I’ve
been thinking a lot about Unfurling HR ahead of our NZLead #UnfurlingHR Unconference.
If you haven’t already registered to join us on 15 October – do so now!
I’m looking forward to asking loads of questions, seeing the
problems as one big massive opportunity. Walking away so we can implement
some cool new stuff; try it out, and give it a go. Step in to the wild.
So how can we be unfurling (as in the verb….constantly unfolding)?
I love this article on being anticipatory. Daniel Burrus
talks about not only being agile, but being anticipatory – you can check out
his wise words here.
“When you’re
anticipatory, you’re creating changes and driving disruption from the
inside-out rather than being disrupted from the outside-in”.
So, how can we be anticipatory?
Daniel gives three practical tips to go about it:
- Make the future more visible; look at the
cyclical and linear change
- Identify the hard trends; the disruptions
on the horizon
- Look outside our industry for the solutions
we need
So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how this applies
to what we do.
Firstly, how can we
make the future more visible? What about cyclical change?
There are of course, many cyclical changes that have a
direct impact on what we do.
So how can we better understand the business context we are
working in, see outside the organisation, look at the cyclical cycles that
are impacting us, to help see what the future holds?
What about the economic cycle or business growth cycle? What
point in the growth cycle is our business? A start-up, high growth,
established? What about the product or service we offer? Are we in a growing
market? An established market? A diminishing market? What, in turn does that
mean for our people in (or outside) the business?
Next, what about the
Linear Changes?
So it’s easy to think about linear changes when we think
about products. Like, for example, the music industry; from cassettes to live streaming to U2 releasing their new album on iTunes last week.
But what about the way we do HR? What about our linear
trends?
It occurs to me that in some areas, we are holding on to
very old, tired, out dated processes that do not match the way we work now. How
can our processes be fit for the future of work? Easily adaptable and always
changing….unfurling…..?
For example, what about incentives and Dan Pink’s ideas that we are motivated by automony, mastery and purpose. What does that mean for how we pay people? What about performance; how are we all connected to the vision and
purpose of the business? How can we measure our results real time? And most
importantly, how can we help people to give quality feedback? What about attraction; how do we attract people to what we are doing? Are we truly connected to the best people? And how are the best people connecting with us? What about organisational design; how can we design a way of working
that really gets the best from everyone?
What are the hard trends facing us?
Maybe the hard trend is that parts of HR are redundant.
We keep getting the questions like “Is HR dead?” and
Angela’s post recently in the HR Game Changer thread “Most CEOs see HR as 'least
strategically important' function". I’ll leave you to Google it and you will
soon come up with a resounding theme.
So how do we respond?
Do we have the smarts to see it ourselves? Do we have the
capability to see the gaps? Do we need to look outside, step into another’s
shoes to really see how we can be game changing?
This leads nicely to Daniel Burrus’ final point.
How can we look
outside our industry for the solutions we need?
I love hearing from amazing entrepreneurs about how they
get the best people simply doing their best work. I love what Kirsti
Grant is doing with Vend, I love listening to Xero's Rod Drury talk on this topic, and
Melissa Clark-Reynolds was simply amazing at the HR Game Changer Conference in Auckland.
Let’s not hold on to the known, let’s have the courage to
keep questioning and try new stuff. Learning just in time.
And, if we learn to simply ask the right questions, then
maybe that alone will keep us unfurling…..