Editor's blog
Gradual, Systemic and Genuine Change
Many different branches of the US Department of Defense are admired for their collective people practices. (Think of examples like Army and leadership development, or the Marine Corps and local recruiting.) Organizational development inside the DoD promises to deliver gradual, systemic and genuine change for both the individuals and enterprise.
HR Technology Is Turning Decidedly Cloudy
in
New research indicates that HR professionals worldwide are quickly turning to cloud computing and its variants to meet their key business challenges and as a means of closing the effectiveness gaps that currently exist between HR priorities and HR systems. Nearly 40% of executives surveyed indicate plans to implement SaaS for one or more core HR system between now and the end of 2011, and nearly 50% plan to have SaaS-based, core HR administration applications in place by the end of 2012.
Are Your HR Leaders Building a Spirit of Business Partnership?
from Jon Younger Principal of The RBL Group and leads the Strategic HR practice area.
Over the past week I've had the opportunity to speak with the HR leaders of several global corporations. Each of these discussions had a similar theme: "How can I help my HR consultants to gain the self-confidence to act as true business partners?"
David Gergen, an advisor to several U.S. presidents, offers some helpful advice: " A leader's role is to raise people's aspirations for what they can become and to release their energies so they will try to get there."
What can HR leaders do to help HR professionals "raise their aspirations and release their energies?"
1. Demonstrate interest and effort in knowing the business. In a recent HR business partner workshop with HR managers in the insurance industry, we asked how many HR leaders had spent time with real customers in the past month. The answer was a dismal 10 percent.
Dealing With Vendor Threats To Charge For Back Maintenance Fees
in
Tuesday’s Tip: Dealing With Vendor Threats To Charge For Back Maintenance Fees by R "Ray" Wang
Four Common Customer Scenarios Will Trigger Vendors To Raise The Back Maintenance Fee Discussion
Back maintenance fees describe the amount an organization would have paid for maintenance if they would have continued to pay the usual stream required to access support, bug fixes, patches, and upgrade rights. As economic conditions have worsened, many organizations have turned to self-support, third party maintenance (3PM), or dropped support. Discussions with 43 enterprise software customers reveal four common scenarios:
- Scenario 1: Self supporting customers looking to upgrade to next release. Customers (44.19% n=19/43) in these scenarios typically run mature systems and are in businesses that do not face dynamic change . They stopped paying maintenance years ago and rarely make major changes to the system.
Today's Biggest Talent-Management Challenges
by George Anders - Do you have the right talent in your organization? The blunt answer for many of America's largest enterprises is: "Not yet" — and the reasons are striking.
At a talent-management meeting on March 17-18 in Coronado, Calif., experts from companies such as Cisco, Gap, Toyota, Wal-Mart and Oracle gathered to share perspectives. During formal remarks at the Conference Board event, most speakers did their best to stay upbeat. But a different story emerged in the hallway chatter between sessions.
Over coffee and muffins, attendees swapped wry stories of what it's like — even in a recession — to be battling a "talent problem." Hospital executives fretted about internal talent pipelines that keep producing the wrong kinds of leaders. Retailers fumed about promotion paths clogged with lackluster managers who can't be moved. And all sorts of attendees owned up to jitters about how well their companies' leaders can truly gauge a rising star's promise.
Smarten Up, and Feel the IT Love
in
Smarten Up, and Feel the IT Love by Susan Cramm - To exploit technology, companies need a combination of IT-smart business leaders and business-smart IT leaders.
If you want to make this a goal for your organization, start by baselining and benchmarking current performance. To do so, survey your business and IT leaders to assess how they:
- Perceive the importance and value of IT
- Manage the IT asset
- View the quality of the IT-business partnership
I conducted a survey last year to get a handle on the current state of the IT and Business Leader relationship, and I had a hunch that the results would differ depending on the "IT smarts" of an organization. In this survey, "IT-smarts" was determined by the survey respondents, based on an A through F self-grading system.
Here's what I found:
Got Strategy?
Got Strategy? - Here’s what you’ve been waiting for—a quick roundup of all things talent strategy this week at your fingertips. Let me know what you think of the new format at christine.abbatiello@hci.org
Connect with Corporate Alumni! On March 9, we have a webcast with Stephanie Oesch, AVP with Swiss Re Insurance. She'll explain how Swiss Re built their business case to gain internal buy-in and successfully launched their alum network through referrals, communication, and events. This webcast will have insight, tips and reasoning to get approval for your initiative.
Why Does Supply Chain Matter to Me? Working within the parameters of the traditional manufacturing supply chain rules, innovative companies can learn to leverage their talent to gain significant competitive advantage. On March 16, join HCI for a webcast and discussion that can reshape the way you think about talent. This discussion will be lead by Dr John Sullivan, renowned the world over as a provocateur and strategist in the field of human resources and talent management.
How to Help Others Through a Difficult Transition
in
How to Help Others Through a Difficult Transition by Peter Bregman
"I don't want to go to ski class!" Sophia, my four-year-old daughter, was crying. I knelt down on the snow so we could be at eye level and asked her why.
"I just don't want to go," she whimpered.
I didn't want her to skip class. She was already skiing well — turning and stopping on her own — so I knew she could do it. Plus she'd asked for lessons and we'd committed with the instructor. I wanted to teach her that she needed to follow through on her commitments. Finally, I had seen this before: she'd cried while learning to ride a bicycle, but when she finally learned, she was tremendously proud of herself.
I tried to comfort her, reason with her, convince her that, in fact, she liked class and at the end of it she would smile and tell me she had fun.
11 Questions to Help You Develop a New Strategy
in
11 Questions to Help You Develop a New Strategy - by Kelly McGill
I approach everything new with a particular recipe, a set of questions that get my mind around the task at hand. And even though you would believe that there are common answers to these questions, this is simply not the case. When building your next strategy, I challenge you to ask your team and stakeholders these questions and close the gaps that you find between the answers.
What is the goal? Have you ever really made the rounds to your team members to get a true understanding of the goal they are trying to accomplish as a team? Have you ever asked the same question of your client group and finance team? You will likely get different and possibly conflicting answers from each of these groups of people, yet we as HR leaders are attempting to get all parties to achieve the same goal. Get everyone looking at the same target, and you will be amazed at how quickly and effectively things happen....Read More Here!
from The Talent Economy
Why Good People Skills Matter in a Recession
Why Good People Skills Matter in a Recession -
I spend a great deal of my time coaching executives on how to become more effective leaders and managers. An important part of this work is to help them develop good relationships with their key staff and stakeholders. We explore different ways of influencing, motivating, and leading people and by extending their skills — I help executives to get the best out of their people.
A common response when I ask executives about their leadership or management styles is: "I just focus on tasks and results," or, "I'm a people person." It can take a while to convince them that to be really successful, executives have to master both sides of the equation. Fortunately, I am not the only one passing on this message — the best companies reinforce this by promoting and developing senior executives on the strength of both sets of skills.
However, I have noticed that the financial crisis has undermined these good practices. Command-and-control leaders are back in fashion and companies appear to be condoning it. I had my first direct confirmation of this last year, when I called a German CFO to check on how she had been progressing with her action plan following our coaching sessions. When we met in London three months earlier, she had complained of a lack of motivation and accountability in her team. We had agreed that she should focus her efforts on active listening, coaching, and more delegation to galvanise the team. "How are you getting on with your team?" I asked. "Have your new approaches worked?"
