To be taken seriously, looked at as credible, to feel valued, to be your CEO/COO/CFO’s confidant, of course, having a seat the table. HR, you really want it? Quit putzing around. Quit sabotaging yourself. Quit whining. Most importantly have a little self-respect. How? Quit being everybody’s “Wingman.” Remember Top Gun (“I feel the need, the need for speed”)? Heck yeah, …
Finders Keepers – Uncovering The Smartest Employee At Your Company
I couldn’t sleep the other night, probably because of the 14 Diet Dews I had throughout the day, but I had an Epiphany while staring at the ceiling in the dark. I figured out a way for HR pros to find the smartest employee in their company! It isn’t a complex algorithm or a set of cognitive assessment tests—it’s a …
Where Have You Gone Joe DiMaggio? HR Needs a Hero
Baseball has started again. It is my favorite professional sport and although I am famously a Met fan, I want to talk about Joe DiMaggio, a NY Yankee, and heroes for a few minutes. HR needs a hero to look up to, I believe. These are difficult and odd times for all of us. Professional sports led the way with …
Facts of (Work) Life: “Manager Pass-Through”
I wrote about the manager pass-through in 2011. It’s an important fact of life in every organization, so I’m writing about it again today. Here’s the trick: Imagine you could film every manager in your organization trying to defend a strategy, action, change, etc. taken by the company to their team. Would they own it or point to a higher power …
Do You Really Need College-Educated Workers?
FOT Note: This post comes straight out of the FOT vault. Every now and then, we like to re-run golden nuggets of insight to keep the message alive. What you’re about to read is one of them. I’m a huge advocate for formal education. My 3 sons have gone, will go to college, or get beat until they go to …
3 Reasons Not to Botch Breaking Up
We’ve watched in disbelief as unemployment spikes to record highs – with over 20.5 million jobs lost in April. In addition, there are many more with reduced hours or cut pay not represented in unemployment figures. Suffice it to say, a lot of breakup conversations are being had. By now we’ve all read about some very public horror stories, and …
From Adversity Comes Opportunity For HR
“Every adversity contains, at the same time, a seed of equivalent opportunity”. One of many quotes from the controversial Napoleon Hill, an American Self-help author from the early 20th century. I know your probably saying – Mark where did that come from? No, I did not go to my “go to guy” at Fistful of Talent, Paul Herbert, for the …
HR Needs to Do One Thing – And Nothing Else
I subscribe to a newsletter called “Now I Know.” Every weekday the author tells a story about a little known and underappreciated product or service, or recounts how something came to be that most of us would find interesting. Things like “How Much is a Buttload, Exactly?” Or, “This Is The Poem That Never Ends. It Just Goes On And …
Candidates Who Over-Talk May Need To Work Elsewhere
“You talk too much. You never shut up.” – Run DMC To shut a candidate up or not to shut a candidate up? That is the question. A question, as an interviewer, I’ve contemplated for many years. A question I admittedly flip-flop on. But here is where I am with this now. Candidates, you need to control your explanations. You …
HR’s Greatest Opportunity to Support Gender Diversity
As a mom of a young daughter, I’m paying more attention to the gender diversity push than ever before. I personally never felt passed over for roles or promotions due to my gender – nor afforded them because of my gender either. That said, until the last half of my career, I worked in corporate HR where a lot of …