The other day I was on Facebook and under the Trending section was an article talking about the push for a boycott of the upcoming concert to benefit the group by the National Rife Association. This reported boycott was based on the assumption that the group was advocating stricter gun laws. But before I get to my concerns regarding this and its applicability to management, for those of you who don’t know what the Sandy Hook Promise is consider this.

Sandy Hook Promise is an…

In the human side of things we regularly hear about medical conditions that can result in death yet we can overlook their presence because they are asymptomatic.  The condition is present but unless a series of diagnostic tests are performed the patient never knows the problem exists.

Our organizations are no different. Every corporation has hidden in its processes; there are every day non-value added activities that serve no customer demands.  Which serve no benefit to the…

As organizations today we are faced with a major dilemma. We listen to government officials tell us that we really need to concentrate on turning out more individuals grounded in the STEM disciplines. But that push comes fraught with a major discord. Let me try and describe the dilemma in a real time example.

In our two-day seminar, on which this series is based, we used to ask the participants to complete Osterwald’s …

Dr. Tony Alessandra, the author of the book “The Platinum Rule” , suggests that the purpose of all businesses is to acquire and maintain customers. So how do we, as Tony suggests, acquire and maintain customers? We do so by listening to the voice of the customer as it relates to how we do business.

To begin with let me clarify what we mean by the term customer. Whether it is an internal customer in the…

Whether you are just joining the series or have been reading this series from the beginning, we are essentially at the same point. From here on out in the series we have begun a very unique journey. I can provide you with the starting point but I cannot provide you with the end point. Further, if you choose this assignment there is no way to return to where you have been because that place in time no longer exists. So let’s begin.

I stated above that we were beginning a journey. Like…

The third installment in the TLS Continuum series is devoted to discovering who really matters in the global workplace. It is the basis of an ongoing debate, sometimes a volatile one at that. The debate is on one hand talking about shareholders and on the other talking about stakeholders.

Which one is more important to your organization?

I will…

This second installment in this series is considering two issues. The first is where are we as HR professionals? The second looks at what we consider the definition of HR excellence, which will lead us to the roadmap for creating that HR Center of Excellence.

In Achieving HR Excellence through Six Sigma, the concept is presented that HR is at a crossroads, the…

This has been a very troubling last couple of weeks for me. I thought that we had progressed as a society beyond the point where we were stereotyping individuals based on our views of the world. Along with the rest of the world we watched the events unfold in reaction to New York, Ferguson, Cleveland and Phoenix. I was following a thread on Facebook in which a fellow member of the National Speakers Association was denied the opportunity to bring his powerful message to a University Campus…

What kind of manager are you? You really have only two options in today’s global workplace. The first one can be equated to the lion tamer in the circus. Is this a fair indication of your management style? If you still operate under the notion that your employees have a job to do. That they have a certain set way to do things and that each employee understands that their purpose is to follow in lack step your demands. As a manger, you firmly believe in command and control style of corporate…

On the way to the Veterinarian’s for an emergency run, we passed a church whose billboard stated “You can’t see the picture, if you are inside the frame.” The statement clearly applies to both our organizations and the dichotomy that exists in almost every workplace on the face of this globe we call earth.

Taiichi Ohno, the creator of the Toyota Production System, charged his managers with standing in a circle and observing the organization in real time. If we take Ohno’s charge in to…

I recently had the pleasure of talking to the members of the Mobile, AL chapter of the Society for Human Resource Management. Prior to my presentation, during the networking opportunity I walked the room stopping at each table and asking whether they were ready to go back to work and empower change in their organization. At one of the tables I stopped at, I received the response “sure as long as I don’t have to resign.”

We can’t remove the organizational inefficiencies unless we…

The news wires of late have been filled with stories one after another of NFL players involved in some form of domestic violence. Listening to Roger Goddell’s statement last week added to the feeling that something in this picture was missing. Like many organizations the NFL preferred their bottom line to what was morally and ethically right. Consider the reports from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding the $17,000,000 they have collected in fines for a wide range of…

Human Resources are at a critical crossroads in today’s global marketplace. One route leaves HR where it has predominantly been from the days of National Cash Register. We are primarily charged with being the corporate fireman. We are there as the organizational administrative policeman. The downside is that you then are perceived as being a commodity or a mediocre part of the organization. The result being the functional manager’s feel they could very easily do without what you do. If you…

Driving by the local church which has provided a great number of inspirations for past blog posts, they had on their billboard the statement “if our prayers are empty words so is G-d’s response” As many of you know I never talk religion in this space, and will not begin now, but it did bring up an interesting question.

What if our organizational message is nothing…

Listen to most organizational development professionals and they will tell you that the key to organizational change is to communicate, communicate and then to communicate again. I would pose another question, and that is how are you communicating the message and how is it being received? Are your messages being received in the context you intended them to be…

A month ago, many of us were glued to the tube watching the finals of the World Cup from Brazil. It gave us an insight into how in order to win, the players had to be quick and nimble. Every second of the game, the players had to be alert to what was happening on the field. The goalie had to forecast the moves that were required in order to meet the incoming ball to keep out of the net. The player on the field had to judge when was the right moment to kick the ball or to…

In the past couple of months my professional world has been turned upside down by two different organizations calling for changes. The first was the Society for Human Resource Management making the decision that after 130,000 certifications they needed to bring the process in house. The second was the National Speakers Association to change their brand to Platform.

I…

My “daughter” likes to preface her more profound statements with the saying “ I am just sayin…” and it seemed appropriate for this post to begin with her saying. Over the past year there has been much discussion in the social media realm about the future of HR.

Recently I have read and heard an ongoing discussion about the future of the human resource profession. On one side is the school of thought that says we need to go back to the days when we were called Personnel. Back to the…

The source for many of my posts over the years has been the local churches announcing their upcoming sermons for the Sunday services and this one is no different. Originally I thought about this in a different context but the events of the past week have changed my focus.

We are involved in an ever-changing world and these changes require that we change our focus and approaches in order to successfully deal with those changes.  They require us to change our corporate culture. Newton’s…

I was talking with a friend the other day who, was lamenting that she had too much work and not enough time to get it all done. Her manager contended the reason was that she and her teammate did not understand how to manage their time. This is an age-old argument that I hear often in the workplace.

It is a tendency for many in management roles to immediately assume…