Gilding the lily - how to fail at business change

Whilst on my travels last week I stumbled upon this building in the heart of Reading (town in the South of England). It suggests that Reading is the place to be and encourages us to come and base our businesses there.


However, it struck me that the building on which the banner was posted would need a lot more than a few encouraging words to make it attractive.

This is a great metaphor for what I often see in the workplace. Organisations seem to think that by doing things such as re branding and or installing a new IT platform that they will create the new perfect operation. My friends over at Advance Performance taught me a long time ago that:

If you paint the leaves you kill the tree. If you condition the soil the tree will flourish

The fact is that if you wish to change the nature of your business you critically need to change the behaviours of your people to support this. To achive this you must consider how to inspire your workforce. This can be achived by thinking about their beliefs and attitudes (and by taking specific actions) before you buy that fancy new IT system.

Customer focus - "block me in!"

I saw this sign on a car windscreen at the weekend. The car was parked next to a very busy gastropub where parking was clearly a problem for customers. I really like the simplicity of this and it is a great antidote the normal "NO" signs you usually see. How could this be applied in your business?

Time to put the "Human" back into HR?

The debate rages on regarding what to call our profession and it's constituent parts. As I have discussed here before, I am quite keen on "Personnel" and on "HR 2.0" but there are plenty more labels going around for those looking for something different. Regardless of your preference for Human Capital or for Meaning Officers, one thing is for sure, people still sit at the center of what us "people" professionals are all about.

I'm in the middle of a discussion with my colleagues over at Delta 7 who are keen to try and capture the essence of what our profession is all about in visual form. In their latest blog they provide the images above concerning both the human and non-human aspects of HR. I think this is a great starting point which I hope will lead us to a clear and understandable vision for the future of HR. Please let me know what you think.

The power of stories - even when they are wrong

Whilst walking to a meeting in London the other day I stumbled across a group of people protesting at the "trial" of Dr Andrew Wakefield. Wakefield is now close to being struck off from practicing as a doctor twelve years after his now discredited claim in The Lancet that the MMR vaccine against measles, mumps and rubella might cause autism and bowel disorders in children.

I spoke to a couple of the protesters and discovered, a little to my surprise, that they were actually there in support of Wakefield. It became immediately apparent that these parents had found some comfort in Wakefield's passionate claims that their children were ill because of the MMR vaccine. These parents were genuine and I am certainly not passing any judgement on them. Wakefield, on the other hand, has been found to have acted very badly indeed. The only thing he has got right appears to have been the communication of his claims.

What can we learn from this? Appeal to the hearts and minds of people and (in this case despite the truth) many of them will follow your argument. Another lesson - stick to the truth when communicating!

The Top 10 HR Bloggers and Tweeters in the UK

HPA have just published a list of their top 10 UK based bloggers. As I have said before I'd really like to see this list grow in the UK but this is a pretty good start.

1. http://strategic-hcm.blogspot.com/ (@joningham) We have lot of time for HR 2.0 guru, Jon Ingham, who’s been blogging on the changing state of HR for 3 years and has written the book Strategic Human Capital Management. He posts daily with opinion, interviews, reviews etc that relate to people creating tangible value in organisations. You might like Jon’s article on HR and social media.

2. http://mcarthursrant.blogspot.com/ As Personnel Today says… "It's hard not to love a blog with 'rant' in the title - even before you start reading...this is a well laid out and attractive blog, with good content and links to a wide range of blogs and sites elsewhere.” We agree. Always worth watching.

3. http://flipchartfairytales.wordpress.com/ HR blogs don’t get more straight talking than this. The author, ‘Rick’, calls his mix of personal, political and business-related posts ‘reflections on the world of work and organisational crap’. He freely admits he’s going to upset a few people but of course that’s what’s made his 3-year-old blog so popular. You want to start here.

4. http://www.xperthr.co.uk/blogs/employment-intelligence/ The Employment Intelligence blog is produced by XpertHR’s 20-strong editorial team, posting at least daily, and includes news, commentary and analysis on employment law, employee relations, recruitment, retention, reward and work organisation, focusing on the UK and EU. Blogged have rated it 7.5/10.

5. http://www.personneltoday.com/blogs/human-resources-guru/ For a large outfit, Personnel Today have a brilliantly human blogging voice with a wicked sense of humour. Written by the ‘Guru’, PT’s ‘notorious HR commentator and dispenser of workplace wit and wisdom’, the posts vary between amusing titbits and topical viewpoints, always with a sardonic undertone. 100% worth following.

6. http://www.glassbeadconsulting.com/hr-transformer-blog/ A well-designed blog that’s more than just its looks. Produced by Glass Bead Consulting, HR Transformer attracts plenty of reader discussion around posts such as Future Trends in HR Operating Models and The Top 5 Reasons HR Projects Fail. Overall topics include careers, change management, strategy, leadership and outsourcing.

7. http://publicsectorhrpodcast.co.uk/ Podcasts for the public sector, with handy summaries and transcribes. Karen Wormwell posts monthly ‘interviews with top HR professionals and industry experts who share their insights on some of the biggest challenges facing HR teams today.’

8. http://www.jeffersoniaunlimited.com/ (@nickjefferson) A newie and a goodie. Nick Jefferson, business improvement specialist with an obvious flair for journalism, writes no-nonsense whether he’s got HR strapped to the bottom line or challenging matrix management. And he writes for the The Huffington Post. Don’t forget to see his ‘No accounting for HR’ post.

9. http://workblogging.blogspot.com/ A blog that focuses specifically on social media in a work context, with a credible research slant to most articles. The author, James Richards, is a lecturer in Human Resources at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, who has a PhD in workplace misbehaviour (and happy to share it with you).

10. http://www.gravitatehr.co.uk/blog/ (@HR_Guru_) A news-led blog written by Edinburgh-based consulting firm Gravitate HR. The team are happy to share their experiences and advice on practical issues from dealing with Swine Flu to redundancy appeals, all with a personable and pragmatic outlook.

How to Achieve a Good Office Environment

The most important factor in any working environment is respect: respect for employers and respect for co-workers. Without respect, there is no way for people to get along successfully and the lack of respect can also be the first step in the downward spiral towards employment discrimination and workplace harassment. The community of an office is made up of many different kinds of people and, since the ultimate goal of any office is a successful and productive work environment, how can co-workers make sure that they respect each other and not offend anyone with their words or actions? It comes down to office politics. In its simplest form, office politics is the differences between people at work and successful office politics equals successful human communications and relationships.

Research at Johns Hopkins University to evaluate the significance of manners in contemporary society suggests that most people are bothered more by the transgressions of coworkers and than by those of family. And among the top issues in an employment situation is discrimination. Discrimination of any kind is detrimental to a happy and productive workplace because it is generally based on something that is not a valid criterion for decision-making, such as race or gender as opposed to work productivity and successes. Even something perceived by some as innocent such as jokes or remarks about race, gender or age can be harmful. In any office, co-workers must be able to work with people from different backgrounds and therefore discrimination of any kind is the quickest way to alienate oneself from the office population.

Another significant way to create an unhappy work environment for you is to take credit for someone else’s work. Most people take great pride in their workplace successes so to usurp those accomplishments and claim them as your own will surely earn you a bad reputation at work for not being a team player. If you are in the habit of taking credit for the work that others do be sure that, when the opportunity arises for your co-workers to make you look bad, they probably will!

The basic common courtesy that is expected of people in society as a whole is also expected by people in the workplace. Things like littering or leaving a mess behind you in a common area are not things that most people want to deal with in their office environment. If you leave food and trash in the lunch area or don’t clean up community work spaces, you will certainly be ostracized by your co-workers. Similarly, smoking in non-smoking places or smoking in front of non-smokers without asking is another disrespectful behavior that will surely make you the low man on the social totem pole in your office.

Whether or not they realize it, co-workers’ behavior in the workplace is a critical factor to its ultimate success. If you want to encourage respect, you must start by giving it to others. Another important way to insure good workplace behavior is by acknowledging and encouraging co-workers who display desirable actions. And, just as acknowledgement and encouragement are important when a co-worker treats you well, it is also critical that you make an effort to address improper office behavior before it becomes a problem. If co-workers can respect one another and work together well, the end-result will be a more productive office and a pleasant working environment for everyone.

This article was produced by my site sponsor Calbizcentral

Carnival of HR - Super Bowl Edition

Steve Boese's HR Technology blog features the latest HR carnival. Steve has come up with a Carnival with a difference by organising the various stories around the theme of the Super Bowl (a quaint little sporting event held in a former British colony).

If you want to know what Wally Bock's Three Star Leadership, has to say about 'Leadership Development: When to Hire a Coach' and how this relates to the off season or how Ben Eubank's take on Comic Book Leadership over at UpstartHR could prepare you for a streaker on the field then please pop over to Steve's excellent blog.

Learning from the movies - The Cove

The Cove is, without a doubt, the most powerful documentary I have ever seen. The film exposes the true horror of the whaling industry in Japan. The cove in question is in Taijii, Japan where the fisherman cruelly catch dolphins to be sold to the worlds dolphinariums (Seaworld etc) thereafter taking those not selected to be circus animals to a secluded area of the peninsula to be brutally killed for their meat.

The film follows a group led by Ric O'Barry (who famously trained the dolphins used in the 1960s children's drama Flipper) as they set out to film the methods the fisherman use to kill the dolphins, and to demonstrate the health issues caused by eating dolphin and how companies, and the Japanese government, cover these issues up with money and lies.

So what has this got to do with what I write about here on McArthur's Rant? Well for one thing it shows how powerful facts can be if presented well. In this case we learn of how self aware dolphins are and that 20,000+ are killed every year in cahoots with the worlds dolphinariums. The use of imagery and music in this film is as dramatic as anything produced by Cameron or Del Toro. In one hugely disturbing seane we watch the last moments of a mortally wounded "Flipper". There is no need for narrative in such cases as the pictures say it all. Finally, The Cove happens as a consequence of determination and clarity of purpose and thanks to a crack team that quite simply clicks into place behind a powerful goal. Ric O'Barry is clearly a man with a mission and one who knows how to get a point across and gain action as a consequence of his passion. As he says in the film:

If you aren't an activist you're an inactivist

Help us reach our goal of one-millions signatures on our Petition to stop the dolphin slaughter. http://apps.facebook.com/causes/petitions/252