Case Zero – How It All Began

In his 2008 HR Executive article, columnist Bill Kutik unleashed his inner Indiana Jones to discover anthropological evidence supporting the first documented case of this seemingly benign term. After some field work, Bill uncovered a 1998 piece of collateral authored by the software firm Softscape. Said Kutik about the find:

“The graphic is a delightful historical artifact, an antique really by computer industry standards.”

Oh 1998, you quiet breeder of verbal misanthropes. In so many ways those were much simpler times, as little did we know what had been unleashed in that innocuous one-page document.

Eleven Years Later – A Global Pandemic

Although modern technology still lacks the tools to measure the pervasiveness of this crisis, we do know a few things for certain:

• A Google search results in 6.25M links referencing this disease.
• Many who employ the term – let’s call them “term-ites” – are consciously and overtly promoting adoption, thus perpetuating the spread. 
• Small, medium and large organizations in virtually every industry and geography have embraced the phrase.
• It supports billions of dollars in revenue and may be difficult to stop.
• Most don’t realize that we even have a problem.

The Frightening Precedent

HR in particular is highly susceptible to the spread of language flu. A few examples include:

• “Personnel” – According to one account, it began in the late 1800s and continued into the late 1970s/early 1980s. Fortunately, a series of “human resources” injections did eventually stem the tide. Yet much to our dismay, in some organizations “personnel departments” still exist without an appropriate quarantine.
• “A Seat at the Table” – For at least twenty years, HR has parroted this phase and clamored for this elusive chair. The saddest cases involve the patient’s inability to appropriately secure the seat or locate the table. The only known cure involves HR embracing their business leadership position without the need for absurd monikers.

Why It’s So Scary

Many of you may be asking yourself:

“So what’s the big deal about talent management?”

Other than your obvious need for immediate medical attention, let me attempt to explain:

• Employees Are Not “Talent” – For most of us, work isn’t a strip club, so identifying our workers as “the talent” is a bit of a non-starter. And like it or not, many of our organization’s positions neither require a significant amount of talent nor reward the application of said talent. 
• The Invention of Language – As a society, we typically adopt new terms when we believe that the existing body of knowledge fails to adequately carry meaning. So why have we distinguished ”talent management” from “human resources”? Did HR fail to appropriately address comp, performance, learning, etc.? Couldn’t you argue that everything HR does is for the purpose of securing, managing, measuring, rewarding and sustaining so-called “talent”? 
• Vendor Differentiation – Believe what I’m about to tell you as the gospel… The holy grail of vendor marketing is the creation and invention of a new business category or phrase. Perhaps more important is that only your firm supports the core features and capabilities of this new term. Why did Softscape invent “talent management”? Because it gave them the opportunity to define what it is and thereby force other vendors to be compared against that definition. Keep this in the back of your mind when you read about HR 2.0 (or some fool’s blog post about HR 3.0).

The Race For The Cure

I’m not going to lie to you – knowing that this disease has progressed for this long creates quite a challenge. However, with the right level of education, focus, support and treatment, I believe we can rally together and survive this language pandemic.

Do you think you have the cure? If so, please be sure to post your comments and thoughts, and let’s keep the conversation going. 

We are just over ten days away from the 11th Annual Talent Management Summit and host IQPC has extended a final incentive to Inflexion Point readers.  Simply mention code “TMIP04” and you’ll receive $400 off the main conference (a 20% discount) or the all-access pass for $2,599 (a $1,000 savings).  

With the overwhelming coverage of the economic crisis, I’m certain you will benefit from the wisdom of your peers and colleagues.  All are experiencing similar challenges, but many view today’s climate as a fantastic opportunity to upgrade your talent.  Learn from some of the best and brightest in the talent management industry and come home brimming with ideas and confidence for those emergency executive meetings.

Plus, you’ll get a chance to meet and greet some of our most talented and innovative HR bloggers!  In addition to myself, I’ll be joined by HR Wench (aka Jenn Barnes), Laurie Ruettimann of Punk Rock HR and the elusive and lime-green HR Minion.  We’ll all be covering the conference live via Twitter and our respective blogs.  I hope you’ll join us and help keep the conversation going.

Strap on your harness, grab an ice axe and join Inflexion Advisors at IQPC’s 11th Annual Talent Management Summit.  Scheduled for October 20th – 23rd in Las Vegas, world class climbers such as Avon, MetLife, CSX and Harrah’s will be sharing their secrets to conquering the talent management mountain.  And for those who like (climbing) shoes, stick around for the tour of Zappos and a behind-the-scenes look at this fascinating organizational culture.

Climbers should never summit alone, so Inflexion has secured a special 2-for-1 discount for our readers.  Simply visit www.iqpc.com/us/TalentManagementSummit or call 1-800-882-8684 and mention code IUS_IP_001 to receive your discount.  

I’ll look forward to seeing you there and keeping the conversation (and ascension) going.

Greetings readers.  Inflexion’s recent post about Robin Wolaner’s book, Naked in the Boardroom, reminded me that there are not only differences in the way that men and women lead, but that there are some differences in the way that men and women learn to lead.  Using Wolaner’s metaphor, let’s think of this as Naked in the Leadership Classroom—a look at preferred learning behaviors, based on gender, used in ANY type of learning experience.

While it is somewhat complicated to understand how one learns to lead (because it is measured by personal, tacit and subconscious acts), identifying gender differences may enrich talent management initiatives and leadership development programs.  Currently, there is not much information about the differences in gender-based leadership learning preferences.  If more was known, it would be possible to address gender differences more intelligently.

I recently conducted a study of aspiring leaders, males and females, and asked them which leadership learning behaviors were used most frequently.  Of the thirty behaviors offered, nineteen showed no differences between males and females.  However, there were eleven behaviors which were selected by females as being highly important in their leadership development.  These include:

1. Learning about leadership from a mentor.
2. Performing self-directed leadership development activities.
3. Contemplating what is expected of a leader by planning how leadership concepts, decision making processes and strategies can be used.
4. Using new language, new strategies, and new ideas to solve problems, mediate conflict, manage change or connect leadership theory to generalized situations.

While this study was not large enough to generalize from, these four leadership learning behaviors describe an approach used by females that ranges from self-reliance to co-dependence on a trusted confidant, and from deep thinking about strategizing/decision making to saying what you mean precisely.   Peeling the onion on leadership learning differences by gender holds promise for creating bias-free pathways for leadership development…all the way to the boardroom. 

Let’s keep the conversation going.

Did we mention she has a PhD?  Any questions for “Dr. Shannon” can be emailed to shannon.flumerfelt@inflexionadvisors.com.

 

As predicted, it was an extremely telling few days at the annual HRO World conference.  My personal experience was that the talk of the conference was the lack of facilitated dialogue surrounding:

• Recent market events:  I personally find it irresponsible to not formally address the unfortunate number of ceased, modified and un-awarded transactions over the past few months.  The brainpower of the collective community missed a tremendous opportunity to apply calm and logical theories as to the underlying cause(s) and confounding variables that impact today’s buyer and provider community.  Without these discussions, individuals are apt to absorb misinformation, draw improper conclusions and suffer from fearful paralysis relative to current or future transactions. 
• Language:  Purists of old applied quite stringent criteria to what would “officially” qualify a deal to be called HRO.  The language of our industry has commoditized the term to the point of irrelevance, as one could successfully argue that any service provisioning to the HR buyer, regardless of size, scope and relative importance, is outsourcing.  Thus, we have nearly 2,000 vendors who could (and often do) call themselves HRO providers.  This begs the question of which type of buyer HRO World is intended to help.
• Market evolution:  It is no exaggeration when I say that more than 75 attendees asked me where this market is headed.  This was not idle chatter but instead genuine interest and concern about who is driving the bus and where we’ll all get dropped off.  Will mega deals cease to exist?  Is mid-market quietly rolling up share without the ire of public display?  Should I forget holistic outsourcing and simply contract out by single processes such as TBO, RPO, talent management, payroll, benefits, HRMS, etc.?  Do I even need an advisory firm to contract out each of these processes?  All excellent items to ponder.
• Conference evolution:  There is tremendous value in bringing this tightly knit community together on an annual basis.  However, many (including myself) never stepped foot into a single session.  Most come to this show to network, brief or be briefed, create and extend relationships, catch up with old friends and listen.  Similar to past years, I heard many vendors claim this is the last time they will sponsor a booth.  I believe them.  The lack of large buyers (as Naomi Bloom soberly pointed out in her request for a show of hands) amplifies this issue.  I would like to see this show morph into more of a forum.  The key difference in my mind is overt acceptance that the business that actually gets done at HRO World is accomplished over meals, in coffee shops, at bars, in concourse rooms and by walking the halls. 

Just to be very clear, I am a huge fan of this market and the people who populate this industry.  They are generally smart, driven and innovative individuals who truly hope to make a difference in the challenging and ever-changing world of HR.  However, we all know that survival requires evolution and I, for one, am calling for change.

Let’s keep the conversation going.