(HCM) Human Capital Momentum

Manage money..but LEAD people.

People are complex.  Groups of people are exponentially more complex.

Lots of time and money are wasted on a “managements” approach to results instead of a leaderships approach.  Management and the majority of tools that support them are excellently targeted on the “hows” of success.  The tools allow those responsible for management to justify and explain the reality of the team’s performance.  This seems clear and logical and perhaps it is …less one BIG fact.  People are not driven, sustained or satisfied by logic.  Because of this often over looked consideration many teams can have great people, tools, support and reports; but still under perform.

Let me give you the KEY to maximum team performance; it can be summed up in a single word.

A single word that if leveraged, will save your team lots of heartache and wasted time and money. It will also prove to be the single most important factor in your success, not just in my business but any business! It is the silver bullet that you can use to overcome any challenge between you and where you want to be. It is the secret that can make your team as powerful as any team that you know, of have ever heard of.

Once I leveraged this word, my life changed instantly and forever.

I give to you a one-word question: "Why?"

Why do you need to be successful in a business? If you cannot answer that question in a way that moves your emotions, you will probably not be as successful as you need to be. Sorry to break that news to you, but that’s the plain ugly truth. Listen to people talk around you. They spend a lot of time talking about wants (when they are not complaining) but seldom about "whys." On a rare occasion when you hear someone follow a "want" with a "why," watch them. They are about to make something happen!

Once you are honest with yourself and brave enough to look your “why” right in the eyes, then success becomes a simple matter of time. There are two things that can dramatically accelerate you forward, when you have a good "why": your vehicle and your team.

Your vehicle is not your car, but that is a great way to imagine it. Your vehicle is the metaphor in which you choose to operate. It could be a business, an art, an organization or a mission. (If you are really blessed it will be all four.) It will have rules, processes and direction in place. It will allow you to feel forward movement. Much of the vehicle operation will be learnable, repeatable and teachable. Your vehicle will be fueled by the very thing it creates as a byproduct – your passion disguised as talent.

Your team will be the people that share your future view of yourself and where your vehicle is going.

The best part is when you clearly have your "why," the right teammates will just show up. And they show up prepared to play with you, run with you, and win.

That, my friend is all there is in business or, as best as I can tell, in everything else.

Most people focus on "how" because that is what they see when a person with a "why" is getting things done. So they copy and try to recreate what they see, the "how." That "how" slowly turns into a question that they never seem to answer for themselves.

Which question do you ask yourself….your team most often? Why? Or How?

I have now given you what I believe, after years of study and research, to be the key to limitless possibility in performance.   I have spent quite a bit of time and money to end up with a deep understanding and relevance of a single word.  And now I give it to you.

"Why?" you may ask?

Exactly is my answer. Exactly!

Leadership and the Sorcerers Stone

The Sorcerers Stone

Corporate Leadership,

Alchemy, Magic and Sorcery are the background themes of modern children stories and adventure movies; but its has also been a significant part or the psyche of human civilization since before the last millennium.  The ideas or quest for transformational power has fueled not only the imagination, but real scientific discovery.

The idea of transforming a stone into gold, or metaphorically speaking, the common and abundant, into the rare and valuable; finds itself center stage to modern business.

In a world where almost all available information is in fact available to everyone, and advancement in computing science and automation are constantly leveling the playing field; we find ourselves in a world with all competitors are almost equally equipped.

The Potential for difference and advantage is rapidly coming into alignment with the lip services offered over the years, that PEOPLE are the most important asset. In a world of diminishing technical differentiation, the largest point of truly valuable differentiation has to be in the assembly and execution of the right teams of people.

The lab of the modern Corporate Alchemist is Staffing!  And the Alchemist stone is Technology, Executive support and the Freedom to be creative. Are you giving your staffing team the alchemist stone… or are you simply providing a stone in their shoe? Are you empowering them to create? Or charging them to condense and confine?

If you look deep into the eyes of your staffing team, you will see a childlike spark driven to transform your organization.  Let them demonstrate what they are dying to declare to the world; Let them scream to you “I am a Sorcerer!”

Then do your part, and dare them to create Magic!

Aristotle’s Bottle

Diversity, Globalization, and the Quest to be great.

Most corporate leaders and even military strategist will tell you of the importance of thinking Global while acting local.  The complexities of the modern business make this a  challenge for most companies, but with the emerging markets around the world and the international talent pools becoming more and more common, it is imperative that a global view and ability be established, if long term viability and growth is to have a chance.  The value of having a centralized and controlled vision, executed by decentralized specialist in their own way; all while maintaining a constant real time feed back loop to command and control worked in the American Revolution, and it works today in the modern business landscape. Enabling that type of interaction takes a smart mix of people, technology, talent, and discipline; and is the key for thriving in a landscape of constant change.  To become a Global success you most first capture, leverage and support Global view points.  A rich, divers, empowered workforce is the most direct path.

Asia, The UK, and India are not colors.

First we need to understand that a country is more than a language. It is a culture made up of rules, values and its own set of norms. With in every new country is a slightly different WAY of doing things.  You must focus on their unique “way” if you really expect long term success on new countries. To believe that simply changing the color and language of your American configured product makes you global, is not only naive but quite disrespectful. You approach should allow for the instant incorporation of their “WAY” in to the execution of your mission. As it truns out, the key to effective globalization is the same key to effective localization; maintaining a high degree of flexibility within in every aspect of your enterprise.

Unfortunately because of the complexity involved in increasing the awareness and capability to be affective in a global market place; there is a growing acceptance of compromise. Companies are beginning to adopt the belief that almost is good enough.  A tool that almost meets are needs is fine, a deployment that almost meets or strategy is fine, even people that almost meet are requirements are fine for now.

A different approach is to build your culture on the premise that “almost” is not good enough; for you or your clients.   Constantly doing our best and attracting the better is never ending cycle of persistent success.

Unlike Horseshoes and hand-grenades, close to target does not equal success in a hyper competitive playing field. What works, is the constant closing of the ever changing gap between where we are, and where we need to be. This GAP has to become an irritant! It has to be the line in your poetry that doesn’t quite rhyme; like Aristotle and bottle, and it should bother you!

Success is both part science and part art. The science may make it repeatable and some what predictable; but the Art makes it interesting, motivating and rewarding.

An ‘Incredibles’ Example

Creating Super Heroes - not just hard workers

If you do not have children or access to them then you may not have found and adequate excuse to see the animated movie “The Incredibles”, but you should. There is a great HR lesson told in the back ground of the plot of a modern family of “Super Heroes”.

In the beginning of the film Mr. Incredible can no longer perform his duties as a super hero, so he must get a regular job.  This is where I believe the lesson begins. Because Mr incredible cannot exercise the gifts that make him special, or pursue and be engaged by the challenges that he is drawn to and driven by, he quickly  turns into a lifeless semi-depressed drone.  Not only is he of limited value to the company he works for, he gradually becomes a liability.  His detachment from purpose carries over into his family life, which becomes stressful and un appreciated as well.  Mr Incredible, an idol and example of “all the right stuff” becomes un-impactful in both work and home.  Scary subplot for a kid movie isn’t it.  Good thing children have no concept of a life-less drone and can find simple humor in the expressions and actions on the screen.

Minutes later in the film Mr. Incredible finds a way to re-align himself with propose, value and even passion. That change is also reflected in not only his attitude but his family life.

There is a magic that comes from doing what we feel we are meant to do. It is empowering, energizing and even intoxicating. We are almost always good at what ever it is, and are constantly in pursuit of getting better at it.  If leveraged by an organization not only is it valuable, is it uniquely valuable.

In a world where individual contribution by employees have never been more closely aligned with corporate performance on all levels; and the mobility of human capital a universal expectation in modern business; are your staffers , sources and trainers empowered?

Are you aligning you employee “superheroes” to take advantages of their special powers or are you stripping them of their super powers by forcing them to be safe predictable and average?

If you believe that your success is the result of something other than extraordinary individual efforts of organized and talented people; then you are the “super villain”. You are a villain to your team, to your company and to the industry of modern Human Resources. And you had better sharpen your skills and find a secret hide out; for there are Heroes on the horizon coming to kick you but!

Blah, Blah, Blah, and the future of Sourcing.

You must DO different, to BE different.

Take a look a advertising for business services and tools. Regardless of what they are selling ( long distance services to enterprise software) how much of what they say revolves around:

Saving you money.

Saving you time.

Are of high quality from an industry leader

Are easy to use.

We hear theses things so often they are not fading in to the back ground of the Blah, Blah, Blah.

Maybe they are all just trying to solve the same problem. Not the time/ money/ efficiency problem, but their problem of why they should matter to you.

In the post dot com world we find ourselves in the most friction-less, efficient business environment in history.  There is increasingly less and less to be gained through savings and conservation. 

As businesses continue to evolve into knowledge centric, hyper connected collections decision makers, and the pace of business change continue to increase; the importance and effects of a single individual actions is growing exponentially. 15 years ago is was hard if not impossible for a single person to quickly affect a company’s performance. Today we live in a different world.  A single employee not only is connected directly with the market more than ever; they are connected with and endless supply of information (both accurate and false), peers, tools , applications, perceptions, rumors, predictions, critiques, and suggestions. All of these things have an influence on the belief, behavior, motives and actions of the individual employee. Information flows from one, on to hundreds, or thousands or more in minutes as a result of a few key people hitting the forward button in their email.  In this brave new connected world the effects of a hire (good or bad) is magnified. Given the financial consideration of the ramp up time for them to become productive, the time required for the bad ones to be removed and replaced; the line between staffing and corporate success have never been more clearly drawn.

The value of getting the right person in your organization dwarfs any incremental savings in time to hire that you can effectively track. Like wise the exponential impact of great hires create an ROI that extends far beyond the cost of the whole of HR system investments.   

So how do you insure the highest quality of hire? Easy, you let profession people focus on deciding who the best fit is. It sounds simple but must company have these people professionals spending the bulk of their time as internet researchers, administrative clerks, investigators, and a host of things Other than interviewing and communicating with people.

That is were we come in. We use the best technology in the world, and world class experience, to provide a services that does every thing accept the Magical human to human interaction. We empower your staffers to use their unique people skills on people not a low value task of the process.  If there is a task that does not require the human touch of spontaneous insight and intelligence; we surface that function as a part of our application. We let you staffers staff.

If our focus to save your staffers time? Actually no, it is not. Our focus is to change the value of what is created with their time.  Will we save you money? Sure, as we squeeze out the inefficiencies of your process and automate low value task; but money saved is just a small metric as compared to money made by great staffing.  Our intent to help you create results not conserve effort.

Creation of a world class talent pool:

You are familiar with the saying “birds of a feather flock together”  We learn as young children that people of similar interest  aggregate to similar things and to each other. And in these associations of interest there is a unique context from which the communication occurs. There are group defined points of accomplishment and respect, and even the creation of group celebrities for those that have found a way to distinguish them self among their peers. 

This natural social dynamic is at the center of intelligent sourcing.

What if you could offer a place for these associations of specific talent to naturally aggregate?  And what id you could offer these talent pools high value, contextually relevant content of interest. Not to buy their attendance but to demonstrate your understanding and appreciation of their profession culture.

What if you could instantly find and invite thousands of potential talent; based on some of the most advance data and skills analysis tools available, with the click of a single button.

What if your meeting place allowed for participants themselves to continue to build its content and membership?

What if you had a window into these pools? Not just a list of the members, but a list of who the members are, and an analysis of how they are connected; more importantly how they interact and influence each other.  In other worlds, not only can you sponsor a community for the best widget makers in the world, you have insight in to who the influencers in that community are.  What would building a positive one on one relationship with the influencers of a critical talent pool be worth to you? Better yet, what could your staffers do to help better equip your company with constant access to these talent pools and influencers?

Take that same technical function and apply it internally, and now you have naturally forming talent pools based on interest, not title or position.  How valuable would internal talent pools be when tying to assemble project teams, discover experts, during accession planning, or when trying to maximize and recognizing talent due to M&A activity?

You need a Skilled Pilot to fly the wide open skies of human potential and possibility. And the last thing you want that pilot saying is blah, blah blah.

Recruiting - it's a love thing.

How did you meet the love of your life?

No, a more relevant question, would you have gotten to know they love of your life if you meet that person under different circumstances?  Say at a train station, or in line at the drug store, or in the produce section of your grocery store. Unless of course one of these were the place of that magical moment.

Now I will never profess to be a Love Doctor or a master of the affairs of the heart, but it has dawned on me that quite a bit of these magical meetings are based on 3 things.  Connection, Context, and Conversation.

Connection

This is the simplest and more obvious of the three.  Being at the same place at the same time is high on the list of these things that make a magical meeting more probable than not. When you slow down to think of all the possible places that you can be and the non- stop stream of endless possible points in time, of the 3 points of discussion; connection, context and conversation, a mathematician may show , that this event is also the most likely never to happen. But love is about magic, not probability right, so here you are; the two of you, against all odds, in the same place at the same time.

Context

Now that you have gotten on the right side of the cosmic odds, by being in the same piece of time-space, you will find your self under the complete control and influence of a very complex thing called circumstance.  The circumstance creates the context of your expectations, behavior, and actions. It gives you a common reason for being there and a loose license to engage.

Conversation

That brings us too the final requirement for a confirmed magical moment; interaction. More specifically conversation. The concentrated exchange of ideas, impressions, assessments and more, now takes place freely. And the magical moment now has a fighting chance!

Starting a quality relationship with your future employees goes through a similar process when done right.  Ask yourself, would you have connected with your special one, if one day you decided that you needed someone, posted that requirement, and gave yourself a few weeks to make a decision?

I am not saying that the relationship between your company and its employee is that of a love affair….But I am suggesting that it could be.

Dear CEO

Dear CEO

In the age of Human Capital  are you inviting to the table of strategy those that are dedicated to the acquisition and development of your people?  Believe it our not, your people are more than a resource or and expense; they are assets; your most valuable asset.  If you do not think that the value is of people is shifting in the knowledge centric economy compare you value to companies like Amazon, Ebay, and Google.  There are many companies out there of similar size but not close in value.  So, the number of employees is obviously not the key. They Key is found in who the people are that you employ or partner with, and what can you empower them to do to make your company different?

It’s about performance. Without performance, strategy, headcount, investment or even effort are empty metrics. At the end of the day there is a single yard stick and it is performance.  We also understand that while performance itself can be captured, measured and analyzed, what you are really measuring are people.  As each person is unique, your company…your collection of good people - your team - is exponentially unique.  Further, these unique capabilities of your team are their own guarantee that your business CANNOT be cloned, duplicated or marginalized by motivated competitors that follow your lead. We get it – your people have always been and will continue to be the difference.

Your performance-based technology tools should be about empowerment not management – the world is full of management software tools that proactively suggest remedies without any knowledge of your unique business. Your software and tools should be highly flexible and encourage the creation and duplication of your company’s own best practices. Capturing what works and replicating it again and again creates for your company a true business advantage. 

As you empower quality people something magical happens. As you repeatedly and gently encourage them to move beyond the edge of their limits, they begin to see that the edge is not real, but rather a virtual edge.  Recognizing this performance point as a virtual edge to be exceeded makes the difference between who you are today, and who you can be tomorrow. It’s a performance difference that shows up not only in the attitude of your employees, but on your balance sheet as well.

Performance is like Chocolate cake.

Performance is like Chocolate cake.

                                                                                                            

Chocolate cake is more than the collection and assembly of ingredients. We all realize that we can go as far as to have ingredients in a bowl; milk, sugar, flower, chocolate, butter etc., and still be a longs ways away from having chocolate cake. Your ability to clearly define, describe, and pick out eggs does not complete you as a baker, nor does the assembly of the ingredients in a bowl.  Anyone that can read can shop from a list. But beyond a collection of ingredients, not much more can be guaranteed.

The fundamental difference between the baker and the shopper is the baker only sees the cake through the whole process. His original Intent was chocolate cake, and this intention is evident in his pre-shopping speech and actions. His focus will not be on the ingredients but on the “baking”  a transformational process, thought out in advance and executed in a way that will guarantee that the cake  will not be its ingredients, it will be something different all together.; something special, even when placed among its peers.

Do you get it?  The idea that the whole can be greater than the sum of the parts is a concept that we should all embrace about Human interactions.

The ability to communicate and work as a team is what gives every individual a fighting chance at being more than they are; more than the sum of that from which they come.

We are truly transformed. Much more than our ingredients; we are the cake.

The watchers know us well

You know, many people have much to say about what it is they believe and what it is they’re going to accomplish at some point, at some time.  Let me ask you this, if somebody were to follow you around, and just based upon what they saw you do, just solely based upon your actions, what would they believe about you?  If they followed you around all day today, would they believe that you are trying to get a better position in your current employment?  Would they believe that you deserved a raise?  Would they believe that you are trying to improve yourself, change your personal situation?  What would they believe? 

If somebody followed you around everyday for the last week, and judged you solely on what they saw you do, not on what you said, what would they believe you believe about this world?  Would they believe you’re trying to help people?  Would they believe that you were dramatically trying to change your life?  Would they believe that you are trying to change anything at all about your life, just based upon what you did that day, not what you said? 

If somebody followed you all of last year, what would they believe about what you believe, solely based on the actions that they saw?  We have much to say about what we believe and what we are going to do, but sometimes the watchers, who are deaf to the promises we make to ourselves, who judge us solely on what they see us do, sometimes the watchers know best who we are.

I butterfly!

I Butterfly

There is more to you than meets the eye.

Butterflies, I’ve always thought, are great metaphors for success. Many people will tell you "don’t show people that you care." They tell you to separate what you do for a living from your emotions, and you know what, I think that’s wrong. I think you need to get in line with your emotions. Your emotions are part of what makes you special. That’s what makes humans special, our ability to care about something.

Getting in line with things that you are passionate about aligns you with the things that are going to give you power, the things that are going to give you a glimpse at the truly great person that you can be. Many people out there tell us, "Separate your emotions, hide them, never cry, don’t show any kind of emotions; have a poker face." We say this on the one hand, but on the other hand, when we look at the lives of many of the people we idolize: the sports stars, the entertainers, the athletes, we look at these people and they’re completely connected to the things they care about most. They’re completely driven by their passion.

In fact, look at football. In football you can see a 300 pound monster of a man, a rock solid muscle, fall on his knees in front of 60,000 people and shed a tear because a ball didn’t go through the uprights. Think about that. That’s somebody that’s truly connected to their passion. Maybe it’s no wonder they’re compensated so greatly for what they do. I find it just a little odd that it’s all right to be completely passionate, almost fanatical, about sports, yet you’re supposed to be completely non-emotional about your career, your job. Those are things that are actually providing for you and your family and your future. It doesn’t make any sense. So, maybe it makes sense for you to not only pursue those butterflies, but also to try to find other people that are brave enough to pursue those butterflies as well.

Maybe if you pursue those butterflies long enough, you might actually become one. Think about it, the life of a butterfly starts off as a caterpillar. It’s really a worm, crawling around on the ground. There’s nothing around to tell him that he will be anything other than that; nothing around him that tells him he will be anything greater than that. When he looks out, whether or not he’s got dreams of flying above the trees and the clouds, nothing in current life, nothing in the couple of inches before his face tells him that he will ever be anything greater than what he currently is. The only thing that does is the voice inside of his head that tells him to drive forward, to keep doing, to follow his instincts.

One day, he’s going to be so driven, and one day, he’s going to be so surrounded by his beliefs, that he’s going to wrap himself up to isolate himself from a non-believing world. He’s going to wrap himself up to isolate himself from the naysayers, from the dream stealers, from all the people that don’t believe. He’s going to find himself completely separated from that world in his little cocoon. And then one day, one day, he’s going to step out, out of that cocoon, and transformed he will be, completely transformed. He will fly away from that moment forth. He will fly out into the world, and no, he’s not going to look out into the world and say, "I told you so." He’s going to look into himself and say, "I knew I could. I knew I was more than the world was telling me I could be. I knew I was more than everybody surrounding me was telling me I could be. I knew I was more than even the mirror was telling me I could be. I knew that I could fly! I butterfly!"

Earlmann, earl mann, motivation, inspiration, what the bleep, anothony robbins, les brown