Carnival of HR – This Is England

About a zillion months ago I stuck my hand up to host The Carnival of HR, and the carnival deities decided I would host on November 7th. Turns out they are a smart bunch for it came to pass that November 7th was also to be decreed slap bang in the middle of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (think SHRM only with a funny accent) 2012 annual conference, here in Manchester, England.

England. The land of cricket, stately homes and generally crap summer weather. So welcome all you Carnival folk, and to the many who have journeyed here from across the pond to be here today, I hope you enjoy your visit. Just remember that over here, pants are in fact underpants not trousers. Also what we call chips, you call french fries, and what you call chips, we call crisps. Got all that? Great – then let us begin.

Fireworks of HR

The USA is in the middle of election fever, and here it’s right around Guy Fawkes night. Guy Fawkes was a pretty in your face kind of guy and when he didn’t like what was going on with the English Government back in the early 1600s, he decided to blow up the Houses of Parliament. He failed, though I think he got an A for effort in his annual appraisal. Anyhoo, in his honour we now spend a small fortune on fireworks every November to commemorate Mr Fawkes’s near miss, hence the title for this opening category.

We explode into life with David Goddin’s Sis, Boom, Ahhhhh – which encourages us to put on our own people fireworks display.

Niki Rosenbaum then suggests we break the golden rule, ‘Never go back to a lit firework’. When those fireworks are your people, they may need you to stop them fizzling out.

No good firework party is complete without a bonfire, complete with an effigy of Guy Fawkes and ours is no exception. If you think Fawkes has a tough time, try thinking about your ten worst days as a leader, courtesy of Dan McCarthy.

Meg Peppin got in touch with a shower of sparks to ask, HR, A Damp Squib or a Firestarter?

We blast off to Canada for our penultimate salvo. Ian Welsh takes us on a combined history and HR lesson with his Biggest Fireworks.

Firework displays always have some spectacular rockets to finish. John Hunter fires off a spectacular salvo as he urges us to eliminate the annual appraisal via none other than the W. Edwards Deming Institute Blog. Kablooie!

Conference Tales

Well I couldn’t not include this as a category given the timing of this Carnival. So who are our keynote speakers? Let’s find out:

Opening this part of the show is Ben Eubanks of Upstart HR. Now don’t tell him, but Ben was one of the first HR bloggers I started to read on a regular basis. So I was pleased when he got in touch to offer us some sage advice on Conference Booths, The Hard Sell and What We Want. This post is Ben at his conference going best.

Next up is Robin Schooling with some cracking observations on the then and now of conferences. I love Robin’s blog the HR Schoolhouse, and she is a prime mover in Louisiana SHRM which is conferencing again on 8th and 9th April 2013. I’ll be heading out there for some serious fun – will there be ash trays on the tables? Damn right there won’t!

Here’s a piece from Cirrus Connect on a session they’re running at this year’s CIPD conference. Their session will be done and dusted by the time the Carnival goes live – but the question they close with, ‘What are the big themes emerging from this year’s conference?’, will still be very much alive.

And why do you go to conferences? Broc Edwards asks this question to close this section and suggests that a new breed of DIY events is reshaping the conference landscape. I agree with him – and though they’re not everywhere yet…watch out folks, change is a coming!

Other Crap You Can’t Be Bothered To Categorise

This was the most popular selection by a country mile, so in a vaguely unbiased attempt to be fair to everyone who sent me some other crap, I’m going to curate this part in the order the posts arrived with me.

Robert Tanner from Business Consulting Solutions kicks us off with a nice mix of lists and visuals relating to Influential Events That Shaped Gen Y. Ahhhh, video games, the years I invested getting good at Space Invaders…

Next up is Jesse Stoner who writes about How To Surface and Align Team Values. Importantly for me, Jesse affirms that change does not have to begin at the top of the organisation. Absolutely!

Suzanne Lucas got in touch from CBS Money Watch with  a super post chock full of real, and less than glowing, reference checks.

Andy Spence from Glass Bead Consulting asks us to consider the impact of an ageing workforce in so far as it relates to tools and technology, change management and more.

Steve van Remortel from Stop Selling Vanilla Ice Cream (What?! I like vanilla ice cream…) talks about Creating Clarity Through Your Vision. I appreciate that he encourages us to think about things from the customer perspective.

Michael Haberman writes powerfully about Punishing Failure Versus Punishing Lack of Failure. I’m a fully paid up member of the Mistake Makers club and it’s great to see that Michael’s post produced a lot of dialogue on the subject, check the comments section.

Chris Young over at The Rainmaker has a Zero Tolerance on Mediocrity policy.

Stuart Rudner urges us not to react too hastily toward misconduct in his When Trust Has Been Destroyed: Just Cause For Dismissal post. As in most things in life – it’s all about the context folks.

Gautam Ghosh thinks Social Teach and Social Media Will Not Make Your Employees Engaged. Instead he thinks what matters is: relationships, culture and a sense of purpose. I think social tools can help – so long as the culture fit is right.

Here comes Steve Browne, The President of The United States of HR (he gets my vote) with a great post called All You Need Is… This post is rich in music and friendship – two things Steve does most excellently.

Next up is Bingleby. Bingleby is an unusual blogger in so far as he is a plant. Yep – you read that correctly, a plant. Today he’s getting his leaves in a twist asking What’s The Point of HR?

Being a part of something like the CIPD is in part about wanting to feel part of a community. In this post, by CIPD member Sandy Wilkie, we’re invited to Allow Community Back Into Our Workplaces.

Jon Mertz from Thin Difference has been in touch with a blog titled Live an Unlife Life. Love the style of this post, uncommon indeed.

Susan Mazza swings by from Random Acts of Leadership (gotta love that title) and poses the question, What Is Your Leadership Promise? My leadership promise is to finish and deliver this Carnival on time. Don’t let anyone tell you different – this curation lark is hard work 🙂

Great Leaders Serve is Mark Miller’s blog, and he uses baseball as a theme to talk about The Cross Functional Team Advantage. I’m a big fan of cross function collaboration, and beyond, so it’s good to see Mark hitting a home run with this one.

And just when I thought I’d finished, I got a late arrival. A day after the deadline this post called Social is for Marketing – Period! arrived from Alex Raymond at Kapta Systems. I happen to completely disagree with Alex’s assertion and it would have been easy to leave this post off the list. I mean – he was late right? But I decided I would schedule it in, because I think we need to share stuff we don’t always agree with, otherwise we always do what we’ve always done and we always get what we’ve always got. And that’s not what the Carnival or I are about.

I hope you’ve enjoyed wandering around the Carnival stalls to see what people have to offer you? It’s been a pleasure to serve as your host and I hope to see you again sometime down the road.

Peace and Love – Doug