the Maine HR Cafe

The convention opened with Governor King’s keynote address. He spoke of Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Chase Smith, and Margaret Thatcher.  All strong feminine leaders with unique messages for their era.

Eleanor Roosevelt - First Lady to Franklin D. Roosevelt  was a daily blogger for her time. She wrote a daily nationally syndicated column titled My Day from 1935 to 1962 – 27 years.  Her unique & extensive contributions made her America’s most influential First Lady.  Her achievements include being an advocate for the dispossessed and was the Chairperson for the United Nations Commision on Human Rights.

Margaret Chase Smith was the first woman to serve in both the House of Representatives and as a  US Senator from Maine She is best remembered for her speech, ‘Declaration of Conscience’  against McCarthyism.

“I would like to speak briefly and simply about a serious national condition.  It is a national feeling of fear and frustration that could result in national suicide and the end of everything that we Americans hold dear.  It is a condition that comes from the lack of effective leadership in either the Legislative Branch or the Executive Branch of our Government.”

Her words ring true through to this day.

Most recently, Margaret Thatcher who as the first and only female Prime Minister of Great Britain led her country forward with her vision based on a clear set of ideas with passion about those ideas.

Three strong women with strong & unique characters who stood out in their time and influenced the foundation for this time. Governor King developed PEPPERS rule to decribe the common themes that define their character:

• Principle
• Empathy
• Perserverance
• Partnership
• Engagment
• Resilient
• Studious

We would all do well to study these three influential woman to understand and model their characteristics for our own success.

The next keynoter was Cy Wakeman who motivated us to use Reality-Based Leadership by ditching the drama, restore sanity to the workplace, and turning excuses into results. These results are based on Efficiency & Loyalty and candidly addressing these three false assumptions.

1. Perfecting employee circumstances will drive engagement. This creates Entitlementality (my word).
2. All employee responsible are equally credible. Not & never.
3. Engagement drives results:  Accountability drives results

The third keynoter, Laurie Reutimann, – a top HR Blogger, Conference Board columnist, and sought after public speaker – reminds us and challenges us all to think, create and remain more strategic in our awareness. The future will not be created until we, the HR professionals of the future, become and remain more intellectual curious, credible political activist, influential, relevant and non risk adverse. In short, more like Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Chase Smith, and Margaret Thatcher while using the Cy Wakeman’s model of reality based leadership.

I was only at the Maine HR Convention 2012 for two days. You can ready more of the thoughts and reflections of others through this Twitter hashtag - MEHRC2012.   There were a lot of ideas captured and shared.

So, what were your MEHRC2012 take aways?

Was it the way your HR Life Should Be?

Posted in Uncategorized

Writing Begins With Reading

• April 2012 Harvard Business Review: The Real Leadership Lessons of Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

• Influencer by Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillian & Al Switzler

• Drive by Daniel Pink

• Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google by William Poundstone

• HR Magazine May 2012 – Modern-Day Slavery

What are you reading and writing about?

Posted in Books Read, HR
Tags: HR, Ideas, Maine HR, Reading, Writing

1. Show Up.
2. Write every day.
3. Don’t do anything until you’ve written five hundred words.
4. Move.
5. Once you’ve written a semi-credible draft of a section or chapter, have someone read it to you aloud.
6. Remember that writing, though solitary, is also social.
7. These rules work for me.

53 words, five hundred to go.  These are my reflections, expansions, and extensions with clarifications on Daniel Pink’s seven rules.  To be noted, there are 41 comments on his blog posting.  These are mine alone. For reality, please read the true and authentic source at http://www.danpink.com/archives/2010/03/7-rules-for-writing

1. Show-up:  I’m here now, two years, one month and 22 days later.  I did bookmark DP’s rules and have occasionally even re-read them.  But I did not show up, violating every spirit and intent of the rule and principle.  In all fairness to self, I have been showing up in other venues and ventures while fulfilling obligations and seeking opportunities. To be candid, perhaps the downtime in between could of, and should have been better utilized to eke out the words from my internal reflections.  On a day like every other day, this is the life I choose to live.

2.Write every day: My twitter profile (https://twitter.com/#!/RMSmithJr) states that I write with words and light.  That is pretty much true. This year I started a project to take and post one picture a day. These can be seen on my Flickr account at http://www.flickr.com/photos/maineforestcafe/ Today will be picture #120. Just as in writing, some words are better than others; some pictures are better than others.  I freely confess to taking a posting a picture to sustain the moment. There are even a very few pictures recycled from the past.

3. Don’t do anything until you’ve written five hundred words:  254 to go, four more rules to visit.  Life is full of attractions and distractions. On this computer monitor, I have my weather station running on the left side of the screen while watching the temperature rise from the daily low of 30.02 into and towards today’s high temperature at the rate of 0.32 degrees per hour. Internet explorer is minimized with six tabs open. To the lower left from my second story study, which gazes east into the sun rising through the forest is the bird feeders that need to be refilled. But here I sit clickity clackity tip tap typing away.

4. Move: There is a quote concept out there that the best words and answers for life are a brief several mile walk away. Go there, then come back and be better than before.

5.       Once you’ve written a semi-credible draft of a section or chapter, have someone read it to you aloud.  Agree that this is essential for professional writing.  Until I get to that point, I will retain my own counsel through my three-step write, review, revise and release process.   Reading out loud is the best way to see if you did indeed release your thoughts, or regret the thoughts you thought you had.

 6.       Remember that writing, though solitary, is also social. True for self-publishing and posting. More of my writing is private. But, since I do have one personal and professional blogs, must write for the audience I think I have and the audience I want to have.

 7. These rules work for me (Daniel Pink): This is true. We all have our own rules.  Writing them down is the best way to clarify and understand our personal intentions.

Word count: 566

Posted in Uncategorized

The community bulletin board, originally uploaded by Zeus Ocean Storm.

This is what a cluttered unfocused mind looks like.

Posted in Uncategorized

The traditional use of time cards is the creation of a tasks  done list with beginning and ending times.  These are then entered into  time & attendance and data collection systems for payroll and enterprise costs accounting systems.

My alternative use is the creation of a task ToDo list on a 4×6 index, one for the week, and one for Saturday & Sunday. These are then posted on a recipe card holder on my at-home desk in my study as a reminder of options, opportunities and obligations.   IF this isn’t done, circumstances, distractions and boredoms lazily erode time away.

So far, everything on the last weeks list is done or scheduled for completion today. There are a few incomplete tasks due to the discovery that they were not either truly necessary or should be deferred forward to allow for more efficient completion.

One of the tasks deferred forward is the reorganization of the HRASM Chapter website. The concept was proposed to and endorsed by the Board of Directors.  However, there are only two meetings left until the summer meeting break. The thought was, why tinker with it now and possibly disrupt current utilization. Better change management is to announce the change and use summer downtime for testing and implementation.  Without that task sitting in front of me, for silent & subconscious reflection, this better idea may not have occurred.

Why is this technique valuable?  Visibility.  We need the reminders to stay focused and on task. Otherwise, we wander through the day from beginning until end and wonder what happened in between.

This works for me. What works for you?

Posted in HR

I have a career in HR because people have jobs. Jobs are existential. Everyone has at least one. Not everyone has a career. IF businesses didn’t need to hire the right people, I would not have this career. Hopefully a different career. IF not, at least a job.

Adam & Eve had the first job. That job was to not sin. Along came the apple and they were fired from the Garden of Eden.

Jobs are created by dividing labor. Scottish philosopher Adam Smith coined the “division of labor” in his seminal work Wealth of Nations. And this is why we go to work, to create our personal wealth.

Parents have highest hopes for their newborn children, proclaiming that they will be doctors, lawyers, or even President of the United States.

As children, a frequent question we all heard was, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Answers range from the hero worship of becoming firefighters, policeman, fighter pilots & astronauts, or following in the footprints of our parents, to blazing our own path.

As students, the question becomes “What are you going to do after high school?” Answers range from go to work, enlist in the military, or go to college. A few drop out before they finish.

Jobs define us. In social settings, the questions become, “What do you do for work?” Another common question, “IF you weren’t doing what you are doing now, what would you be doing?” The answers now range from our professions to our passions, from our obligations to our opportunities.

After 40 -50 years of work, IF/WHEN we have accumulated adequate wealth, we hope to retire and relax. Now the question goes past tense, “What did you do for work?”

Then, that last day comes, followed by a celebration of life. A stable theme in the obituary is the jobs held.

So where am I going with this? I think I’m heading down the path going somewhere between becoming a job wonk to a job philosopher. Jobs are always present in our lives. Jobs are like the sky, look up, the sky is always there.

Jobs are existential.

Posted in HR, JOBS
Tags: HR, Jobs