I mentioned this briefly in my latest Last Word column from here in New Orleans, but really, SHRM hit the right mark with its speaker lineup at this year’s annual conference. SHRM was both good AND lucky.
This isn’t a slam on Brokaw, but rather, an acknowledgment that the Society for Human Resource Management’s big-money opening-session speakers have traditionally been long on star power but short on business acumen, or advice specific to human resource professionals. I’ve said this before but it bears repeating: As much as I believe that Brokaw would have had some interesting things to say, his keynote would probably have followed the pattern set by Queen Noor, Bill Cosby, Lance Armstrong, Colin Powell and Sidney Poitier. They were interesting in the broad sense, but completely and totally divorced from anything specific that HR faces.
Jack Welch changed all of that, of course, and I would be shocked if he doesn’t set the standard for all SHRM Sunday speakers for years to come. A pox on SHRM’s house if the people who program this mega-event don’t hear the message from their membership on this, loud and clear. Once they’ve seen and heard the bark of Neutron Jack, they won’t willingly go back to the sweet stylings of Queen Noor.
As I also noted recently, the other top-line speakers were equally impressive. I didn’t hear Earl Graves Sr., the founder and publisher of Black Enterprise magazine, on Monday, but that’s only because I’ve had 30 years of hearing publishers jabber in my ear. I couldn’t voluntarily submit to listening to yet another one, although I heard that Graves spent a lot of time talking about the legacy of HR in the civil rights struggle. I’ll bet it was pretty interesting.
Tuesday’s speaker was Harvard Business School professor John Kotter, and although I have heard him many times before, I forgot some of the good stuff—like his account of entrepreneur Mary Kay Ash winning over somewhat snooty Harvard MBA students with her business smarts and ability to read an audience.
Like Welch, Kotter was pragmatic, although a little broader in his material. Still, hearing about leadership and change from a guy who has written 17 books on the subject (when does he find time to teach?) is something HR people really need.
I’m going to miss Wednesday speaker Lee Woodruff (author of best-seller In an Instant); I’ll be back at Workforce Management world headquarters in California. But the choice of Woodruff reinforces my point that this has been one of the strongest overall SHRM speaker lineups in years. And with Tuesday night’s musical guest, Sheryl Crow, the best musical choice in quite some time too. (Sorry, Hall & Oates.)
So here’s the big question: Will SHRM’s brain trust figure out that they made some good choices this year, but also lucked out with Jack Welch? Will they heed what everyone is saying here in New Orleans and tailor the Sunday speaker to the audience, or will they revert back to the old ways next year in San Diego?
Say what you will about Jack Welch, but he ALWAYS has a lot to say about HR.
To that end, Welch gave some of his great management and business insights to SHRM attendees in a question-and-answer session with Claire Shipman of ABC News. He was provocative, funny, a bit earthy and generally entertaining. And as someone who has heard him talk on numerous occasions, I can tell you that Welch didn’t just lean on what he has said so many times before.
One of his key points: Trust is an essential quality for all human resources professionals, and that means both trust going down to employees (they need to trust that you’re helping them) and coming down from your boss (who needs to also trust in what you are doing to manage the workforce). Welch believes that the best HR people exhibit pastor-parent behavior: They keep confidences (like a pastor) but can also tell it straight (like Mom or Dad always could).
One interesting moment came when Welch asked the audience members to raise their hands if the HR leader in their organization had equal status to the company’s CFO. Only a few of hands went up, and Welch said that this is proof that HR still must do more to get the respect of their organization—and that more organizations need to push for HR-CFO equality.
Welch also said that holding on to top talent is going to be a bigger challenge because “what you hear is, ‘I want to get the hell out of corporate America.’ ” More workers, he said, are opting to become entrepreneurs in the wake of the huge number of layoffs and corporate downsizing. “HR needs to challenge the organization to be more exciting and more accessible,” Welch added, “because people just don’t trust corporate America.”
Overall, Jack Welch delivered an upbeat HR pep talk here in New Orleans, and his presentation was the most focused and HR-specific opening speech of any I have heard in the past half-dozen SHRM conferences. I didn’t agree with everything he said—for example, I don’t buy his argument that women must make a decision between having children and getting a high-level executive position—but then again, I never agree with everything anyone ever says.
One last thing: There was also probably more written about this SHRM speech than any other in the history of the organization. I had a hard time keeping up with the tsunami of HR “tweets” and blog posts flowing live from the ballroom at the Morial Convention Center, where Welch was speaking.
To paraphrase Winston Churchill: Never have so many written so much, so quickly, about so (relatively) little. As much as I like Jack Welch, the social-media flood to get out his speech was overkill, and probably a sign of the times. I don’t think we’ll be able to shake it anytime soon. Get my latest blog updates and workforce management news by following me on Twitter.
How bad was Custer’s management decision-making that day?
Let us count the ways:
1. He wouldn’t listen to others: Custer was told to hold off on any attack and wait for reinforcements that were being led by Brig. Gen. Alfred Terry, but impatience got the better of him and pushed Custer to act. Terry and his reinforcements arrived one day after the battle, on June 27.
2. He didn’t have proper respect for his competition: Custer was guilty of hubris, just like so many modern executives. He grossly underestimated the number of Indian warriors facing him, downplayed their talents and failed to understand the technological advantage the competition had. While Custer’s troops were generally armed with single-shot Springfield rifles, the Indians mostly had repeating rifles. A little less ego might have helped Custer to better respect what he was up against.
3. He focused on the wrong issue: Custer’s focus wasn’t on fighting and defeating the Indians who were itching to fight him at the Little Bighorn. His misguided concern was that he needed to trap them and prevent their escape. That’s why he split his forces into three parts, diluting his overall strength. The other two units of the 7th Cavalry, led by Capt. Frederick Benteen and Maj. Marcus Reno, survived a fierce two-day fight that ended when Terry’s reinforcements arrived.
4. He was badly outmanaged: Custer was overmatched by Indian leader Sitting Bull, who lured him into a fight on his schedule, in a place of his choosing, with a much superior force. And Sitting Bull had an able field lieutenant in Crazy Horse, who executed his leader’s plans to perfection.
5. He had incredibly bad luck: Benjamin Franklin said that luck is when preparation and opportunity meet, and that is certainly true for Sitting Bull at the Little Bighorn. The flip side is that Custer had the misfortune of deciding to engage the largest single concentration of Native American warriors ever assembled on the North American continent with an undersized and outgunned force that he stupidly split into three parts.
That’s not just bad decision-making, but also terribly bad luck.
With a couple of better management decisions and a couple of changed elements, perhaps Custer would have survived the Battle of the Little Bighorn. History would be very different had that happened.
That’s what we should keep in mind today, on Bad Management Day. Sometimes, in business and in life, there are only a couple of decisions separating glorious success and unmitigated disaster.
It’s T-minus four days to the Society for Human Resource Management’s annual conference in New Orleans, and all I can think about is how brutally hot it’s going to be down on the bayou when things kick off Sunday.
According to the newspaper, “The list of local thoroughfares erupting under the searing heat continues to grow, [and] a busy section of Interstate 10 in eastern New Orleans between Read Boulevard and Bullard Avenue buckled Tuesday afternoon. In Algiers, much-traveled Gen. DeGaulle Drive near Carlisle Court popped apart, damaging cars and detouring traffic after expansion joints could no longer contain the expanding panels of concrete.”
It’s got to be pretty hot to buckle roads, and worst of all, it doesn’t look to improve anytime soon.
“A ridge of upper level high pressure has become centered farther west over the southern plains, but the extended period of very hot weather will continue today [Wednesday], with a highs that could climb above 100, the weather service said,” according to another Times-Picayune story.
“Temperatures [in New Orleans] will be in the mid-90s Thursday and through the weekend, but high heat indices may reach dangerous levels each day.”
Regardless of what the attendees do, Workforce Management will be covering the 61st annual SHRM Conference & Exposition at http://www.workforce.com/, with daily e-mail news blasts and with a big conference wrap-up next week in Workforce Week.
As for me, I’ll be sweating away in New Orleans and writing a daily Last Word column, blogging and even tweeting on Twitter (I’m at http://twitter.com/johnhollon).
If you can’t make it to SHRM, or perhaps have just decided to stay home and stay cool instead, check our site for the latest conference developments from the Big Easy. And don’t hesitate to drop me a note, if you have questions or comments, at jhollon@workforce.com.
Want to know just how screwed up things are right now for America’s workforce?
Here’s one telling sign: A Florida plastic surgeon is offering free cosmetic procedures to older job seekers so they can look younger and be able to better compete for a new job.
According to an amazing-but-true story in the Miami Herald, some “1,200 of South Florida’s newly jobless … recently vied for free Botox, dermal fillers, laser liposuction and other cosmetic procedures offered by Dr. Jason Shapiro … . [T]he Fort Lauderdale internist who gave away free procedures said he was moved by the applicants’ tales of being jobless, feeling unattractive and getting overlooked by employers despite their experience.”
And lest you think this is just an oddball trend that is somehow unique to South Florida, think again. The newspaper went on to note: “Nationwide, a growing number of people are turning to cosmetic procedures to put their best face forward as they look for a job—or try to hold on to the one they have. A survey of physicians by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery showed that 75 percent of them said they had treated patients who requested facial plastic surgery to stay competitive in the workplace.”
“Youth is becoming more and more emphasized in the workplace,” Dr. Steven Pearlman, past president of the organization, told the newspaper. “The seasoned experts, once pictured in ads with lots of wrinkles, have been replaced by young go-getters with multiple degrees and the appearance of boundless energy.”
Maybe it’s just me, but wouldn’t you rather hire someone who really has actual energy and real experience, even if they are older and more wrinkled, then someone younger looking who only has “the appearance of boundless energy”?
There are a number of factors that are challenging workers right now: a terrible economy with massive job losses, a huge generation of older workers (baby boomers) who now can’t afford to leave the workplace, and a business environment where companies want a clear and unmistakable sign of a recovery before they are willing to invest in any new jobs.
But I wonder: For all the glib talk from so many organizations about constantly striving to win the “war for talent” and hire the best people possible, what does it say about our national hiring practices when highly experienced older workers feel they need to enhance their looks in order to get companies to seriously consider them for a job?
Keep this in mind the next time you hear some talent management “expert” prattle on about how tough it is to win the war for talent. It might not be as tough as you think, especially if you aren’t hung up on just getting young and cheap talent in the front door.
In fact, you might actually find that older workers have a few things to offer—experience, depth of knowledge and a broader worldview—that are positive qualities to add to your workforce. Bottom line is, you need the best people possible for your workforce regardless of their age or looks. Smart managers are already aware of that, of course, and no amount of Botox is ever going to EVER change it.
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