Is the change of HR over?

This post was reposted from Rehaul Blog and is well worth reading and pondering

#HRevolution Is Over. Now What?

by Lance Haun on May 8, 2010

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Note: In working on this post, I realized much of it was rehashing what Laurie and I spoke about at the closing session. For those who weren’t there, it is a good taste as to what was discussed. For those who were there, I went off both the notes and the comments we received during the end session.
Now the easy part is over.
That’s right. Simply coming to #HRevolution might have been a step in the right direction but it was an easy step. Maybe for some attendees, that was a tough step too. It isn’t going to be any easier going forward.
We talked a good game about the future of the HR function, social media, technology and other issues hitting our collective worlds. The question on everyone’s mind at the end of the day was “Now what?” Loads of information was shared. Debates and discussions flowed over into hallways, tweetups and dinners. And tonight people started flowing out of Chicago as quickly as they came in. The question I want to ask when you get to your desk Monday morning: Will your behavior change at all or are the things that inspired you getting shelved until you have more time (which ends up being never)?
While you can get other benefits from attending the unconference, the primary purpose of the unconference style is to get more participation from the audience. Participation demands action.
The hard thing for me is I can’t do these things. I’m not in HR anymore. And when someone asked me about how not being in HR anymore changes my credibility, I had to be honest.  I can inspire action. I can help with finding business cases or contacts or speakers or educational material. But I can’t lead an organization through the fire.
You can.

Making The Choice

Productive change isn’t accidental. You have to make the choice to alter your actions (even slightly). When we talked about breaking out of the social media echo chamber, I tried to emphasize that you have to actually first want to break out of the echo chamber in order to do anything else.
We have a strong group of core people right now but we need your boss, your peers and the people you know from around HR to become a part of this group. And part of the point was introducing them to social media on their terms and in their language. Instead of telling people to go to a blog, copy and paste the content into an e-mail and send it to them. Instead of saying my Twitter friend, say my colleague so and so.
All of these things are small things but they are the result of a conscious choice to provoke change.

Credible Activism

Becoming a credible activist in your own organization for your proposed changes is a risk. A risk that you should be ready to take. Jason Seiden said it best today when talking about facing the fear of failure whenever you first make that choice. You can alleviate that fear by just a tiny bit by being prepared to talk to them about the change on their terms.
Consuming content from the Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review and The Economist may not sound like the best use of an HR person’s time but it is actually one of the best ways to learn about the issues that your boss probably cares about. And that’s where a conversation can start.
Interested in additional education? It looked close to unanimous at the unconference that people believed getting a MBA was superior to getting an HR certificate when it comes to building organizational credibility.
Are all of these silver bullets? No. Your organization will have specific ways that you build credibility (which may mean doing things in a traditional way).

Influencing Beyond The Organization

There was a bit of a debate over whether job titles matter. They do, especially when you’re talking about building influence beyond your organization. There are certainly some caveats there but the biggest one is this: don’t waste the opportunity to leverage that title to positively influence. That means when you have the title, you step up to the plate and you take your best swing.
Here’s the main dig with that: when you’re talking about reaching out to those higher level executives and influencing their thinking and behavior, they want to hear it from someone like them. For someone you can’t get to know deeply, a job title that conveys authority can open their mind to ideas that they might have otherwise rejected. That’s unfair but true.
I wish we could have gotten more into how you can do it if getting that title is either impossible or if you’re just uninterested in it. When you’re in that position, you’re fighting the battle of of one by one. Instead of being a speaker where you can influence hundreds at a time, perhaps you can get a dozen or so people in the best case scenario. That’s still a useful function and I didn’t want anybody to get the impression that I was downplaying its importance.

What We Didn’t Say (On Purpose)

We didn’t say:

• Start or keep blogging
• Become a Twitter superstar
• Look at every new piece of technology that comes out
• Sell social media as the solution to everything

We don’t mention it because it is certain to continue whether we want it to or not. The battle to get our community of likeminded HR folks isn’t going to be won on that front. It is going to be won through reaching out to people who are generally unreachable through traditional social media using language that makes sense to them as well as building your credibility and influence.
Are you ready?