Ever been to a dinner party or a family meal? Sure you have! Ever been seated next to someone who has absolutely nothing to say? You know the type. You offer an amusing anecdote from the paper and they smile. You share a rich story about the host and they chuckle or nod. You comment on the quality of the meal and they agree the food is good. Then you check your watch, wonder how you will manage for another hour, then turn to the person on your right and pray they are a bit more engaging!
Recently, we've been talking with HR leaders about 'Strategic HR Capability'. Yes, indeed! Now that the business world has accepted that things will not 'return to normal', there is increasing recognition that HR needs to partner with core business leadership to focus on the landscape ahead. The good news is that this means HR, more and more, has 'a seat at the table'. It's refreshing that HR is less focused on getting an invitation, but what HR leaders, and their core business partners, are telling us is that their HR teams are too busy with operations or not strategically skilled.
What do you do if HR is too busy with operations or doesn't have the skills to focus strategically? What if your HR is a boring dinner guest?
Most companies would focus immediately on skill-building programs, and, certainly, this can have an impact. Building HR's knowledge of the business, honing consultative skills and tooling the team with techniques can enhance HR's dialogue with core business leaders, and, with the right coaching and sustained focus, HR can become more strategic over time. Skill building will get you a more entertaining dinner guest.
Trouble is, most companies don't have the time to nurture and develop HR's impact. Most companies are looking for strategic HR impact NOW (if not last month). They don't want an entertaining dinner guest, they want a keynote speaker.
Have you ever noticed how a university student, or a recent MBA graduate will, without hesitation or humility, tell you exactly what should be done, and. what's more, exactly why you are doing it wrong? Can you even count the number of sites and blogs (yes, I see the irony) that are focused on critiquing the action (or lack of action) of major companies? Thinking about this, it occurs to me that the MOST strategic, effective, smart and impactful HR people I have encountered (and I've worked with quite a few) weren't always 'well prepared' for the task at hand. They didn't necessarily 'have the skills'. What they did have was a requirement to take action. Isn't innovation born of necessity?
So what if HR didn't stop at building skills (which is rarely a bad thing to do) but extended further. What if HR didn't only contribute at the table? What if HR built their own table?
There's an old movie (1988 release) called Working Girl. Melanie Griffith plays a secretary who desperately wants to get ahead but can't get anyone to take her seriously due to her position (and some really bad hair and wardrobe choices). She does, ultimately, advance an idea and make a career for herself with the help of Harrison Ford. A pivotal point in the plot is when she is accused of stealing the idea she has presented and she explains that she formed the idea on the basis of an article in a human interest magazine and a tidbit in a gossip column; she developed a great business plan on the basis of unlikely sources.
I was speaking with a group of HR leaders at a conference a few months ago about 'scanning the horizon'; using external clues to identify new directions and future impact on your business.As you've already guessed, I shared the 'Working Girl' anecdote and then I asked the group to tell me what they see for the future of their companies, their businesses. The very same HR professionals who had, just minutes before, told me that they didn't feel capable of advising their business partners on strategic matters could easily describe what forces were at work in their marketplace and industry. They could easily anticipate what the impact might be on their business and they could define the types of things they could be doing to prepare for that future. One HR Manager even shared that his business team was heading in the wrong direction, "We're already the low cost service provider. With competition increasing, we need to be building our service quality rather than putting all of our energy into cost containment. We ought to be building skills rather than slashing our training and development budgets."
Maybe HR should define an agenda while building its skills. Once defined, HR can test and advocate for that agenda; not only engaging in the dialogue, but defining it.
