzle matter most? How do you begin the career gold ‘unearthing’ process, and then where do you display the polished gems to attract the right audience’s attention?

During initial consultations with prospective resume clients, I always zero in on what I call the foundational aspect of their executive message.

Although the gloriously muddied career marketing waters include initiatives like building a Personal Brand, managing your Social Media Footprint, crafting a compelling Profile for a multiplicity of social networking sites such as LinkedIn, VisualCV, BranchOut or BeKnown, or designing your Personal Career Website, the foundational message in all of these venues will appear ‘cracked’ and imperfect if you do not undergo an initial introspective assessment of You Inc.

In my 14 years as a Career Writing Strategist, I have honed a word-wrangling process that starts with your career ‘brain dump’ in order to assemble intimate career details of the goals you have met, the obstacles you have surmounted or avoided and the concrete, verifiable results you can claim. As well, these story details are extended to include the leadership traits you applied and career leadership muscle you bulked up throughout your corporate exercises. This process is the answer to ‘where do you start?’ and ‘how do you begin the career message unearthing process?’

I believe anyone with a desire to take the reins of their career should undergo this unearthing course of action. The reality is, not everyone will feel suited or willing to complete such highly introspective, collaborative methods, but for those who do, they realize substantial gains in their career movement. Clarity of career value and specificity in their target goals becomes a beacon that leads them through career tunnels, doors and across the intimidating abyss of executive career change. Without the movement of change, we start feeling stuck.

In response to ‘what pieces of the career portfolio puzzle matter most?’ and to help you better hone in on the executive communication documents you will need in your arsenal to compete with, and ultimately, out-compete your competitors, I’ll provide a brief overview, below.

Executive Resume (aka, the Foundation): In creating a 2- or 3-page career story, you do want to be succinct, but don’t forget to add depth and breadth. Though the focus in many social media ‘expert’ conversations asserts, be short and cater to the attention-deficit-defined personalities, I defy that assertion when, time over time, a richer, more robust resume message works to differentiate my clients, and their opportunities soar.

Particularly at the executive level, a more layered story is not only important, but also required in order to move to the next level of conversation with C-level executives and board members. They want to know more about you than the bottom-line facts; they yearn for the why and the how you did what you did. Your shades of gray—your personality, values, ethics, integrity and strategic insights—should leap off the page.

Targeted Cover Letter: Although templated letters will fail you, if you are targeted in your approach to your next role, you can craft a highly focused letter that will serve as the foundation for future messages. In addition, a second page of powerful statements at your disposal will add value as you tailor your letter for specific audiences, easing the from-scratch writing process.

Executive Summary: This 1- to 2-page career glimpse should contain the critical highlights of a 2- to 3-page resume and will serve as a briefer version of your more robust story to distribute for particular networking purposes, as a companion to a cover letter, as an introduction piece for a resume or leadership addendum or as part of a media kit.

Robust Leadership Chronicle / Leadership Addendum: This 1- to 3-page standalone document showcases your top career stories or projects in a deep-slice case study format. It is comprised of pithy snapshots focused on achievements stories (challenge, actions, short- and long-term results and your business / leadership strength).  This Chronicle may accompany the resume or the executive summary or may be used as a standalone for a follow-up conversation.

The Chronicle/Addendum is particularly useful in networking venues as it provides a broad, yet specific sense of ability without the complexity of the resume. Some executive recruiters value these ‘deep-slice achievements stories’ to offer client companies.

Executive Biography: This 1- to 2-page narrative story blends nuances of your personal values with career contributions to underscore your value. A plethora of uses include distributing to corporate board members / executives, networking during your job search, leaving behind following an interview … and more.

This conversational document is a business-casual, polished tool that extends your resume value, or, when appropriate, may be used in the place of the resume.

LinkedIn Profile: Your LinkedIn profile isn’t just a mini-me resume (although, achievements from the resume should punctuate your LinkedIn profile to grab hiring decision-makers’ attention!).

Handled effectively, the nuances of the LinkedIn profile vs. Resume content may help catapult your job search to a new level. Many experienced managers, senior managers and executives prowl the LinkedIn network, actively engaging with others to expand their network, to hunt for new talent and to simply build and expand upon professional relationships. Do not miss out on this opportunity to be found!

In today’s economically and integrity-challenged business climate, the vetting process of executive candidates has become fierce. Recruiters, Board Members, Chief Executive Officers and others who will be reviewing your career chronicle need convincing that you not only can get the job done, but you will do so in an ethical way, with attention to corporate culture, sustainability and repeatable performance promises.

Communicate yourself well, and you will fortify your chances of a career search win!

IMAGE VIA luanluantan

Top 20 Venues for Thought Leaders

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While there are many ways you can establish your personal brand online and offline and inevitably stand out from others in your industry, functional area or even job candidate pool, one of the most powerful ways is demonstrating your unique value contribution through thought leadership.

A thought leader is by definition someone who is recognized for his or her innovative ideas, opinions, and/or perspective. However, if you want to be recognized as such, you must actually share your ideas, opinions and/or perspective with others.

Here are the top 20 venues for new and veteran thought leaders to share their value, expand their audience and grow their reputation and personal brand.

  • LinkedIn Answers: LinkedIn Answers is a unique Q&A forum that allows LinkedIn users to post questions and contribute answers to others’ questions. Getting involved in asking questions, answering questions and sharing insights and ideas related to your chosen industry is an effective way to establish your personal brand in an area of expertise.
  • Quora: Quora has combined the power of Q&A and Wikipedia into one platform where each question and answer become a living document that users can continuously discuss and update. Quora can be a great way to establish credibility and visibility. It also can be a comprehensive resource for networking and gathering information for future work and content, entrepreneurial ventures and/or personal efforts.
  • Your Own Blog: Blogging and contributing value-added content to better serve your industry can be an outstanding way to increase your visibility and demonstrate your unique value to potential employers and career stakeholders. Blogs are very easy to get started. There are both free and self-hosted platforms to choose from, including WordPress, Blogger and Typepad.
  • Guest Posting: If you’re not ready to commit to starting your own blog, consider writing content to contribute to other industry blogs. To find candidate blogs for your posts, do a quick Google search, check out the blogrolls of leading blogs in your area and check Alltop, an online magazine rack that provides a list of all the top blogs by industry or topic category.
  • Commenting: In addition to writing your own content, don’t forget to respond to the content that others publish on their blogs, as that can help you network your brand with other thought leaders and demonstrates your involvement. Again, use Google, blogrolls and Alltop to identify relevant blogs on which to become active.
  • LinkedIn Groups: There are thousands of LinkedIn Groups for you to join, including alumni groups, industry-specific groups, special interest groups and more. Start being active and contributing value from Day 1. Share interesting news with your groups, post links to intriguing articles and join in group discussions to show your investment in your industry or area of interest.
  • Facebook: While Facebook is intended to be more social than professional, this doesn’t mean it isn’t a venue for you to brand yourself. Share your activities and contributions or valuable resources in moderation with your friends, family and connections. They may already know you and your brand, but this will continue to reinforce it.
  • Twitter: Micro-blogging with Twitter is another way you can network with others, engage people in conversation and contribute value from your own blog, other industry blogs and websites and other thought leaders online.
  • HARO: HARO is a free personal branding service that connects professionals and students with writers, bloggers and journalists seeking sources for their articles, books, blog posts, etc. This can be a great way to get quoted in industry publications and increase your credibility and visibility among your peers.
  • Reviews: Writing a thoughtful review demonstrates your opinion of and take on someone else’s ideas and contributions. Leverage sites like Amazon to share your responses to others’ work.
  • HubPages: HubPages is an online platform where you can share your advice, reviews, useful tips, opinions and insights with hundreds of other authors and visitors without having to host, manage and market your own site or blog.
  • Squidoo: Squidoo is another platform for creating single webpages on your interests and recommendations, inevitably enhancing your online presence, search engine rankings and personal brand.
  • Google Knol: Google Knol is another platform where you can create, collaborate on, and publish credible web content without managing and driving traffic to your own website or blog.
  • SlideShare: Whether you have a presentation you have given before that you want to post, want to create a new presentation for others to view or have a portfolio of work to show off, SlideShare is a great tool that allows you to feature your presentations and documents and demonstrate your expertise and ideas in your chosen field.
  • Self-Publishing: If you interested in authoring longer works for your industry, consider self-publishing a book through CreateSpace or Lulu. You can also self-publish e-books in pdf format and share them via your blog, Scribd, SlideShare and across your networks.
  • Publishing: While there is no shame in self-publishing, getting published by a publishing house or publication does carry some prestige and credibility. You may know of publications and/or publishers in your industry to which you may want to send your content, but do check out the Writers Market series, as they provide invaluable resources and directories for writers.
  • Speaking & Teaching: Getting in front of an audience and sharing your expertise and ideas with them is an effective way to brand yourself as an expert. Identify something on which you can speak or present or even teach to a group of people and offer to contribute to an upcoming industry event or event put on by any associations you have joined. This will obviously take practice and may require you working your way up to bigger venues. You can also host your own events and market them to your local community and network. Promote your events online through LinkedIn, Facebook and Eventbrite. Remember, if you don’t have a physical space, you can also offer teleseminars and webinars which may attract larger audiences from around the country and world.
  • Video: More and more professionals are leveraging the power of video to market themselves, their expertise and/or their offerings. Sites like YouTube are popular platforms for featuring and marketing your thought leadership through video.
  • BusinessWeek Business Exchange: BWBX is a networking platform where you can both connect with fellow professionals in your industry and areas of interest, but also where you can share online articles and resources, including your own.
  • Networking: General career and business networking both online and offline will enhance your personal brand presence and connect you with other thought leaders, career stakeholders and potential followers. Attend in-person events in your industry, join local trade associations and make a point to network with at least one new person every week. Compliment your offline efforts by networking with other professionals online, using tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Networking Roulette by Brazen Careerist, BeKnown by Monster and any other tools or forums within your area of interest.

What are some other top venues where you share your ideas, opinions and personal brand?

Chris Perry, MBA is a Gen Y brand and marketing generator, a career search and personal branding expert and the founder of Career Rocketeer, Launchpad, Blogaristo and more.

Brand Reality of Buying Wonka Bars at Walmart: #TChat Recap

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Your brand is how your company tastes inside and out. This includes your your employment brand and B2B and/or B2C corporate brand.

Used to be that all we ever saw of the inside was what was printed on the outside — the pretty packaging and marketing spin as well as what was regulated by the Federal government (which most of us never really read, and if we did, we didn’t understand it and still don’t).

The brand tastes were still pretty much similar and controlled by the company. In fact, until recently it was only the sugar coating we ever really tasted, no matter how much we bit off.

But mercy, if we really knew the stuff that was on the inside…

Then a little phenomenon came about called social media that threw flying monkey wrenches into the batter. As I’m sure you’ve gathered, flying monkey wrenches are bittersweet and can give both employees and customers a horrible belly ache.

Not that eating highly saturated fats around the water cooler wasn’t/isn’t fun when talking smack about your employer and other employer’s gut bombs you consumed recently. But now you have access to online forums and review sites and social networking sites and unreality TV shows that delve deep into the inner workings of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.

Another interesting phenomenon? Most of you didn’t stop buying Wonka bars when you found out children had fallen into the chocolate lake, the one that was supposed to be child free. And those of us with kids know just how dirty kids can be.

Here’s another example: we were on a family vacation on the Oregon coast this last week where my folks live and we made multiple runs to Walmart. For tons of cheap stuff including stuff for our two little girls. Some of you may scoff, but hey, we know Walmart is the low price leader and price. We also know that they’ve had discrimination lawsuits filed against them by female workers, have been chastised forever about not allowing their employees to organize, have been accused for paying employees lower wages than other major retail chains, have been accused of buying marginal product in bulk overseas, etc.

In other words, the sugar coating for us overrides the flying monkey wrenches. That’s why we still see such a differentiation of company and employment branding today, when in the optimal organics world they really should be aligned.

So, who controls employer brand today? We do, the employees and the customers. But does that stop us from buying Wonka bars at Walmart? Or even working there?

No way. That’s the brand reality.

You can read the excellent #TChat preview Employer Branding: Best Practice or BS?, and here were the questions from last night’s #TChat:

  • Q1. What’s your definition of company or employer brand?
  • Q2. How does employer brand differ from a consumer brand?  Personal brand?
  • Q3. What makes a strong employer brand?  A weak one?
  • Q4. How does employer brand play into talent acquisition?  Retention?
  • Q5. What effect does social media have on employer branding?
  • Q6. Who controls employer brand: the company, employees, public, etc.?

Thanks to everyone who stopped by and to her TC majesty @MeghanMBiro for moderating! Hey, quick plug – #TChat Radio is coming July 26! Great guests lining up from our #TChat family. Join us!

What Diversity Really Means

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There was a pretty fantastic Twitter conversation happening last week on #TChat; it was about diversity. Be sure to check out the preview on MonsterThinking and the #TChat recap.

It was during this conversation that I was reminded of how much I hate the word diversity.

Picture an HR professional being called “personnel” by his or her new CEO and that pretty much captures my reaction.

The word diversity conjures up recollections of:

  • Lame Diversity Day potlucks where departments prepare food from another culture.
  • Feeling proud of a parent company’s sponsorship of the NAACP Image Awards only to discover a judge ordered them to do so because of a class action discrimination lawsuit.
  • A ridiculous attempt to make a newly hired, employee with MS feel “welcome” by telling her peers they have to walk around with a cane for a day.
  • The Diversity Department encouraging gay employees to come out to their coworkers without regard or preparation for the potential fall out and devastating emotional impact that could, and did occur. (Not to mention the resulting drop in productivity, team interventions, EAP referrals and leadership coaching that had to be done after.)

These are all true stories by the way.

It’s these kind of well-intentioned, but poorly planned and executed programs that at best, cause leaders to roll their eyes and at worst, cause them to become more entrenched in their resistance.

So should we give up? Should we stop trying to influence corporate cultures to recognize the importance and value of differences? Absolutely not!

But we need to be realistic about what it takes to change culture and mindset.

The core of diversity lies in understanding that we are better performers, better leaders, better service providers and better people when we surround ourselves with those who are different from us. However, the reality is that most adults are more comfortable with people who are just like them.

Our role is to help leaders move beyond their opposition to contradictory perspectives. It’s to help them move from valuing individuality to valuing what each individual contributes to a team. Our role is to help the highly analytical and highly creative to work together harmoniously instead of a perpetuating an adversarial relationship. This is what having a diversity mindset is all about.

A freakin’ pot luck isn’t going to fix that people.

The language we need to use with executives is relatability to consumers, innovation, increased sales, improved stock prices for shareholders and more profits. These are all natural outcomes of a diversity mindset. The mistake most HR leaders and diversity directors make is talking about this topic in terms of race, gender, age, sexual preference and the EEOC. When we bombard leaders with that language, we relegate this hugely important initiative to the realm of legal imperative instead of business necessity.

Let me conclude by addressing those of you who are going to call me a jaded, former HR professional. You’re right. I am. More importantly, I care deeply about the ethical success of American business; small and large, public and private.

Those are my thoughts. What are yours?

When HR is About the Biz and Embraced by It: #TChat Recap

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When HR is truly about the business, embraced by the business, then they should manage all of people management, from beginning to end.

And it’s getting there for many HR executives. Yet still for others, not so much. No matter the title you give Human Resources, those “business partners” I know in the space are the ones who manage the internal talent economy.

That doesn’t mean that the HR executive does the day to day tactical of recruiting, training, reviewing and all the minutia of compliance and administrative tasks. However, to all my recruiter friends out there, no need to throw rocks; I’m not discounting recruiting to basic tactical work. But I am saying that whether you call it VP of HR, VP of Talent, Chief Human Resource Officer, Chief Talent Officer, Chief People Officer, you name it, and you work for a company of any significant size, usually over 2,500 employees, you more than likely have a specialized team working for you.

Again, when HR is truly about the business, embraced by the business, then they should manage all of people management, from beginning to end.

But as I’ve written before, if someone says “seat at the table” one more time, I’m gonna blow (and many others along with me). I’ve talked with many HR practitioners of late who are part of their company’s executive business strategy, but unfortunately the dissing “buzz” of disservice continues. The good news is that smart CEOs who want growth have strong talent management, which means they have smart people management who understand the business, what drives growth and how to keep the workforce in order to get there.

And what better way to check on the business of HR than to take the shuttle bus at SHRM 2011. On one such ride I struck up a conversation with the nice woman next to me and find out she’s VP of personnel and talent acquisition at a large company in the Midwest back from the brink of death (and yes, she used the word personnel — add that to the VP list above).

So I start asking her questions, and she tells me things like:

  • We have no mainstream HR or talent management software deployed. Our systems are home grown, tedious and temperamental. But, we have no plans to dump them any time soon because we’re just getting our life back. (But that will be on the priority list soon…)
  • We still had net employee losses last year, but this year we plan on hiring a few thousand before the end of 2011.
  • We’re in the midst of developing a broader scope succession plan that includes not only upper management but middle management and line managers as well.
  • We’re going to be cross-training management across lines of business, including those of us in personnel and HR.
  • We’re in the midst of developing a social media strategy that includes establishing employee guidelines (meaning loose ones — we want folks to participate now), employment branding, recruiting, marketing, you name it. That’s a far cry from the traditionally conservative world we’ve been living in for a long time.
  • In fact, when I came across Glassdoor.com for the first time recently I was horrified of what I saw written about us and other companies. It’s time to participate in the conversation and rebuild our brand.

Human resources and workforce management is maturing and businesses along with it. The above example is just one of many stories I’ve heard recently. Remember, we may still be on the front end of “the business of HR” mainstream, but the next 5-10 years I believe will be amazing.

You can read the #TChat preview here and here are the questions from this the big #SHRM11 #TChat:

  • Q1: What does HR do? Is that different from what they’re supposed to do?
  • Q2: Why should HR be responsible for all talent management and recruiting? Why not?
  • Q3: What are the common misperceptions other departments have about HR and why?
  • Q4: What’s HR getting right in today’s world of work and business?
  • Q5: HR pros: What can employees do differently to better partner with HR?
  • Q6: What does the future of HR look like? Does it have one?

A very special thank you @mattcharney @Monster_WORKS and @MonsterWW for all you did at #SHRM11 for #TChat. We do appreciate it!

Happy 4th of July everyone! We’ll be back on July 12 with an all new #TChat — Employer branding, Talent Acquisition and Company Culture.

And don’t forget — #TChat Radio starts on July 26! Details soon…

Get Creative: Take Your Organization Off-Road

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A recent Articles.com piece notes that unorthodox recruiting styles may actually pay off. Looking in unique places and creating a non-traditional way of recruiting can be an alternative to the tried and true.

But how do we push beyond our boundaries? HR folks and leaders typically attend many of the same conferences and seminars, so much of what is being done becomes somewhat incestuous. Learning what has worked with others is great, but don’t let that limit your options.

Many leaders may be okay with taking a new approach to how things are done. What really gets feathers ruffled is when structure and processes are approached with the same sense of flexibility. Difficult to argue against words like “quantifiable”, “metrics”, “strategy” and others of a similar ilk begin getting thrown around. Out of fear, loyalty and “good business sense” is questioned and the feral uprising is summarily squashed.

Leadership, regardless of level and department, requires things quite different than what was necessary or effective say 10 years ago. The latest catch phrase, 21st century leadership, has some merit behind it (at least until it gets used to death). A post on The Customer Collective makes a great point.

Leaders of the future will also have to be emotionally efficient. They will promote variation, rather than promoting people in their own likeness. They will encourage experimentation and enable people to learn from failure. They will build and develop people.

If we look at many of the most successful and growing organizations, they all have at least one thing in common: Taking their organization off-road in some way. It’s incredible how the success rate of doing this seems to have little to no bearing on those still humming along in the granny lane.

Going off the map isn’t comfortable for anyone, but when given the choice between the anxiety of venturing into the unexplored and the anxiety of wondering about future viability, I’ll take the former any day of the week. I think if leadership were painfully honest, they would feel the same way.

Here are some tips to help you put on some honkin’ mudder tires and have a go with going off-road with your organization.

  • Ease into it – Nothing says you have to have your entire organization jump in with both feet and throw caution to the wind. Choose an area that could result in a significant change and get you toes a bit wet. People don’t respond well to the revolutionary dynamic of sudden and drastic changes, so don’t think you have to do everything at once.
  • Find your adventurers – Every organization has a group of them. Those who are free spirits and are quick to adopt new things out of mere curiosity. They typically get excited about trying something different just because it’s different. It will be like handing the key to the chicken coop to the fox. They will most likely drool the moment they have the opportunity to develop an alternative option than the status quo.
  • Support the effort – As with any initiative, there must be support from leadership. Consider having a member of the C-Suite, or at least the VP level, act as a sponsor so there is a little more chance of things having the freedom to succeed.
  • Give it a fair chance – It’s going to be ugly, awkward and uneasy at first. Manage your expectations. Don’t approach it from a right/wrong perspective, but rather one of “what worked, what didn’t work?” Nothing wrong with piecing together a solution.

Can't Separate the Cognitive from Diversity: #TChat Recap

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“You and I, we are pressed into these solitudes
Color and culture, language and race
Just variations on a theme
Islands in a much larger stream
For you and me — Race is not a competition
For you and me — Race is not a definition
For you and me — We agree
Reaching for the alien shore…”

–Neil Peart, Rush (“Alien Shore” from Counterparts)

That’s usually the first thing we think of when we hear the word “diversity,” or lack thereof. It’s either that, or stereotypical gender, age, physical or mental abilities and limitations.

We default to these without giving much thought to thought, or our cognitive diversity. According to diversity expert Joe Gerstandt, cognitive diversity is becoming critical to the success of our organizations, yet it still has not received much serious attention (like emotional intelligence). “Regardless of the organization or industry, decision making, problem solving and innovation are increasingly important competencies and opportunities for competitive advantage and all of these things are all fed by cognitive diversity.”

The most cognitively diverse group I’ve ever hired, trained and managed, were university students (and of course, the most racially and culturally diverse as well). They were hired to make high-pressure fundraising calls for San Jose State University’s academic programs and general fund. It was tough work. Thankfully there was a candidate pool of 30,000 students to source from because turnover was high semester to semester.

Identifying the right talent who had the magic “no fear” ability to get alumni, parents and friends of the university to donate during a 5-10 minute phone call was critical. The ones who fared the best were among the most socially outgoing, inventive, adaptive on the phones, and at times highly combative with me, the management. Cognitive diversity certainly didn’t mean hand-holding consensus. However, some of the best fundraising ideas came from this subset. I felt like everyday I was drinking different flavors of thought Kool-Aid and we came up with tasty new ones that improved the why of what we did.

Of course my own personal biases affected my hiring decisions at the time, but I always had the attitude that, “I’m not going to hire you just because you’re [blank].” Either you’re helping me raise the money for the university, or you’re not. That’s about as diverse as it got. And for the most part throughout my careers, every time I’ve attempted to build (and sell) a better mousetrap I’ve always wanted smart, unique folk all around me who know how to build (and sell). That means challenge and push and pull and innovate and excel. That means cognitive diversity.

But then something happened towards the end of #TChat last night as we wound down the diversity questions. Someone wrote:

“A lot of white people talking up diversity on #TChat – I don’t see a lot of diversity though, just white folks tweeting…”

An interesting sidebar began that came down to our experiences by race. For example, I was told that the workplace challenges I’ve faced are nothing compared to those of people of color (for example). I wrote that I understood, but considering the year I’ve had, I wasn’t so sure any more.

Then I was told, “My friend, consider this. You have experienced this for the first time. My whole life has been like that.”

And then I wrote, “Thank you. This is why I do what I do. I am not you, and you are not me, but maybe we can make a difference?”

This was when consensus made all the difference in the world. I came full circle and realized you really can’t separate cognitive diversity from the rest of the person’s context and subjective experiences. It’s all what makes us individually whole.

This is the world we live and work in. Together. For better or for worse. Amen.

“For you and me — Race is not a competition
For you and me — Race is not a definition
For you and me — We agree
Reaching for the alien shore…”

Thank you everyone again for participating last night! Did I tell you we’re launching #TChat radio on July 26? More soon!

You can read the great preview post by Joe Gerstandt. Here were last night’s questions:

  • Q1: What Does “Diversity” Mean to You in 140 Characters or Less?
  • Q2: What role does diversity plan in an employer’s bigger talent picture?
  • Q3: Has anything changed about the way employers and employees look at diversity?
  • Q4: How can organizations benefit from building and maintaining a diverse workforce?
  • Q5: What are some of the biggest myths or misconceptions about diversity in today’s workplace?
  • Q6: What role should leaders play in diversity and inclusion?
  • Q7: Does diversity still matter in today’s world of work?  What’s t
    he future of diversity look like?

 

Break the Mold: Improve Leadership Development

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When it comes to Leadership Development, we tend to want to let our system dictate the direction of where things should go. HR loves to have performance management systems that keep things in check.

We have “annual” cycles for checking in with people to make sure they get their yearly dose of feedback.  Employees begrudgingly participate and Supervisors take a passing look at the process to fill out the endless forms and force rank their staff.

People then set goals that aren’t really development goals. They are “goals” to shore up your weaknesses, because development continues to be focused on filling the gaps in what you don’t do well.  We all agree that this is the best path for the employee, and then everyone files the review away until one day before the next annual cycle. Then, it gets dusted off and people hastily fill out the next form to make sure it’s complete for HR . . . and development NEVER occurs !!

We need to break out of this never ending death spiral and do the one thing that we refuse to do – treat development individually vs. collectively.

It amazes me when companies state that people are their #1 asset, but they won’t spend one hour with them A YEAR.

Recently, I’ve been trying this individual approach with our Executive Leadership, and it works.  It has allowed us to truly take the time to look at the fantastic strengths they bring every day to work and we are focusing on how to leverage them.

Also, the challenges that they all face can be addressed through their strengths. We aren’t taking the approach that most HR functions take by continuing to list the factors that will continue to be challenges for people. We want to reduce the challenges by making sure that they are reviewed, addressed and given a chance to improve.

The other very different approach is that there is no set cycle or annual schedule. We’re meeting with people one-on-one monthly to see how their development is going. We’re looking to provide resources and, most importantly, we’re being intentional. This isn’t the “next trend” or “best practice.” This is an intentional decision to take the time to develop our leaders so that they, in turn, will continue to drive our company forward.

So, break the mold. Quit following the collective. Highlight the individual. It’s worth the time!

Leaders Create Solutions, Not Dysfunction: #TChat Recap

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There’s a scene in the movie The Company Men where a laid-off executive (Tommy Lee Jones) confronts his old CEO (Craig T. Nelson), who happens to be his partner with whom he started the now struggling shipping business.

The fired exec taunts his CEO about all the recent lay offs and his selfish focus on shareholder value. The CEO fires back “this is a business, not a charity.” And when the CEO reveals that the company was bought out at $X per share for a lucrative return, the fired exec says, “Good for you.”

Then the CEO asks his old partner pointedly, “How many shares did you have?”

I won’t spoil the plot any further with what happens next, but the story tells of the divergence in leadership choices, business and personal lives, and the ultimate impact of those choices. We’ve seen this plot play-out in reality again and again – through boom years – and most recently through the protracted bust.

The reality is that business leaders are responsible for growing a business, which means they have an important hand in selecting who helps them do just that, which means their employees must be a partner in that if they want to share in any success, but not at the expense of all our humanity and our very livelihoods.

That sentimental gibberish used to get you shot in the executive washroom, but these times they’ve been a-changin’, again, with corporate social responsibility taking center stage in many early-stage ventures, start-ups and growing SMB’s with the focus on the talent that makes it all happen, as opposed to the focus making it all happen at the expense of the talent.

These new business leaders, and those of the reformed nature, understand that they need to work with their “talent” acquisition and development teams to align business strategy with needed competencies/skills and a splash of authenticity, transparency, salt and pepper to taste and bam! We’ve got the new age of talent management. Today’s street-smart business leaders know not everyone can be a complete “right” fit, but they’re smarter if they work with those with promise, actually welcoming them into the fold and talking with them directly about the business and their new role. Business leaders today also need the “crystal ball” insight into their talent with predictive workforce analytics, so then workforce planning can take promising shape. Without direct involvement and detailed insight, organizations are just flailing in the dark.

And as Matt wrote in his #TChat preview, “when it comes to attracting and retaining talent, active, engaged and innovative leaders provide a key competitive advantage. After all, it’s that magnetism they possess which creates a powerful draw for potential workers (and customers), not to mention providing a potent, and public, voice for communicating with both internal and external stakeholders.”

And as a leader, if you’re not part of the talent solution from the beginning, then you’re probably part of the self-serving dysfunction that destroys businesses and lives in the end, regardless of how much you cash in. Conservative and progressive leaders alike and all in between, if you’re not of mindful presence and high emotional intelligence, then as far as I’m concerned you shouldn’t be leading anything except a 12-step program. Everyone’s a leader of self and Me, Inc., but that doesn’t mean it’s at the expense of building and growing a company.

Inspire your team to own it as you do, baby. That’s the truest form of success.

Again, you can read the #TChat preview for the first ever, and highly successful, joint #TChat and #LeadershipChat last night. A very special thanks to Lisa Petrilli and Steve Woodruff from #LeadershipChat! Here were the questions we explored:

  • Q1: What is the role of a leader when it comes to making talent decisions?
  • Q2: What should a leader consider when addressing “talent alignment?”
  • Q3: How can a leader show genuine authenticity to new recruits and current employees?
  • Q4: How does being a genuine leader impact a workplace culture brand?

Magnetic Leadership Attracts Top Talent: #TChat Preview

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Originally posted by Matt Charney, one of #TChat’s moderators, on MonsterThinking Blog

The CEO of today looks a lot different than  the company man of previous generations, increasingly likely to have traded  in the gray wool suit for shorts and flip-flops, their secretaries for smart phones, and corporate branding with personal branding.

One only has to look as far as Steve Jobs’ black turtleneck, or Bill Gate’s bifocals, or even Undercover Boss to see the impact that leaders have on the way clients, and candidates, perceive and interact with an organization.  Tony Hsieh has made Zappos as recognizable for its corporate culture as its corporate product; likewise, Donald Trump is his corporate product.

The close correlation between leadership and talent extends far beyond these high profile examples, two concepts that have long been inexorably intertwined.  Influential lists like Fortune’s annual 100 Best Companies to Work For or a company’s Glassdoor.com ratings, rely heavily on workers’ perceptions of leadership and management within their organizations.

Studies have repeatedly demonstrated that executive and managerial communications and engagement are among the primary drivers for employee satisfaction and, subsequently, retention.  Satisfaction with leadership plays a similarly prevalent role in worker productivity, with magnetic leaders adding more to the bottom line than can be reflected on a balance sheet.

When it comes to attracting and retaining talent, active, engaged and innovative leaders provide a key competitive advantage.  After all, it’s that magnetism they possess which creates a powerful draw for potential workers (and customers), not to mention providing a potent, and public, voice for communicating with both internal and external stakeholders.

Tonight’s combined #TChat and #LeadershipChat recognizes the critical correlation between talent and leadership, and that’s why we’re partnering up to discuss some of the most critical challenges – and opportunities – confronting leaders and the workers who rely on them every day.

We hope you can join us tonight at 8 PM ET/5 PM PT for what’s been jokingly called “Twitter Chat M&A” as our communities come together for a conversation on magnetic leadership and how it fits in with the bigger talent picture.

To follow along or to join the conversation, remember to use both the #LeadershipChat and #TChat hash tags; for more background on #LeadershipChat, click here.

It’s sure to be a lively discussion, so we’re only including four questions tonight instead of our regular seven to keep the conversation flowing while keeping it focused on the issues, and ideas, that matter most.

#TChat + #LeadershipChat Questions and Recommended Reading: 06.14.2011

Here are tonight’s questions, along with some related posts on leadership and talent  we think are worth checking out.  This background reading isn’t mandatory to get in on tonight’s joint #TChat #LeaderChat action, but we suggest checking out these articles by top leadership and talent-management thought leaders before the chat (or if you missed it):

Q1: What is the role of a leader when it comes to making talent decisions?

Read: How Successful Companies Attract and Retain Employees by Connie Blaszczyk

Q2: What should a leader consider when addressing “talent alignment?”

Read: 5 Things Every CEO Should Know About Talent Alignment by Lisa Petrilli

Q3: How can a leader show genuine authenticity to new recruits and current employees?

Read: Starbucks Wakes Up and Smells the Coffee (And Buzzes Back Up the Leader Board) by Allen Adamson

Q4: How does being a genuine leader impact a workplace culture brand?

Read: 5 Authentic Keys to Attracting Top Talent by Meghan M. Biro

Visit www.talentculture.com for more great information on #TChat, as well as other great resources on careers and hiring.

Monster’s social media team supports #TChat’s mission of sharing “ideas to help your business and your career accelerate — the right people, the right ideas, at the right time.”

We’ll be joining the conversation this Tuesday night as co-hosts with Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman from 8-9 p.m. (Eastern) via @MonsterCareers and @Monster_Works.

Transforming the Workplace: Charting a Path to a Better Place

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Originally posted by Chris Jones, a TalentCulture contributing writer. He is an IT Strategy & Change Management consultant, with a passion for driving new levels of engagement and learning in the modern organization. His research areas include the dynamics of organization culture, and more recently, the importance and implications of critical thinking. Check out his blog, Driving Innovation in a Complex World, for more.

In my last TC post, we did a deep dive on critical thinking in the workplace.  We discussed ways to drive innovation in our day to day exchanges by tracing the value of engagement in the modern organization and focusing on the mechanics of collaboration as a more rigorous way to solve problems.

These are all core elements of a desirable future state culture.  If achieved, they could serve to foster organization-wide learning.

But what about culture change itself?

So often executives will speak of the need to drive a full transformation of the business or its culture. It’s not too difficult to imagine an alternate future state.  But it can be difficult to know how to get there.

The research I’ve done in this space indicates that culture change can be guided by leadership, provided there is a focused, coordinated, and ongoing effort to achieve it. Too often culture is viewed as a quick fix, a “memo” to the team (remember those?), or a simple expectation of management for the troops to ‘figure it out’.

Organization change is too complex for simple solutions. Learned behaviors run deep into the fabric of the organization, and are not easily changed.

I see value in attacking the problem at two levels simultaneously, a simple, high-level framing like the one recently popularized by Chip and Dan Heath in Switch (2010), supplemented by a more detailed approach, such as the one famously outlined by John Kotter in Leading Change (1996).  A combination provides a reinforcing framework, a ‘scaffolding’ of sorts, that will be resilient due to its diverse structure.

Let’s take a look at a synthesis of these two models, and outline what the core transformational elements might be:

Viability of an Organization’s Vision

Stakeholders must be able to see themselves in the future state, and will gain value from participating in the visioning exercises.  The vision must be achievable and actionable, and defined in a language recognizable to those who must seek it.

Ability of Leaders to Motivate

A guiding coalition must form around the change effort to create a believable, unified front to shepherd the changes through.  This coalition, representing elements of the entire organization, must be able to articulate a clear “value” story for stakeholders to rally behind. A “burning platform” is ideal to create a sense of urgency.  There must be an emotional appeal for an organization to be truly motivated, and a sense of empowerment that gets people engaged.

Ability of Managers to Clear a Path

Hurdles and roadblocks will invariably get raised, because human nature is to avoid change and maintain a status quo.  Pockets of resistance and politics will resit new approaches, and the guiding coalition must be sure that the team receives full support.  Communication will be critical, as well as establishing momentum, and, eventually, being sure to embed changes into daily operations.

Neither a checklist nor a new framework will be sufficient for an organization’s transformation to be successful.  It takes commitment and focus, and an investment of energy over the long-term.  Working together, stakeholders can build a transformation road map, charting a path to a better place.

Do you think these steps could serve as a means for driving change in an organization? Which of these steps have worked for you?  What do you see as challenges?

Let’s discuss adoption.  It would be great to compare notes, and to drive this thinking forward.

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Finding Obsessed HR Fanatics: True Promoters

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In Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones was searching for the Ark of the Covenant, the key to all human existence.

HR has been on a quest for its own Holy Grail for years – credibility.

In this post, Laurie Ruettimann says the way to get HR credibility is to take over. Move into a leadership position that allows you to influence the direction of the company and the value HR has within it. I agree. But what do you do in the meantime?

Find HR Otaku…

Otaku is a Japanese word for people who are obsessed with video games, anime and action figures. They are fanatics. They write about it, blog about it, purchase it, play it, go to conferences, read books, dress up in costumes and spend lots and lots of money on it.

One of the core principles I’ve been teaching business owners the last several years comes from Seth Godin’s book, Purple Cow. The principle of finding customers who will be otaku, who will be fanatical about the products and services you provide is a game-changer. When you figure out who those people are and target your marketing to them, your business will grow because they will talk about it, sing your praises and spend lots of money with you.

And guess what HR? There is otaku in your company; you just need to find them.

Instead of rolling out a company-wide initiative that gets a typical head-rolling, “we don’t have time for that” response, do a pilot. And when you do your pilot, do it only with a segment of the organization that will be otaku about it. Talk about a shift! Instead of convincing the whole organization about the merits of the initiative, your otaku will promote it and you.

Selection Criteria

How do you find your otaku for a pilot? It should be a group that…

1. Is ready. Find a group that is not change adverse and welcomes opportunities for new things. Trying to pilot an initiative in a group whose philosophy is, “This is how we’ve always done it” is only going to lead to frustration.

2. Has the bandwidth to make the project work. Analyze what the commitment in resources (time and money) is going to be. Be prepared to answer how much time will be lost in productivity and make the case for the long-term ROI of the project.

3. Can show demonstrable, measurable results. Get really clear about what success looks like before you start and partner with the business unit on what the metrics will be. The executive team will want to see the ROI before it goes company-wide.

4. You have a good relationships with. The key to a good pilot is lots of open, truthful communication between you and the business unit so you can make improvements to your project.

So until you are the helm of your HR department, use the otaku technique, one business unit at a time to develop the credibility you deserve.

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Focus on Your Employees, Key to Workplace Culture Success

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As an organization, your perceived workplace culture is a part of your brand. There are plenty of posts out there that discuss how your brand is more than just your logo. It is an overall perception and the emotional connection people make with who you are as an organization on a holistic level. Taking the complete package that we have come to understand as a brand is that which we market to our target audience. Marketing 101, right?

I would suggest that many organizations are dropping the ball  in marketing organizational culture to a specific market segment. This particular segment is so critical to the success of your company. It’s your employees. If you’re not leveraging the brilliance of your marketing department to reach out to your own people, you are leaving tons of money and talent on the table. Internal marketing is absolutely essential to be a major player in business…especially in the 21st century.

How do you communicate your workplace culture to your employees? Is it in their employee handbook, hanging on prominent walls in frames and the “mandatory” screensaver from HQ? How would you view your marketing department if their top notch marketing campaign only consisted of a blurb in your product/service user instructions, a refrigerator magnet and an invite to follow on Twitter? Pretty lame, huh?

So why does it seem good enough for your potentially best evangelists, your employees? Imagine a campaign that is collaboratively developed with input from the C-Suite, HR and Marketing on how to market to your employees. If it makes it easier, replace the word “employee” with “customer/client”. What would you do to market your culture effectively to them?

Why do your customers buy from you? You most likely meet a need in their life and they emotionally connect with your brand in some way or another. You’re employees need the same opportunity to create a connection in order to be the best they can possibly be. Without this, they will not offer their discretionary effort; which is where your bottom line profit realizes the most difference.

There isn’t a process or management tool that can demand a discretionary effort from any employee. It is only given by choice as a gift to the organization when they feel valued and connected. Values is a great place to start with your engagement marketing campaign. People connect so quickly with those. If you show people you plan to give them the freedom to the job you hired them to do without the “adult babysitting”, you will come out ahead as well.

See what your brainstorming brings to the surface when the C-Suite, HR and Marketing get together? It will be different for each company based on the vision and mission. It has to reach your target market, the employees, exactly where they are…not where you think they should be. Don’t demand them to come where you are. Go to them and walk with them as you travel to that place.

What can you do to market your workplace culture better to your employees?

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It's the Brave New World of Work: #TChat Recap

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“Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.” -James Matthew Barrie

Somehow I missed that memo the first time around. The one about making sure to underestimate your marketplace and overestimate your sales cycle when you’re starting a new business.

Or even a new career for that matter. New careers are self-contained yet interconnected businesses within themselves. Entrepreneurship has always included career management, business development, [personal] brand marketing, sales and sticky-sweet (but legitimate) customer service.

Because most, if not all entrepreneurs were employees with careers going anywhere but where they wanted to go. So they launch new careers, some of which eventually grow to make a few hires here and there, and a few others get really big by hiring tons of people, collecting tons of investment capital and riding sky-high (for now) with huge valuations (think social media firms of late).

But I did finally get the memo and read it thoroughly. You’ve heard the saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” From careers, to start-ups, to small businesses to big businesses — American’s longing for success and trying again is hard-wired into our DNA.

This is National Small Business Week, and as Matt wrote yesterday in his #TChat preview:

As Obama (or proxy) observed, it turns out Mom & Pop and VC babies share more in common than size; they share spirit, ‘the idea that if you have a good idea and are willing to work hard enough, you can succeed in our country…’

…For many more millions of small business owners, and workers, who have dared to dream and injected so much sweat equity into their bottom line, that creation myth is still being created.   They might call themselves small businesses, or entrepreneurs, or start-ups, but our economy – and our jobs – depends on their growth. So we just wanted to say thank you.

Indeed. Thank you.

Most of the #TChat faithfuls preferred going from small companies to working in big companies. I concur. And even though I’ve always worked for smaller firms, I have worked “with” bigger companies and have always wondered what it would be like to pull the curtain back in Oz and give it a go…

Somebody slap me. Working for yourself, for a small company, launching your own start-up or firm — these activities are what continually breathes new life into the sometimes failing lungs of capitalism (long-time smoker, you know). And it’s this economic activity that sparks job creation as well. Brand name firms may still pull in the greater talent, and they’ve got the revenue to get creative with “total rewards,” but even big firms have struggled of late and now focus heavily on internal talent mobility — I know you’re in there and are just right for this position because I can’t find you out there. Plus, in this (yes, I know how many times you’ve heard it) global, virtual, contingent world where depending on the projects and the hourly rate, talent is fluid from small to big and back again.

It’s the brave new world of work. Just don’t forget to read the memos, even the stinky ones from the ditto machine. Hey, I kinda liked that smell growing up…

Here were the questions from teh #TChat last night:

  • Q1: How do you define ‘small business?’  Is this the term we should be using?
  • Q2: Would you prefer working for a small business or a big company?  Why?
  • Q3: What role does talent play in small business success?  How can small businesses successfully compete with bigger companies in the ‘war for talent?’
  • Q4: What are some of the biggest advantages of working for a small business employer?  Drawbacks?
  • Q5: Do you think employers and recruiters value small business and big company experience differently?
  • Q6: What should big business workers know about moving to a small company (and vice-versa)?
  • Q7: What’s your best advice for someone thinking about starting a small business? Any myths vs. realities?