The What Goes Around Blog

HRTechEurope – A Review

My review of the morning session at HRTechEurope London spring warm up.

This week I was in London as a guest blogger at HRTechEurope’s spring warm up event. I wasn’t able to stay long so sadly I missed William Tincup (though we did catch up for a quick chat which was lovely) and Jason Averbrook – both of whom were speaking in the afternoon. I like these guys and in my experience they offer something different, provocation with rigour and intellect to back it up.

First up in the morning was Adrian Furnham who I confess I didn’t recognise at first as his profile picture was taken several hair cuts ago. I’d heard lots of good things about Adrian and was keen to hear him speak, his subject was:

HR Technology – Quantifying The Appetite For Social & Technological Change Inside Your Organisation.

I got rather lost in Adrian’s talk – he had a good sense of humour, ‘guru is the word used by journalists who can’t spell charlatan’ got a big laugh, but I felt that a ton of tired slides and a few well placed jokes covered up the sense for me that Adrian wasn’t really taking us anywhere. Since 2007, Adrian has been ranked in HR Magazine’s top 20 most influential list, and I think a potential problem with influence is it relies to some extent on consistency, which is an enemy of creativity and innovation.

So what did he talk about? These photos show Adrian positioned HR with his good news/bad news openers. These statements, both the good and bad, felt like opinions with nothing much to back them up and for me, the bad news stuff didn’t really hit the mark.

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Adrian said that HR reacts to change, doesn’t instigate it, and he said that HR doesn’t network well. These are sweeping generalisations and based on my experience I don’t agree. Listening to the huge buzz in the breaks at the conference I’d say HR networks really well.

Adrian shared with us some reasons why HR Managers never become CEOs

Never huh? Well I guess at least that stops any more aspiring HR people aiming for the top, according to this guy you’re never gonna make it folks. Seriously though – absolutes are rarely the answer and the way this stuff was presented closed down the debate rather than opening it up. And as Adrian continues to bombard us with slides, he asks, ‘Do you teach leadership by PowerPoint? Not often.’ I agree – so why are you inflicting a bazillion slides on us?

As time went on, Adrian clicked through big chunks of the presentation without commentary and when I spoke with others in the break, we felt that the bulk of this deck was something Adrian uses regularly, with just a few tweaks to suit. When I come to a conference I want to feel like I’m getting something new – and this talk just didn’t have that feeling. Overall I thought Adrian’s session was funny, he threw out some interesting challenges clouded with too much generalisation, and it feels like he needs fresh material, or failing that, at least tidy up and put away the stuff that isn’t going to be used on the day.

Mark Martin was up next speaking about:

WAKE UP!! Your next train is about to leave!

Mark spent a good deal of his time slagging off HR, and I felt he was provocative for the sake of it. I love to be provoked, but for it to work there has to be some substance behind the edge, and I couldn’t detect any.

Mark said ‘Why are we so inexact in HR? No other function would get away with that.’ I don’t understand – people are inexact, thank goodness! Work and life are inexact, that’s what makes them fun. Deal with it. And when was the last time you saw a sales forecast predicted with 100% accuracy? And have you never seen a finance department adjust a budget?

Mark said we don’t want happy people at work because that is ‘not strategic’. He told us that most executives he works with, ‘aren’t strategic’. He said, ‘people care about purpose and relationships, businesses don’t.’ He told us ‘If you have your cake and eat it, you run out of cake.’ I really don’t get where he was coming from, though he was right about the cake.

The last session I heard was delivered by Neil Lewis from Nationwide.

Implementing an HR Systems Transformation to Underpin a People & HRSS Strategy

Not the most exciting title I’ve ever read, but as a customer of Nationwide I was keen to see how Neil linked the employee and customer experience. Sure enough he was straight on to the importance of these two things before getting in to some of the how.

Neil told a story about his birthday and the well respected tradition of bringing cake to the office. He decided to bake cake instead of bring in some from the shop, and while I think about it, baking cake is a way you can have more cake and eat it, we should let Mark know about this. Neil’s point was about how he gained some of the baking knowledge he needed through Youtube and from there he linked into how Nationwide has become much more open to how technology can help employees access stuff they need directly, learn in ways they want to, and give better service.

Neil talked about steps involving: compliance (well they are a financial services company), reducing complexity, removing risk and manual process, and needing the culture to make it work. Neil spoke about the time stuff takes, removing half the customisation from their systems to make them simpler, took around five years. I appreciated his acknowledgement that patience is required, and the implication that tech is not the speedily delivered silver bullet, at least not always.

Neil’s talk was far too pitchy – he mentioned his tech supplier far too often, and in a short video he showed they got another bunch of namechecks. Come on vendors and speakers, you must know by now we hate that stuff, right?! Get the namecheck in and then tell us your story.

Something I really liked was the observation that better conversations among colleagues led to better service for customers. That’s inexact, unmeasurable and hugely valuable. Pitching notwithstanding, Neil’s session was far and away the most helpful and interesting one I saw.

The spaces in between

I mentioned earlier that I wasn’t around for William’s talk. That didn’t stop us getting checked out by the Storm Trooper security guards. I also referenced the buzz and conversation that went on in the breaks. Too often I see the exhibition as something people dart through nervously, keen to avoid eye contact for fear of being sold to. Not here. Maybe this was in part due to the high quality swag on offer – but there was conversation and interaction in abundance here. 10/10.

Taking everything into account, I had a useful fun morning. I subsequently heard that the afternoon picked up more pace and that William and Jason’s sessions were energetic and worthwhile. As more post event blogs emerge I will link to them from here.

Update:

I shared this post over on Facebook and received this additional comment from another conference attendee:

That’s a fair review of the first two speakers Doug, although I would be a bit harsher on the Mark Martin talk. Overtly aggressive (deliberate provocation to HR) and full of his own belief, meant that some of the ‘anti hr showboating’ distracted the audience from some valid points. HR does need to be challenged, HR tech vendors need to be challenged, but trying to piss them both off isn’t the best approach in my book!

How Are You Inspiring The Future?

A review of my first volunteering work with Inspiring the Future

How are you inspiring the future? Pretty big question huh? Well the answer doesn’t need to be.

What is Inspiring The Future?

Inspiring the Future (ItF) is a free service with volunteers from all sectors and professions going into state schools and colleges to talk about their jobs and sectors. Anyone can volunteer with Inspiring the Future – you can be a young Apprentice, graduate recruit or a seasoned Chief Executive – young people will benefit from hearing about your experiences. You offer to visit a local state school or college for ‘one hour, once a year’.

That is how ItF positions themselves. I found out about them through my membership of the CIPD, and because I think the worlds of education and work are currently not as well joined up as they should be, I joined the scheme to see if I could be of use. After spotting a few opportunities I couldn’t fit into the diary, a chance arose to take part in some CV skills development at a local school.

I registered to take part and as part of my preparation, I asked Twitter a question:

As you might expect – I got some great answers which I curated over at Storify if you’d like to take a look.

I headed on over to the school where I got a friendly welcome from school staff and Annie from the CIPD. Our first group of students were introduced, plenty of them already had a CV, but no one had brought a hard copy along. A few students had theirs on usb sticks but for IT security reasons the school wasn’t willing to load the sticks into their system to get printouts. Most people said ‘We weren’t told to bring them’. Our involvement was only part of a wider careers fair so I don’t know how things were positioned before hand, but given there were employers to be met and other opportunities to engage with, I was a little surprised at the lack of CVs. Would I have been any better prepared at that age? Probably not.

Small Steps on Long Journeys

I had an interesting conversation with three people. One wanted a Saturday job in retail to develop her people skills en route to a job in teaching, another wanted a job in teaching, and the third wanted a career in law. The person looking for retail work has dropped off plenty of CVs but not heard anything back yet. Why is that? Here are a few things we discussed.

Tailor Your Work

We spoke about framing what you have to offer from the employer’s perspective. I asked, ‘what does people skills look like to a retail employer?’ After a pause, ‘commitment and turning up on time?’ was put forward. ‘OK then,’ I asked, ‘and how might you demonstrate that in your CV?’ ‘I have a great attendance record at school.’ One said. ‘And is that clear on your CV?’ I asked. ‘Not yet’ came the reply. We talked more and suggested that using a phrase like ‘building on my customer service skills’ might hit the mark for a retailer a little more than ‘improve my people skills.’ We agreed a key point was to tailor your offer to the market place and the job, don’t just fire off a one size fits all CV.

Social Media

We chatted very briefly about social media and I showed everyone some of the Twitter help I’d received earlier. This led to a discussion about other ways to present a CV. None of the group knew about LinkedIn so I suggested they might want to check it out, filling in the profile could be a helpful challenge for them as they begin to think more about what they have to offer.

Developing an Edge

We talked a little about a career in law. ‘What characteristics do you need for that?” I asked. ‘You need to be argumentative!’ came a reply and we all had a good laugh, before settling on persuasive instead. ‘How could you demonstrate persuasiveness?’ ‘Do you have a debate club at school?’ Turns out they did and from there our aspiring lawyer suggested she would check the club out and see if she could put forward a debate on a relevant legal matter.

All too soon our time was up and off they went to explore other possibilities. I couldn’t stay for long but I enjoyed my short visit and I hope the people I talked with took something useful from our time together.

Inspiring the Future – Getting Involved

Taking part in ItF is easy. You just fill out a simple form and wait for opportunities to find you. Then when an opportunity fits with your diary, you simply go along and be useful. I recently spotted that Neil Morrison had spent a day in a school as part of ItF and afterwards had this to say, ‘I was HUGELY impressed by the teachers, the principals and the students. There was passion, enthusiasm, pride and energy. I think they’re destined for great things.’

That sounds like a worthwhile way to spend a few hours to me, how about you?

Reciprocity Matters. Speaking Without Slides at Social Media for Business

Reflections on the 2014 #SM4Biz Social Media for Business Conference

I am thoroughly enjoying Scott Berkun’s work just now, both in book form, The Year Without Pants (more to follow on this excellent volume soon), and his blog.

Prepare

I really enjoyed last year’s Social Media for Business conference, and as I prepared for my talk at the 2014 event which took place yesterday, I read Berkun’s post about How to Present Well Without Slides. I was unsure how to play this talk, so I prepared a number of different ways. I put some slides together – just in case, but mostly I thought about what the audience might want from a 20 – 25 session on social media in the workplace. I had so many ideas I could have drowned in them, and here are two things I kept coming back to.

I don’t know the people in the audience (with a few exceptions) so how well equipped am I to second guess them?

Reciprocity and generosity matters, and it’s even better when you lead with it.

Arrive

Over coffee I chatted with a few people and Paul noted I was talking about Social Media in the Workplace. ‘That’s a broad topic’, he suggested. And he was right. I channelled Berkun’s thinking ‘Take a strong position in the title’ and thought, this needs work. So I took his advice, put myself in the shoes of the audience, or the customer and opted for ‘Screw You! What’s In It For Me?’ We often think ‘What can I get from doing x, y and z?’ So I put us in the customer’s shoes and encouraged people to think ‘What can I give?’

Listen and Adapt

During the morning I and the rest of the audience consumed four useful and quite slide heavy talks on: Personality types, Social Media strategy, Blogging and Website visibility. We were fortunate to have Neil Usher in the house live blogging for you, please check his thoughts out for more details. As these talks played out it became clear to me that if I delivered my prepared slides, I was going to come unstuck, and the audience were going to get bored. Too many thoughts that were woven into my slide deck were already being shared by other speakers. Thankfully, because I was in the room I was aware of this and was also able to listen to audience questions along the way, and chat with people over coffee and doughnuts in the break.

Photo taken by Charlie Duff — Photo by Charlie Duff

Stand and Deliver

I confess that when I stood up to talk, half an hour before lunch, I was buzzing. Partly because of the adrenaline rush I always get in these situations (remember folks, if you ain’t feeling nervous, you ain’t doing it right), and mostly because of the two pink ‘nail varnish’ coated sugar bomb doughnuts I ate in the coffee break.

I hopped quickly to my revamped title slide and abandoned PowerPoint thereafter. Immediately after the abandonment I felt more nervous, but I remembered – dumping the slides was necessary for me to get on a new track. I’m now discovering that without slides, and after too much sugar, it can be tough to recall exactly where that new track led, but I’ll have a go.

Planning and Return on Investment (ROI)

I scribbled out and talked through a version of the Social Framework. It’s a simple conversational prompt designed to help you think about content, audience and mediums in relation to you and your social goal(s). William Tincup’s version is much prettier and available for you to download here. I also referenced the Business Model Canvas as a simple tool you could use to help you build a social plan, and cautioned about doing too much planning. Things change quickly, and because of this, investing in an expensive, detailed plan can often be a waste of money, and something you then wrongly feel you need to deliver against come what may, regardless of the changed circumstances.

Everyone needs to figure out their own ideas on return on investment, and often I think we let an obsession with this so called return inhibit us from experimentation. For me it starts with generosity and reciprocity, leading from a place of abundance. That place of abundance lends you confidence, and I think that makes you easier to deal with. My business is all about helping others grow through improving collaboration, communication and creativity. With that as my direction of travel, is my investment generous and in the spirit of reciprocity, and does it take me in that general direction? If yes – then I give it a go.

Open and Closed

Are your customers on social? If yes, do you want to engage them there? Some businesses use social channels for a degree of internal comms and chat, and you might want to blend that colleague and customer conversation. Channelling some of Berkun’s ‘Year Without Pants’ thinking here for a second…Email is a closed channel – often the wrong people get included and excluded. More open channels reduce these likelihoods. Open channels can be better places to preserve great work, stuff that gets missed and lost in the email mists of time.

More Questions than Answers

I’m not very good at telling people what to do, in fact I usually try to avoid it. So if you were in the audience today I hope my time with you prompted a few questions and signposted some helpful resources. This stuff is not compulsory, and it’s accessible, and easy enough to experiment with in small ways, common sense and corporate culture permitting (lest we forget JPMorgan, Grant Shapps et al). I was asked, ‘Do Twitter campaigns ever work?’ It’s important to remember that once you release a campaign onto social media, it’s no longer yours, and you have to be ready for people to do what they – not necessarily you – want with it. I was asked, ‘Are you suggesting we should have internal conversations in the same place our customers and competitors are?’ No, I wasn’t saying anyone should do anything, merely observing that others are already communicating in this way, and you might at least want to consider it. Experiment, try thing out, place a few small bets. And as for Richard’s great closing question to me – in which he acknowledged the sense that generosity and reciprocity works – and can I please get him some good examples to share? I’m working on it, thanks Richard.

Keira is in the final throes of preparation for her next stage of drumming exams so I had to depart the conference after lunch. I had an enjoyable morning and casting an eye over the #SM4Biz twitter stream, more importantly, folks seemed to be sharing and learning, having an enjoyable, useful day. Put that in your return on investment.