I’ll be the first to admit that I have been pretty critical of the leadership of SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, and there’s a good reason for that.

Put simply, I expect SHRM to set an example for HR people everywhere by using the resources, size and clout of the world’s largest human resources organization to work for the betterment of the profession, and not be just another painfully bureaucratic trade association overly preoccupied with building an ever-larger bank account for no discernable purpose.

So, let me be one of the first to say that the choice of Laurence (Lon) G. O’Neil, formerly senior vice president and chief human resources officer at Kaiser Permanente, to be SHRM’s new president and CEO looks to be a huge step in the right direction.

Let me count the ways:

• He seems to have the business chops that SHRM needs from its top leader. O’Neil was the senior HR executive at Kaiser Permanente, a $40 billion not-for-profit health care organization, for more than five years. With 158,000 employees, managing the people function at Kaiser was surely a challenge that prepared him well for SHRM. Plus, O’Neil’s previous work in HR with Bank of America gives him solid Fortune 500 experience as well.
 
• O’Neil isn’t a government bureaucrat or association professional. Everyone should be thankful that the SHRM board didn’t go with yet another Department of Labor type or government bureaucrat for this spot. Nothing wrong with government bureaucrats, I suppose, but is that who we really want leading SHRM again? And senior association professionals are essentially bureaucrats without government portfolios. Thank goodness the board resisted going down that road.

• His foreign experience should help as SHRM slowly works to become a global organization. O’Neil spent three years overseas directing Bank of America’s HR functions in Asia. And earlier in his career, he was director of social services for the Tehran American School in Iran.

• O’Neil knows there’s life west of the Mississippi. With a master’s degree from the University of New Mexico and five years in Oakland, California, at Kaiser, I think it’s safe to say that O’Neil probably isn’t another one of those people who is infatuated by life east of the Hudson (or the Potomac). To all of us who live west of the Hudson, this is a good thing.

• Of course, the proof of all this is in the pudding. O’Neil looks good on paper, but the real test will be how well he does navigating the SHRM bureaucracy, keeping his own counsel and pushing the organization ahead. I doubt that he’ll spend much time listening to my counsel, but in my view, SHRM needs a good kick in the tail. It needs to be less arrogant and bureaucratic, more transparent, and it needs to stop trying to be all things to all people.

One more thing: I’ve chided the SHRM board of directors for taking so much time to make this choice, with the caveat that it would be well worth the wait if the delay was because the board was nailing down the perfect candidate to lead SHRM into the future.  

Well, so far so good. The SHRM board seems to have made a solid choice for a new leader. O’Neil offers a lot of promise and hope for the organization. But only time will tell if he is the guy who can focus the world’s largest HR organization on what human resource people must do to be strategic business partners in the 21st century—and if he can get SHRM to help HR get there.

I said I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for the Society for Human Resource Management’s board of directors to get its act together and have a new CEO hired by its own August 1 deadline. I’m glad I didn’t, because I would long be out of air by now.

The SHRM board has delayed the naming of a new leader yet again. The fact that this seems to be a long, dragged-out process doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. On the other hand, it’s not really that much of a problem—as long as the SHRM board finds the right leader.

In fact, Workforce Management found during its reporting of the search that “SHRM hopes to attract a candidate with a strong business background as opposed to one who has led a professional association. High-level HR executives at Fortune 500 companies have been interviewed and at least one has withdrawn.” SHRM really needs a strong businessperson with top leadership experience who knows how to drive an organization ahead. Or it needs a creative, experienced, strategic, high-level HR professional. In other words, SHRM needs someone strongly grounded in business and managing people, not a bureaucrat or organization professional.

So I’m encouraged by the kind of person the SHRM board is trying to hire. It’s going after the right kind of person, but unfortunately, it’s doing it for all the wrong reasons.

As Workforce Management has reported, sources close to SHRM say the organization is looking for a high-level executive to become its new CEO because the board believes that it needs “someone with enough stature to get senior executives to join the organization.” That’s where SHRM is off course.

I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: SHRM’s biggest problem is that it seems to want to be all things to all people all the time. It is just not possible for an organization the size of SHRM (roughly 250,000 members) to serve everyone, from high-level HR executives down to the rank-and-file HR generalists who make up the bulk of the membership.

High-level HR executives are not going to spend much time with SHRM. They are going to be focused more on organizations like the HR Planning Society and other groups that cater to senior executives. It’s silly and counterproductive for SHRM to think that it can compete with highly focused organizations like that and serve the needs of such executives.

Yes, SHRM needs a high-level business leader or HR executive to lead the organization, but it don’t need such a leader to attract other high-level executives. SHRM needs that kind of leader to help the great mass of midlevel human resources professionals develop into indispensable business partners who can help organizations everywhere grow and nurture the single most important resource that they have—their people.

In my mind, SHRM is still at a crossroads, still trying to figure out where to go next. It’s a big organization with a lot of money, but all too often, it seems to operate the way a much smaller organization would—tenuous and insecure.

 So it’s now August and there is still no new SHRM leader. I hope this is just a minor delay and that the board will make an inspired choice of someone who can re-energize and recharge the world’s largest HR organization from top to bottom.

Can the SHRM board do it? Only time will tell.