Ideas that rock

Sometimes a single change of perspective or impulse could make a big difference. That’s why I’ve been sharing thoughts and ideas with the HR community for years. And sometimes I sense a very special interest on the part of my listeners and readers. Obviously, aspects are touched upon that are thought-provoking and seem relevant in some way. Here I offer numerous, short videos and blog posts on very different HR topics.

Blog

PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY

Maybe psychological safety is at best an early stage or even an infantile concept

Active sourcing is super intense

Some say, the active search and approrach of rare talent could be done by artificial intelligence. I don’t think so.

Diversity. The misunderstood concept

Diversity is not about statisticial distribution. It is about valueing individuality

You may run a Survey. However, it it is not appreciative

Surveys are perfect means to ask people without the need to listen. Better talk to them

First you start writing a book. But then the book writes you

This is the preface of my book Human Resources Strategies. As I outline, this book means a lot to me

The story of engineer Thomas

Once you change the perspective you’ll get a shocking insight into current application and selection processes

Why “right people, right place, right time” is a dangerous approach

We better challenge an old definition of Human Resources Management. It reflects an outdated understanding

Is Gallup’s disengagement drama fake?

While Gallup’s study about employee engagement is heavily cited, nobody understands its methodological basis

Rewarding individual performance might be a mistake. Not doing so might be a mistake either

Often teams have a superstar. Without variable pay you either demotivate or loose him or her. With variable pay you might kill teamwork and intrinsic motiation

Videos

Why performance evaluation often don’t work

Performance evaluation is a social and cognitive process. Within this process there are many factors, that threaten the validity of the evaluation. Keeping a good social relation to the employee is often of higher importance than the validity of the judgement itself.

The best leadership advice

Manager, supervisors, project leads or executives could demonstrate a combination of four different roles: boss, coach, partner and enabler. Good leadership means to be clear in what role to play.

You pay to get good people on board

Compensation has various functions. One might be to motivate people. However, the more important reason to consider compensation is to aquire and retain good people.

Why you better focus on what’s relevant

Classic employee surveys (yearly, asking everything, follow-up etc.) don’t work because what’s not relevant befor the survey will not be relevant after it. You’d define priorities prior to the survey.

Get your recruiting activities straight

This video demonstrates a simple way how to prioritize external workforce demand and how to link these demands with reasonable activities, approaches and resources.

The biggest mistake with most job ads

Most Job Ads preselect potential candidates. They communicate narrowly defined critera. In cases of difficult hiring, job ads should rather attract and put the employee value proposition in front.

Who is the customer of your fancy algorithm?

Digitization in HR provides plenty of new opportunities. However, the big question is, who benefits. Is it the HR function, any kind of authoritiy or is it the people themselves?

A strategic question in any talent management

There are different ways to understand talent in organizations. Whether you consider people having or being a talent will affect the way you deal with talent. Anyway, make sure you still deal with most talented people in a particular way.

Experts or Expertise

Expert careers are meant to be parallel paths in addition to management careers. Whether or not they succeed, heavily depends on the reasons why you are offering these. Is it about experts or about expertise?

You better don’t take a closer look

Basically everything in HR could be measured and expressed in terms of KPIs – somehow. In most cases, measuring things is rarely valid due to lacking conceptual definition of what is supposed to be measured.

Why do you work when and where?

Flexibility in the workplace is less about how things really are. It is about who decides upon how things are.

The most important question I used to ask almost any CHRO

Companies should ask themselves what kind of Human Resource Management they want to play. This video offers a simple guide for orientation.

Once people belief it they will act accordingly. No, they won’t!

To change culture you always must start with the structure. Once you change the structure, behavioral change will follow and thus the culture.

A recruiting strategy every recruiter should know

Active Sourcing is about difficult hiring of single experts. This video shows a strategy on how to do this.

The core of any strong employer brand

An Employee Value Proposition is the core of any employer brand. It is the ultimate promise to the potential candidate. This video shows a simple technique on how to understand the attractive sides of a job or function.

The eternal puzzle around the bell curve

Forced Ranking is ok in case of divided labour. However, in teams with high level of task and social dynamics forced ranking turns colleagues into competitors.

Why one of the most common advices in HR rarely works

SMART (specific, measurable, attractive, realistic, timebound) Objectives do not work in most situations. It mainly depends on the nature of the task.

So, who needs your KPI for what?

Whether KPIs are used for either feedback or control will lead to completely different (sometimes dysfunctional) social dynamics.

It is not about functionalities in the first place

The main question when it comes to the most appropriate HR system is whether you want to make the life of HR professionals easier or the life of the people.

Probably the best advice to avoid dysfunctional groupthink

Whenever you come up with a new solution (product, concept, business model etc.) you better take some time to think about why this solution might fail.

From Ignoranz to implicit Knowledge

In an agile context, filled with uncertainty, complexity and dynamic learning is equal to work and vice versa. This video shows a comprehensive model on how learning in an agile context actually works.

What we really can learn from cloisters

First you define the architecture then the architecture defines you. Architecture affects communication and collaboration. Thus, architecture is a matter for HR.

When developing future leaders you’d better treat them like leaders

The classic approach of executive education does not work as it is supposed to work. It might be a better idea to merge strategy development, business reality and learning context into one single setting.

There are too many reports, which aren’t relevant to anybody

Even though formally being required, reports and KPIs not reflecting customer value tend to be a sort of waste.

The most ignored idea related to diversity

Diversity could not be understood on group level. There is a difference between inter- and intragroup variance. Diversity is about valueing individuality.

Actually, Dave Ulrich did not like this video so much

This video presents an alternative approach to the classic model proposed by Dave Ulrich.

Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness

In 1914 Ernest Shackleton published the most legendary job ad. It could serve as a bueprint for jobs ads today.

We should stop educating managers on how to give feedback

Whether or not a feedback recipient takes a feedback mainly depends on the social situation in which feedback is given. The best way to receive feedback is to actively ask for it.

Never turn feedback into a judgement

There are significant differences between Feedback, Judgement and Praise. Once companies diffuse these distinct concepts in practice they will earn toxic effects.