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.

First, the lucky: Everyone lucked out when former NBC anchor Tom Brokaw had to bail out of the conference for a reporting trip to Afghanistan (no beignets in Kabul, I’m afraid), and that opened the door for former General Electric CEO Jack Welch to step right in.

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?

I am praying for the former, but fearing the latter.
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