January 2014

In its research report, The Conference Board CEO Challenge 2013, American respondents ranked concerns about operational excellence, government regulation, customer relationships, and innovation above challenges related to human capital (human resources). This fifth-place ranking is the lowest among CEOs surveyed around the world. Let’s think about the role of human resources in all of this:

1. HR should be directly involved with improving operational excellence by understanding total quality management and similar tools. Bring this same level of excellence to the HR function.
2. HR should manage government regulation as it relates to human capital. This job is considerably more difficult in states like California and if you have offices abroad. There’s no substitute for audits, surveys, training, and running data to make sure you’re meeting these obligations.
3. The quality of customer relationships depends primarily on how well HR supports the hiring of these employees. HR can also work with the marketing department to brand the importance of great customer service to the workforce.
4. Finally, HR has to improve its willingness to innovate. Most people view HR as boring, unimaginative, non-innovative, etc. – largely because it is! How many HR experiments have you implemented in such areas as of hiring, retention, performance management, generating employee suggestions, and so forth?

This survey tells me that American CEOs continue to undervalue the opportunity in human resources. The challenge for HR professionals is to step up and give these executives a reason to change their minds.

According to the 2013 Inc. 500 CEO survey, the top three attributes of outstanding leaders are trustworthiness, sincerity, and a capacity to inspire. This survey can be viewed as a self-prophecy. Perhaps this is how most of the CEOs view themselves. Of course, they see themselves as trustworthy, sincere, and inspiring. But is that how their employees view them?

According to Inc. magazine, likability was the last of 21 characteristics for making great leaders. In my experience, you don’t have to like a boss to work for him or her, but the chances are you won’t work there very long. However, if you like the boss, you’re likely to stay remain much longer, even if you could make more money elsewhere. To see the survey results, go to http://www.inc.com/magazine/201309/how-the-inc.500-approach-leadership.html.

The California case, Rope v. Auto-Chlor System reinforces the futility of an employer trying to terminate an employee so as to avoid liability. Plaintiff Scott Rope informed his employer at the time of his hire that he planned to donate a kidney to his physically disabled sister. He had requested to be given leave to do so. He later requested that leave be extended and paid under newly enacted Donations Protection Act, which was to take effect January 1, 2011. Rope was fired two days before the DPA came effective; with Auto-Chlor clearly hoping to avoid the 30-day payment obligation. The court agreed that the employer could not be held liable under a law that had not yet taken effect. However, it added that, under the circumstances, Rope had a potential claim, because the disability of his relative was a substantial factor motivating the employer’s decision, otherwise known as “associative discrimination.”

The court cautioned:

“Our holding should not be interpreted as a siren song for plaintiffs who, fearing termination, endeavor to prepare spurious cases by talking up their relationship at work to a person with a disability; such relationships do not, by themselves, give rise to a claim of discrimination. An employer who discriminates against an employee because of the latter’s association with a disabled person is liable even if the motivation is purely monetary. But if the disability plays no role in the employer’s decision, there is no disability discrimination.”

The case was sent back to the lower court to determine whether the plaintiff’s disability or that of his sister played any role in the employer’s decision. If it was purely an economic choice, there was no disability discrimination. (The court indicated that Rope himself did not have a disability as the result of donating a kidney, nor did the company act as if he had one).

You either choose your story for yourself or let others choose it for you. As Don Miguel Ruiz reminded us: we can become domesticated into our stories. This means that they’re often not of our own making. As I say, they are gifted to us. Often these stories are so familiar to us that we’re unaware that they even exist. They can affect us both good and bad for a lifetime.

It took a revealing experience in my mid-thirties which caused me to become an independent thinker. In a workshop, I had the highest winning score ever in a betting game designed to teach win/win thinking. The only instruction they gave, or would give, was to win as much as you can. There was a guy in the corner with a megaphone continually barking out this instruction to the participants.

I dutifully manipulated the game (as instructed) and won more than anyone else by a large measure. Heck, being a lawyer, the game of manipulation came natural. Of course, this meant I helped generate a number of really bad…and upset… losers. During a group de-briefing afterwards, I was asked if I could see that I could have played a win/win game where all participants could prosper. I said sure I could see that, right away in fact, yet I justified my high score by saying “I was only following instruction! Those were the game rules and we lawyers are trained to follow rules. In addition I was raised by a 6’3” Marine Corps Sergeant. (I felt like his last soldier at times.) You better believe I learned about following rules early on in life!”

The facilitator then asked me an insanely powerful question: He said “Do you always listen to the noise?” My brain stopped dead in its tracks! Wow. The noise. Why did I blindly follow instruction? What other “rules” am I following that aren’t of my own making? Do they really make sense? As Gurdjieff might ask, “Am I truly an automaton?”

From that day on, I determined to think for myself; to become 100% responsible for my lot in life. I decided that I could no longer do the safe thing, the thing I had trained myself to do, the thing I did so well; but rather to evolve and do what I should do. For 17 years as a plaintiff’s attorney, I had been feeding off the story that litigation was how I could make a difference. When I stopped listening to the noise and reality hit, I had a midlife crisis. I couldn’t live my passion using litigation to actualize it. Nobody wins a lawsuit. There had to be a better way!

Sometimes we question our sanity when reinventing ourselves. Change is fearful even if it’s exciting. Will they let me champion this idea I have? Is this new career or business going to survive? Am I going to go bankrupt – again? Will a competitor come along to put me out of business? Do I really want to do this anymore? Am I too inexperienced to do it? Am I nuts?

If you try to do the exact same thing, the exact same way for the next three – or 30 – years, you’ll be guaranteed to turn into that automaton and regret missed opportunities.

Don’t listen to the noise. Don’t let others decide what your story will be. Think for yourself.