This was the first time in a long time that I paid for a ticket to attend a conference simply for my own development.  Due to being a speaker, I spend a lot of time at conferences.  Most of the conferences I speak at are focused on the advancement of a particular industry or profession and are attended by people who are managers and professionals  from generally larger businesses.

Big Omaha was very different.  This was my first time attending this despite it being the fifth anniversary and it’s held where I live.  I had wanted to attend for years, but the stars hadn’t aligned.  It finally happened this year and I’m so thankful it did.  I’m not sure what my expectations were going into the event, but they were exceeded.  I was energized and inspired.

As I reflected on the experience, it occurred to me that there were some powerful differences between the tone, content and delivery of the speakers at Big Omaha that stands in stark contrast to the traditional, more corporate conference that I usually attend.  As I thought about it, the design and experience of this conference versus more traditional conferences might shed some light on why start-ups and small businesses tend to be more agile at innovation.

Here’s what I noticed:

• Candor and vulnerability were the norm.  The speakers told their own, often very personal, stories of the struggles and successes of entrepreneurship.  They shared their failures, pain and misgivings without varnish so that others could relate and find inspiration to keep going.  The message was clear: it’s not easy, but it’s worth it if you hang in there.
• Failure was celebrated.  I think every speaker talked about how hard it was to grow a business and admitted how many times they failed along the way.  One of the speakers,  the CEO of a successful start-up, shared that their software development team fails something like 90% of the time in developing new products and features.  But, they use those failures to fuel the 10% that their business thrives upon.
• The entrepreneur community is very supportive of each other.  Every speaker got a standing ovation.  Most of the speakers were good.  One, namely Mark Ecko, gave possibly my favorite speech I’ve ever heard.  But, not every speech was worthy of a standing ovation.  The thing was, it wasn’t about the quality of the speech.  It was about support, encouragement, and a “we want you to crush it” vibe.  It made me think about how this feeling of “community and support” doesn’t really exist within the other conferences I attend.
• Authenticity abounds.  One of the messages that came through loud and clear is that you have to be authentic and stay true to who you are and what you love for your business to survive and grow long term.  The leaders and CEO’s who spoke on the stage were artists of business.  It was clear that they were creators and that they took their art very seriously.
• Relationships matter.  These successful business leaders spoke of the relationships they have both in their business and personal lives as having significant importance to their success.  This wasn’t just about business relationships, but also personal relationships in their lives and the role they play in keeping things on the right track.

Big Omaha was a great experience.  While it probably has special impact on me as someone working to make a start-up business work, I think the lessons I gleaned have broad applicability to any business or group looking to stimulate innovation.  You can read more and check out some of the videos on the Silicon Prairie News site.  Maybe I will see you there next year.

Most people recognize the power of relationships to produce positive impact in their lives.  And, despite that, most people generally dislike the idea of what they believe they have to do in order to get these relationships.  That’s because we assume that building our network means going to cheesy, superficial networking events where we shake hands, swap cards and engage in idle chit chat.  It’s not like that at all.

The best way to build relationships of significance is by getting involved in some activity (project, volunteerism, event, board, etc.) that is meaningful to you and where you are there to make a difference.  As you get involved in meaningful activity with other people, you get to know each other in the context of doing some work together around shared interests and common purpose.  This is fertile ground on which to grow social capital that will propel your success.

We’ve been practicing this for years.  Clear back to the early days of our friendship over a decade ago, Joe and I were forming groups and organizing causes. Through these efforts, we met so many great people who have been really important to us through the years.  Getting involved in meaningful activity is fun, rewarding, and the best way to build your network in a high-impact way.

For those who haven’t heard yet, one of our most recent efforts at creating meaningful activity is The Frontier Project.  We felt like creating and hosting this event would be a great way to find and connect with others who are motivated like we are to see the work of human resources reinvented to be less wasteful of talent and more human being friendly.  This is important and meaningful work and we are on a quest to drive some change.  The event is still a couple weeks off, so registrations are still coming in if you’d like to join us.  But, we’ve already had the opportunity to connect to and do work with some awesome people in a new way.  Cool things are happening, our network is growing.

For example, Joel Cheesman of Drawmations reached out to us to inquire about partnering.  Though this partnership, he created this really cool video about the event.  Magic happens when you get involved in meaningful activity.  You should try it.

We even create special labels for innovators and early adopters because they are different.  If you are one of the different ones, if you are willing and able to be on the front end of the curve, join us on this adventure.  And, because you are a reader of our blog, we’ve even cut you a special deal on registration.  Sign up now.

If you are looking for ideas, resources, partners and solutions that will help you drive business performance through human resources, then our event is the kind of different you are seeking.

Here’s what is in it for you:

1. Process.  The Frontier Project is a facilitated group process designed using the principles of accelerated decision making.  The process is designed to tackle a problem or opportunity with a large group of diverse participants and drive some tangible and actionable outcomes.  It is creative, dynamic, focused, and intense.  It will involve conflict and discovery.  The process will reveal to you how diverse, high performing teams can perform together given the right structure and environment.

2. Learning.  We learn best by doing.  So, while working together with peers from other organizations for a couple of days may not immediately fit your mental model for learning and growth, it’s actually an optimized environment for learning.  As leaders, we too often overlook our own development.  This experience will be a turbo-charged learning experience.  You will learn from the process, the people you work with, and the outcomes of the work.

3. People.  It can be lonely work leading a revolution.  Everyone who attends The Frontier Project is a leader engaged in transforming the work of HR in their own way.  You will connect to others who are fighting similar battles, traveling similar paths so that you can support each other.  You will find your tribe.

4. Solutions.  This event isn’t about talk, it’s about driving to conclusions and solutions.  We will walk away from our two days together having made some declarations about the transformation of HR.  We will leave with clear ideas about what to do next and how to take this back and apply it to our own work, how to shape HR as a weapon for our businesses to use in attacking the future.

5. Inspiration to act.  At the end of the process, you will leave inspired to do something.  Perhaps, it will get you off the fence on an idea you’ve been contemplating for some time.  Maybe it will give you the courage to go farther with your work.  You will leave changed by the experience and emboldened to take the next big step.

We hope you will join us in Omaha on May 20-21, 2013.   Click here to learn more and here to register.

According to a research study soon to be published in the academic journal, Computers in Human Behavior, it was estimated that “between 60 and 80 percent of people’s time on the Internet at work has nothing to do with work.”  They call this behavior “cyberloafing.”  Since in many of our work environments, employees use a computer for most of the day and have ready access to the internet, this data point is a little unsettling.

The title of this study was “The effects of sanctions and stigmas on cyberloafing” with the seeming purpose of the study to investigate effective ways to thwart cyberloafing  at work.   Joseph Ugrin, a professor at Kansas State University was one of the study’s authors:

Although organizations benefit from positive aspects of the Internet like improved communication, some have trouble addressing cyberloafing, Ugrin said. Companies spend time, money and effort trying to monitor computer usage, detect what employees are doing online and write policies for employees on acceptable Internet behavior.

Threats of termination and detection mechanisms are effective deterrents against activities such as viewing pornography, managing personal finances and personal shopping, according to the study. However, that may not be enough.

Policies must be enforced to discourage activities like excessive personal emailing and social networking.

“We found that that for young people, it was hard to get them to think that social networking was unacceptable behavior,” Ugrin said. “Just having a policy in place did not change their attitudes or behavior at all. Even when they knew they were being monitored, they still did not care.”

Here’s the problem.  This entire study, beyond the point where they quantified how much work time spent on the internet wasn’t “work related”, missed the point.  It is clear that this was written by researchers and not those tasked with the actual management of people.  This isn’t a policy issue.  In fact, “cyberloafing” may not even be a problem that needs to be fixed.

There were some dangerous assumptions made in constructing this survey:

• “Cyberloafing” is an employee behavior issue that needs to be changed or eliminated.
• Personal time spent on the internet at work comes at the expense of other work they are putting off, avoiding or skipping at that moment.
• Allowing personal emails and access to social networks at work is a bad thing.

When you step back form this issue for a moment, the bigger question that becomes obvious is “how do employees have so much free time for “cyberloafing” in the first place?”  This study hit my radar thanks to an NBC Today Show segment.  In the piece, they interview people who admit to cyberloafing and the most common response is essentially that they need something to do when they are bored.  That sounds a lot like a management failure, not an employee behavior problem.

What to do?

If you suspect that this might be an issue within your organization, resist the urge to create new policies or rules.  These represent band-aid solutions that completely ignore the underlying issue.  Why do employees have so much time to burn while they are at work?

To effectively address this issue as a leader involves less investigation of employee internet behavior and more time looking in the mirror.  Start with these questions.

1. Are the expectations for performance clear to both employees and managers?  If an employee isn’t clear about what is expected of them and what results they are expected to produce, confusion and indifference can result.
2. Is there a consequence associated with meeting expectations?  In too many organizations, performance management has become benign.  If leaders aren’t actively providing feedback and holding people accountable to expectations, then there may as well not be any expectations in place.
3. Are you spending more time worrying about “how work gets done” rather than “what work gets done?”  Business performance boils down to results.  And yet, too often we spend our time worrying about what our employees are doing during every minute of the day.  If expectations and consequences are clear, and accountability exists, why are you worried about how it gets done?
4. Are your employees liberated to care about their work?  When the conditions above are not met, most employees are hearing a constant stream of communication from management about what they can’t and shouldn’t be doing.  When the expectations of performance are clear, then management needs to step back and allow employees some room to determine how they put their own unique signature on their work.  The more employees feel like they are influencing how their work gets done, the better their work will become and the less you will need to worry about how they spend their time.
5. If employees are getting their work done, who cares if they are using the internet for non-work related purposes (so long as they aren’t illegal or inappropriate for the workplace)?  Most every employee in our organizations who is on salary spends some amount of time outside of “work” doing work-related tasks.  So, why not allow them some space at “work” to do some personal things?  I think that might be what some people mean by work-life balance.

This is another example where management lays blame on employees for behaving in ways that occur because of a lack of leadership.  Before writing new policies or buying new employee monitoring software, try applying some leadership.

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Consider joining us May 20-21 at The Frontier Project: Reimaging the Role of Human Resources.  It will be unlike anything you’ve attended before.  This two day event is not a conference: no powerpoints, no keynotes, no breakouts.  It is a facilitated journey of exploration and discovery.  You and your peers bring the genius that makes it work.  It will be like a think tank on steroids for leaders in the business of HR who are serious about reshaping the work of human resources. We will collectively reimagine HR and outline how to begin the transformation.  We will solve, learn and connect to focus our work for greater impact in the future.

WorldBlu is a global network of organizations committed to practicing freedom and democracy in the workplace.

Our purpose is to unleash human potential and inspire freedom by championing the growth of democratic organizations worldwide.

Traci has a powerful vision for how freedom and democracy can transform the workplace–and she is making it happen.  Their message deeply resonates with me  as it is so connected with the type of work we do.

One of the tools Traci and her organization share and use is what they call “the power question.”  Despite being a disciple of questions, I have to admit that when I first heard this one, I didn’t understand it’s impact.  But as I’ve considered it, used it and shared it with others, the power has become very clear to me.  Here it is:

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

This can be applied to you individually, to your team or to your organization.  When you are confronted with an important decision or choice, you use the power question to uncover the path that is most likely to reveal amazing results to you.  The answer to this question is where you find opportunity and breakthrough.  The reason this question is so powerful is that most of the time, we aren’t aware of how afraid we really are or how much fear is dictating our actions.  Once we reveal the fear, we can chose to embrace it and go forward despite it.  Traci explains this much more eloquently than I could ever do justice to, so I am embedding her Tedx talk at the bottom of this post for you.  If you are intrigued by either the concept of workplace democracy or the power question, the video will fill in more details for you.

Fear is running rampant through our organizations.  As we have conversations with leaders to explain to them that the pathway to a culture that yields amazing results is through liberation of talent, not tighter control, you can hear the fear in their response.  The very idea of loosening their grip on the reigns scares them to death because it’s the only path they know.  Liberation can feel like pretty messy business at first, particularly for leaders suffering from the delusion that they are in control.

The power questions offers up a great test for any leader staring at an organization that needs to go faster, to be better.  What would you do if you weren’t afraid?  You might turn more of the business over to the people and trust them to carry it into the future.  You might find the courage to be vulnerable and admit that you don’t have all the answers, that you need help.  You might let go of control and lead people to be their very best through their work.

Great things lie on the other side of our fears if we can only find the courage to step into them.

It is fun and rewarding to have the opportunity to deliver keynote messages for conferences and corporate clients. We love this part of our work and we will continue this part of our work. Along the way, we have also gotten more and more requests related to helping organizations drive progress with the concepts that we talk and write about. There was growing interest in converting our ideas into tangible business results.

Late last year we sat down and decided it was time for Talent Anarchy to become more than just an inspiring message from the stage. We made a commitment to provide tools, direct guidance and resources toward a fuller implementation of the core components of our message.

We are excited to announce the next evolution of Talent Anarchy as a training and development provider. We are excited to step out from behind the pulpit, to roll up our sleeves and to get to work helping people drive greater results in their organization through better talent practices.

One of the most important challenges facing us in making this transition was in getting some real clarity about the role of the work that we do. Why should business and/or HR leaders care about what we can do for them? In the past, our product has been speaking: we were paid to enlighten and entertain. We will continue to enlighten and entertain, but we also know that we have both a unique ability and a unique opportunity to help organizations harvest greater speed and innovation through their talent practices. We have valuable insights into the what, why and how of connection, inclusion and liberation.  Three principles, that not usually found on a development plan, are the essential ingredients for speed and innovation.  If your interest is piqued, you can find a lot more about this on our new website.

Speed and innovation are increasingly critical for success and even for survival. When we try to drive greater speed and innovation, we too often turn to process while overlooking the role of talent. That is a mistake we can help you avoid.

Our doors are open, the welcome mat is out. We do not take ourselves too seriously, but we take our work very seriously. We know that the stakes are high. We would love to talk further about this when you are ready.

When we rolled this out, we weren’t sure how much of an impact it might have, but as we started to teach the concept, we started getting great feedback.  People keep telling us that it has real application for them.  Plus, HackLab is a working session where they practice and often walk away with some great hacks to apply to their work immediately.

So, when I had the opportunity to present an Ignite HR session last fall at The HR Reinvention Experiment, I took the opportunity to introduce that audience to the idea of using hacking to drive innovation.  If you aren’t familiar, the Ignite format is a presentation format where you get 20 slides, 15 seconds per slide and the slides advance automatically.  It’s a fun and challenging format to present.  It forces you to pack a lot of information into a little time and to be really focused with your message.

My session was titled “Creating a Workforce of Hackers” and it outlines how this process works.  If you can spare 5 minutes, I think you might like the idea.  Let us know what you think.

(If the video doesn’t appear below for you, click here to see it.)

We first met Heather at the SHRM Annual Convention in Atlanta this summer.  By our good fortune, we crossed paths with her again at HR Florida a few weeks ago.  Heather is a consultant, speaker, and executive coach hailing from Anchorage, Alaska.  She was speaking at HR Florida and decided to sit in our Social Gravity session there to hear it a second time (she is apparently a glutton for punishment).  On the heals of hearing us in Florida, she wrote a post titled “Freak Flag” that we share here with her permission because it nails an important piece of our message.  Please check out her blog and connect with her on twitter, @LeadingSolution.  

Freak Flag

I had the pleasure of speaking at two state conferences this past week.  2012 HR Florida Conference and Expo and 2012 HR Indiana.  I spoke on three topics: Recruitment, Engagement and HR’s Purpose.  I love all three of these topics and I hope my passion and energy helped carry my message during these sessions.

While in Florida, I had the opportunity to get to know Jason Lauritsen and Joe Gerstandt; this duo make up Talent Anarchy.  I’ve met them both before but Florida afforded us to opportunity to get to know each other and, I’m sure, formulate some strong opinions in that regard.  :-)

In any event, they either liked me or needed to bribe me to go away and thus, they presented me with gifts: their book Social Gravity, a Freak Flag for my office and a handful of temporary tattoos.

Before I applied my tattoo, I pondered whether or not I had the right to wear it.

• Was I worthy of communicating to everyone that I dare to be unique?
• Could I honestly say I passionately pursue and/or utilize my talents?
• Is it true that I refuse to compromise my values?

Heck Yeah!

Flying your Freak Flag IS NOT about getting attention, being popular, being a member of some elite group, etc.

• It’s about loving what you do and striving to do it better each day.
• It’s about understanding your talents and ensuring you put them to good use.
• It’s about sticking up for what you believe in even if it’s uncomfortable to do so.
• It’s about having the courage to be authentic and real.

I proudly slapped that tattoo on my arm!

People sure were curious as to why someone like me would be sporting such an interesting tattoo.   (Note to self…write Blog Post on First Impressions, Bias’ and Assumptions.)

I spoke with no less than 30 people before that temporary tattoo started peeling off my arm.  Blue Grass Musicians, Blue Haired Ladies, Veterans, Flight Attendants, Pilots, Servers, Bus Drivers, Engineers…many asked and many learned.

I’m sure I didn’t do Jason and Joe justice in my explanations but nonetheless, I did the best I could explaining WHY I cared to Fly My Freak Flag.

• I light up and shine when I’m doing what I love.  I pale when I don’t.
• I use my mental resources wisely when I’m doing what I love.  I waste energy on fear, indecision, do-overs or drama when I don’t.
• I fly through my work when I’m doing what I love.  My days, hours and minutes travel in slow motion when I don’t.
• My mind is acutely focused and sharp when I’m doing what I love.  I am distracted, confused and struggle with clarity when I don’t.
• My conscious is clear when I’ve done what I love.  I lie awake at night “what if’ing” and full of regret when I don’t.

In the end, I know I am uniquely me when I’m doing what I love.

And while this authenticity comes with scars, flaws, quirks, anxiety and the occasional storm of swear words, I’m ok with that – they do nothing but add contrast to the colorful tapestry that is my Freak Flag.

You can find the original post by following this link.  

It was great spending the last four days at the HR Florida conference with you and a lot of great HR professionals.  Between the sessions we presented and just hanging out around the conference, we got to connect with a lot of passionate and motivated HR pros.

As I thought about the overall conference and the conversations I had regarding the struggle and quest to improve HR, there was really one theme that kept bubbling up for me.  Improving HR and impacting our company comes back to intention.  I think that there is way too much “going through the motions” happening in HR where we are repeating the sins of those who came before us.  We have inherited systems and processes from the past that we then defend and build upon without knowing why or any understanding of the intention behind these approaches in the first place.

If I could wave my magic wand and make anything come true, I’d wave it and make it so that every HR professional in the world would be paralyzed to take action on anything they do until they understood why they were doing it and how it impacted the objective it was designed to achieve.  HR departments would ring with the sound of “why” every day for quite a while.

• Why do we use numbers on our performance appraisals?
• Why are salaries treated as private?
• Why are we trying to automate everything?
• Why do we survey for engagement?

When you start asking why a lot, particularly related to practices that have been around for a while, you start seeing opportunities to make progress everywhere.  The worst answer when asking why is “I don’t know.”  Because at least a bad reason is something you can work with to make a different decision.  Where there isn’t a reason or intention that is clear, then that’s a pretty good indication of activity for no purpose.

Any theme in particular come up for you?

Jason

As you mentioned in your post, we are camped out here in Orlando this week at the HR Florida Conference.  For those who don’t travel the conference circuit, this one of the largest state HR conferences in the country.  We travel to a lot of conferences, so I don’t always slow down to really try to feel what’s happening at the conference and try to pick up the trends.  Since we are here for a few days, I’m trying to pay closer attention this week.

Here’s what I’m noticing.

• HR professionals, despite the fact that many have been in the bad news business for the past few years due to the economy, are still pretty engaged and excited about their work.  The passion they have for their job is clear to me.  Where there’s passion, there’s potential in my book, so I think this is a good sign.
• I get the sense that HR professionals are starting to look for a higher bar in terms of content at these events.  My impression is that most of the people are knowledgeable about their work and they want to be challenged with new ideas–they want to be stretched.  Both of us, together and individually, try to create content that is new, challenging and actionable to audiences, and I’m struck by how often people will come up after a session and say, “this session made my conference.”  I take that as a sign that they are ready for more challenging content across the board.
• The HR community is social when they get together, but they really aren’t connected at a level that I think could transform their work.  People are very friendly and they seem very happy to be here.  But, I actually had a woman sit down next to me at a session yesterday and strike up a conversation.  As we talked, she mentioned that she was disappointed by how few people where interested in striking up a conversation with her, even when they sat next to each other at conferences.  She was looking for some networking and was finding it lacking.  Perhaps some of them will swing by our Social Gravity session today to be inspired and educated on how to connect because this is still clearly a gap.  Once the HR community embraces the power of social capital and network, I think we can advance our work much faster.

I love the work and the people of HR.  So, I am excited to be here this week.  These are my day 1 reflections from this event.  We’ll see what Day 2 brings.

Jason