Meaningful Dialogue Isn't Dead Yet

A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to attend a unique and powerful gathering of senior HR executives and CEOs at a conference put together by CTPartners.

The conference sought to create(and I thought very successfully) an open and candid discussion between business heads and the HR function to better understand why HR is not viewed as a true strategic player in most boardrooms and what can and should be done to change that picture.

It isn't like this subject has not been discussed many times before because obviously it has, but there were a number of things at this meeting that made it very different from others I have attended.

First, it was organized by one of the top retained search firms in the country along with a number of much respected sponsors. That credibility undoubtedly was an important factor in attracting major thought leaders from both the corporate world as well as HR.

But being able to attract "A" list participants is all well and good and maybe sells tickets, but if the content isn't there, it amounts to little more than an excuse to get out of the office, drink good coffee and destroy the diet you've been working on since January.

Believe me, the content was there with a capital "C", and among other things the participants didn't waste time pointing fingers but rather worked hard to make everyone understand that the ability of our business community to focus on the development of their human capital was not just "important" to their success - it was critical. Frankly, and given the pressures on the leadership position of our country around the globe, I am not sure that "critical" really captures the how important all this is to our future, but that's a subject for another day.

I realize that it seems a bit silly for me to be showering all this praise on the event when I am not really able to offer readers the chance to see/hear for themselves. Wish I could.

About the best I can do here is share a few of my notes so at least you can get some idea of what was discussed, so here goes:

The day was built off the following agenda and took the form of one hour panel discussions.

Talent – The True Differentiator

The Elephant in the Room – Why Doesn’t Human Resources Have a Seat at the Table?

Succession Planning – The Role of Management and the Board

Risk Management – A Key Human Capital Issue

Private Boards – Are They The Right Model?

Orchestrating the Right Fights – Getting Alignment and Constructive Tensions at the Top

Anyone interested in human capital issues at the top of organizations can see that any one of these topics could easily be an all day event, however, as I said, about all I can do is provide satellite view with some editorial comment:

Talent management is a full time task but Boards spend very little time on it. [Maybe that's because it takes real commitment, meaning to really make an evaluation of talent you need to spend real time with the candidate.]

Board magazine survey: 53% said they wanted to spend more time on succession planning, up from 41% a year ago. [Some would argue that these are "good" numbers, but given the importance of this they are really pretty bad. One of the panel members summed it up by asking "Where is the other half?"]

Bottom line: It is about commitment to the process....make the Board participate in the development process. [A great idea, and there are companies doing this with great success.]

It is a mistake to separate Talent Management from HR. [For sure.]

Do we have the right person in the right job at the right time? [Nothing new here, but the companies who focus on this realize just how important it is.]

Management’s role has changed from coordination to managing collaboration both inside and outside the organization. [A generational issue as well as a morale issue.]

Boards have not managed CEO succession well at all, yet business schools like Wharton, Columbia and HBS do not have courses on the subject. [They better wake up.]

SEC is pushing companies on more disclosure on human capital issues, including CEO succession plans and pressure by the SEC is going to force more board involvement in HR talent issues. [Sounds pretty good on the surface, but how it can be managed without causing chaos internally will be the neat trick of the week.]

The critical key failing of most HR execs is that they do not understand Finance/Accounting. [Absolutely true and those that complain need to revisit the notion that effective communications is about communicating is the other person's most preferred style, not yours.]

Director selection criteria: Their track record - time they have to devote - they can't be whimps. [Amen]

If you want to know how good the alignment is on the management team, see how much dissent is allowed. There is a difference between dissent and disloyalty. Management of conflict begins with respect for each other.[I'll drink to that!]

I have no idea if CT partners is going to make any of the panel discussions available beyond the audience that filled TIAA-CREF's spacious auditorium or not, but I hope so.

Maybe they will create a whitepaper that can be shared? Might be a good way to extend the discussion.

Intent To Hire

Many readers here are aware that since 2003, ExecuNet has been tracking how the search community feels about the market. We publish it on our website under what we call the Recruiter Confidence Index. We have seen that index climbing steadily the summer of last year. All good news.

As we all saw recently, the US economy lost 36,000 additional jobs in February which was a smaller loss than expected and buoyed hope that job creation would soon turn upward.

But getting data from recruiters is only one channel and so for the past year or so, we have been working on a new index which our President & Chief Economist Mark Anderson now feels is showing data worthy of sharing so I thought I would do so here.

Our Executive Job Creation Index, which we believe is a leading indicator of intent to hire by companies in the next 6 months, currently shows that this hope seems warranted.

It turned positive in January (+15) and continued at positive levels in February (+11) saying that more companies will be hiring over the next 6 months than eliminating jobs or holding back on their hiring plans. Last year at this time at the bottom of the recession, this index was at significantly negative levels (-48).

Point being this: When companies are starting to hire at the executive level, that often leads to more broad-based employment and this is good news for sure.

Jamie Oliver's TED Speech

I know there are some who think Jamie Oliver is a bit over the edge when it comes to his crusade re: obesity.

I also know that there are those who have both good and not so good things to say about the TED Awards, speeches, etc.

Indeed if you are one of the thousands (millions?) of Tech Crunch followers you probably saw the back and forth over the speech given by shock stand-up comedienne Sarah Silverman.

Be all that as it may, I came upon Jamie Oliver's speech because someone posted it on Twitter and thought it was something people should check out, so I did. I would give her credit here as well, but I have since lost the message.

Anyway, the reason I make reference to it here is twofold:

1. I have a lot of respect for what Oliver is trying to do and the commitment he demonstrates in trying to fight for change that he feels is critical on all sorts of levels.

With his background, and success, he could be spending his time and energy on lots of other stuff. He has chosen not to.

2. I also think that if you take the 18 or so minutes to hear what he has to say that as a result you will come away with some of the same feelings I have expressed above, and as a business leader, admire the passion he brings to those he hopes to influence to act.

After all, that's one of the key things leaders hope to do. Inspire people to follow. Oliver has his way of trying to achieve that, and each of us has ours.

Just watching him in action helped to renew my energy; something we all need from time to time.

No matter what needs renewing in your life, maybe Jamie's passion will help do that for you as well.

Don't Get Mad, Get Even

My guess is that most everyone who stops by this blog from time to time will recognize the name CareerXroads. However, just for the record for those who might be experiencing short-term memory loss, CareerXroads is an enterprise founded in 1994 by Mark Mehler and Gerry Crispin.

For many years among other things, Mark and Gerry have published a newsletter called: CareerXroads Update. The name is appropriate for sure as it follows and comments on trends (both good and bad) in the world of recruiting. The result? It provides good reading for those on both sides of the recruiting process. It's free and if you are not on the distribution list, you can register by clicking here.

That said, what prompted all this was actually one of the articles that was included in the CareerXroads Update published last month. In it, was a entry entitled: The Candidate Experience Revolution. Let Them Eat Cake.

The central to item was an article written by Michelle Goodman who writes for the ABC News/Money site in which she writes about what she called the Five Worst Hiring Trends of 2009 from the perspective of a job seeker. It's a great read.

Mark and Gerry's comment was that the piece could easily have covered the "last decade" much less only 5 years. I could not agree more, and I am not sure that I would stop at a decade. If you are a candidate in this market, check out her list of topics and see what emotions it conjures up for you.

• Labyrinthine Job Application Systems
• Overly-Demanding Job Descriptions
• Unscrupulous Recruiters
• Endless Interview Loops
• No Follow Up With Finalists

Over the course of my career I have been on both sides of the desk and I would like to think that I have a pretty good feel for the rationale that is offered by the staffing side as well as the frustration felt by the candidate side, and certainly if I could wave the proverbial magic wand I would fix it all, because if there is one thing where there is common agreement it is that this stuff needs fixing.

That said, and probably as the result of wandering around the business world for the past 45+ years I long ago threw away those rose colored glasses they give you along with your degree.

Translation: I don't think much of this sort of thing is going to get fixed anytime soon, but that doesn't mean that those who feel it should be can't and won't continue to cause some discomfort for those who need to feel it.

Executive jobs: It’s not you, it’s not me. It’s just not meant to be.

Just to show you how far being the times I am, the subject of this post was actually around since August of last year. Fortunately for readers, the content of Jose Ruiz's post was not time sensitive, indeed, in some respects it is timeless.

Jose, as you'll see if you check out his site, is a principal in Heidrick & Struggles Monterrey office where, as his bio indicates, he specializes in recruiting in Mexico for US companies with a strong focus on bilingual and bicultural candidates.

Since my Spanish is pretty much limited to "Amigo, Dos Equis por favor" and there isn't enough money in the world to move me from the shores of Narragansett Bay the fact that he is a recruiter was not the attraction.

What got my attention when I stumbled across this posting were two things:

1. He was an executive search consultant who had taken the time to try and dissect a process that remains a mystery to more folks than one would think, and

2. The way in which he takes the reader though his thought process in assessing candidates is clear, concise and very helpful to anyone who finds themselves on the candidate side of career change.

The reason I say this is because given the current economy, there are literally tens of thousands of executives who, while they may have been recruited by a search firm from time to time, nonetheless have discovered that being recruited is totally different from being a talented professional who doesn't happen to be employed at the moment, and finds him/herself at a loss to understand why if they were fortunate enough to get an interview, they were not selected.

For sure rejection on any level is no fun, and when it comes to a process that at the end of the day is subjective anyway, that doesn't help either.

What does help, however, is when someone at least makes an attempt to openly explain how they approach the process and why; and this I thought Jose did very well.

I really suggest you read the entire post, but as a teaser, what Jose has written about are the four key elements of what he calls "match and fit:"

- A broad cultural fit
- The "Must Haves"
- A "micro" cultural fit
- The task at hand

Furthermore, if you are one of those candidates, knowing the thought process as explained in Jose's posting ought be help you prepare for your next interview because no matter who you are interviewing with, while they may not use the same terminology, the "match and fit" items addressed in this post are what any interviewer worth his salt is really trying to figure out, and from this one can learn.

From Start To Finish

Okay, so here's today's cash call question: As you look over the list below, what do the numbers at in front of each statement have in common?

#59 Should you jump in and save every sales situation?
#39 Do you have to know everything that's happening?
#38 What is the one thing that makes people join your new company?
#6 Is having fun at work over-rated?
#7 Why is firing someone at your startup extra hard?
#96 Why do you have to be an energy-creator?
#82 Why you don't want your people to worry like you are worrying.
#66 Why the "new guy" could be doing more harm than good.
#67 Why you shouldn't trust those who say they can help you raise money.
#54 What is the biggest sign of a culture that is developing badly?

Here's a clue...they represent just 10% of the subjects covered in StartUp, 100 Tips to Get Your Business Going.

Some may recall a quip attributed to Mark Twain in which he said to a friend to whom he had written a letter something like "I would have made this shorter, but I didn't have the time."

To be honest, I don't know if Twain was the one who first came up with this truism or not, but it makes a very important point. Specifically, being able to deliver meaningful and powerful information in confined space is an art form. Few have done it, and fewer still can do it in a way that is truly memorable.

Exactly what the genes are that allow these few word wizards to do what they do I don't know; just wish they could be beamed into my Blackberry.

One thing I do believe, however, is that those who can do it have at least one characteristic in common and that is that they are super busy individuals.

By way of example, I offer up GL Hoffman, who among others things, describes himself as a serial entrepreneur. "Certifiable" is more like it.

If you know of GL then no further proof is needed. If you don't, you are missing something, and you check out everything that he is and has been involved in, and stand back amazed like the rest of us.

So what does all this have to do with a book that measures 4 x 5.5? Answer: If you ever wanted to see how much truly important management advice can be crammed into one place, set your cyber GPS right here, right now.

Here's why:

There is almost no executive I have ever met who isn't always looking for advice and counsel on those myriad of situations that confront leaders on a daily if not hourly basis. Most of us see all the well-publicized business books written by the gurus of managing that promise upon finishing their latest tome you will have the universal solvent for every management challenge known to man.

Unfortunately, most of us are way too busy fighting our way through the day to get much beyond the list of the best sellers in the NY Times and feeling depressed because we haven't gotten to any of them.

Well, here's a book you can not only have time to read but much more importantly you can't afford NOT to read. Better still, it is small enough to carry around with you so that you can very likely find the issue and the answer to almost any issue that stands between you and moving your enterprise forward.

If you are a type "A" personality like me, you may remember the satisfaction you felt when back in the day you got turned on to Ken Blanchard and the One Minute Manager. StartUp deserves similar standing.

With praise, however, also comes some criticism, and to that end I would say to GL that with the title he has sold himself short. This book goes way beyond great "learnings" for startups.

Anyone from first time supervisor to CEO would not only love this book, they will treasure it.

I gave copies to our management team and they are still cheering.

Three Questions Executives Should Ask for the New Year

We're almost out of January, and a lot of the resolution stuff is wearing off so I am rushing to get this off my chest before it simply proves I am further behind the power curve than even I thought.

Question: Do you hate stuff that makes you think as much as I do? Okay, maybe hate is too strong a word, maybe feeling humiliated and embarrassed is more like it.

Well, I have to admit publically that when I read Melissa Raffone's blog post in the Conversation section of the online Harvard Business Review, I had one of those moments.

It's a great post, and it ends with posing three questions, the kind that make it hard to look in the mirror for most of us. That said, like most such questions, they are super insightful and well worth pondering in January or any other time. The kind of stuff that some of us would tape to the bathroom mirror even if it was hard to see each morning:

1. If there was only one thing I could do to improve my business, what would it be and how would I make it happen?

2. If there was only one thing I could focus on to improve my personal performance, what would that be and how would I make it happen?

3. What messages am I not listening to or refusing to confront in my business and personal performance and how am I going to overcome that this year?

As uncomfortable as it made me feel for not being able to come up with immediate answers (was I afraid to hear what I would say?) I was struck by how flexible these questions were in terms of both one's professional as well as personal lives, and it is in that spirit that I pass them along in case you might have missed the post.

A belated Happy New Year from those of us who are still trying to catch up with ourselves.

Getting A Cyber Mulligan

There is an old saying that goes something like "when you're mad, write the letter but don't send it until the next day." The same can often be said for things you put out on the net.

In fact, even if you aren't particularly ticked off about something, but just fired stuff off after a few glasses of wine or when you were back in college and someone dared you to upload something that you now wish had been biodegradable, the fact is that once it's out there, it's out there.

Over the years this sort of stuff has come to be known as "Digital Dirt" a phrase that was coined by ExecuNet's Editor-in-Chief Robyn Greenspan. In fact, Robyn and her team even put together a career guide on the subject for our members called Dealing With Your Digital Dirt.

So, with literally millions of folks out there who would have liked to have had a cyber mulligan but know they can't, many have thought that the next best thing might be something where at least when someone typed their name into Google at least the "good stuff" would be what people would see first.

Well, guess what, it looks like that day may well have arrived with the launch this week of a service developed by James Alexander called Vizibility. How does it work? The launch press release describes it this way:

"Through a simple wizard, the Vizibility service enables people to quickly create the optimal Google search for themselves based on their name, employment history and relevant keywords."

All in all a pretty cool idea which you might want to check out. The basic service is free.

Leadership Values

When the new year begins the lists come out and it's always time to see who views what as "winners", "losers", and/or what's in store for the next twelve months or so.

The other thing that happens, at least for me, is that this time of year makes you think of where things have been, what's changed, and what worked and what didn't. It also makes me think of what hasn't changed and why.

And so it was when someone came up to me in the office the other day and offered up congratulations on our starting of year twenty-two since ExecuNet's founding in 1988. As we were talking, he asked how I thought the company had been able to react and adapt to all the changes and challenges over the years.

I wasn't quite sure how to respond other than to say that I felt a lot of it came from the fact that we have always worked very hard to stick to our core values and that this was one of the major advantages of being a small company.

He went on to say that it must be a pretty hard thing to do as the company has continued to grow over time. My response was that while for sure it wasn't easy, so long as we never lose sight of what we believe in I thought we would be able to work our way through most any challenge.

Every organization, large or small, certainly has similar ideals or rules by which they try to manage. In our case they aren't so much "rules" as they are "beliefs."

We have a number of them, but at the core are these:

1. Every relationship we have, be it inside or outside the organization. is built on trust.

2. We want a culture that feels like we are working "with" not "for" and

3. We don't want to ever forget that everything we do or say reflects on us both individually and collectively.

Interested in sharing yours?

One Man's Opinion

One of the things that has made being a part of ExecuNet so satisfying and rewarding over the years is meeting and getting to know our members be it in person, on the phone, or online.

In the case of Rick Hubbard it was first via email and then by phone.

His self-description is that of a "Technologist, Author & Professional Services Executive" and now having spent a fair amount of time with Rick, I would say that was a very apt description but doesn't really convey the depth of the talents he has. For that you need to get deeper into his profile.

Among other things, Rick is an active (read very) of a networking group in the bay area called PSVillage a 1500 member community of technology, professional services and consulting leaders.

Combining both personal interests with his broadcast and interviewing skill sets, for the past several months, Rick has been busy producing a series of podcasts for this group covering the subject of job search at the executive level.

As part of that effort he contacted me to see if I would be willing to spend some time with him and share my take on a number of questions that were subjects of interest to those who were listening to his special series. With his high energy level and enthusiasm to go with it, there was no way that I was going to say no.

As I suspected, it turned out to be a great experience for a number of reasons, not the least of which was his easy going style and the fact that we actually a reasonable amount of time to discuss the issues (it runs around 39 minutes) and it gave me the chance to not only express my opinion on a number of questions that frequently come up, but it also gave me the chance to explain why I felt as I did, and in this age of "sound bites" it was a welcome change.

So, if you are an executive and trying to wade through the jungle of the marketplace these days, you might want to check it out.

I also should mention since Rick is also an author as well as an accomplished broadcaster, he has just released a book on planning (a word frequently that raises the hairs on a lot of necks) called simply How to Plan. In fact, he tells me he is actually giving away some complimentary copies - for just how long I am not sure, but if you're interested in checking out the book, the site is here.