Switch HR without apology

More than a few times in my HR-Plus career, friend and foe have accused me of having an ax to grind.  I seem to have a knack to offend, especially some HR colleagues of conventional bent and think.  Moreover, I have a career track that tends to stray from the HR-center to wider worlds, be it manufacturing operations, GM oversight, marketing communications or sales support.  In all such endeavors I pride myself in earning a higher role and calling in service to my employers and clients than what SHRM covers in their certification tests.  I admit the flaw of my errant ways and to corporate insubordination during these uncharted journeys, especially youthful indiscretion in the early climb-the-ladder years where leading with the chin seemed bold, even when it wasn’t very bright.

Of course, we all calm down a bit when age kicks in and reason turns to wisdom and mistakes transform to lessons learned.  People love to say that, if they had to do it all over again, they wouldn’t change a thing—that of course, isn’t true of anyone.  But it does sound good in the biography section.  Taking the opposite position ain’t all that remarkable either.  Sure, I would change a thing or two or three of course, but why lament?  In fact, such humility—while popular in the genre of honest John’s and candid self-reflectors—is not at all impressive to me and comes off in itself as quite irrelevant. Yeah, we all have flaws and scars and make mistakes, don’t know everything and all that yap, but simply saying so adds nothing to the cause.

Why, for example, do people ask forgiveness right before they say something worth saying or actually do something worth doing?  Of course, this is just one man’s view, they say. I could be totally wrong about this, but … I can’t pretend to understand your dilemma, however…, This is just my opinion and I’m no expert, but…. Disclaimers, disclaimers. Yuk.  People who do that may as well just say, Hey, I have no idea what the hell I’m talking about right now, but I am going to speak anyway and give you an uninformed opinion that you shouldn’t consider because it’s ignorant. Wow, glad you shared that. Jeez…

Apologize Not

There is a lot to be said about conviction.  I was in “sales mode” at a recent prospect engagement and was in that exhilarating groove where I knew my services were a perfect fit for the client-to-be.  Tell me why you wouldn’t buy from me, I thought.  Make a decision! I have been told more than once to calm down the rhetoric in my blog posts, as it threatens to turn off more people than it attracts.  No reason to offend people, I’m told.  The good stuff gets lost when people get their back up.

Maybe so.  But I post on my blog in order to create a response and to attract a certain type of person—leaders.  Granted, I may occasionally annoy some people in the process.  And if, instead, I exaggerate (aka lie) to make you like me, what does that say about the integrity of what I offer?

I began stumping my pitch to “switch HR” over a decade ago by speaking to local SHRM chapter audiences.  I wasn’t selling anything at the time, except my passion and experience with a particularly great employer.  There I was able to rebuild a much-broken personnel shop and launch a change and talent build strategy that was unconventional in every way.  I loved telling the story to any audience willing to listen.  The reaction was consistent with each HR-crowd—Half seemed to love what I had to say; the other half hated it.  Almost nobody was humdrum in between.  My message was divisive. That’s when I knew I had something worth shouting about. That’s when I stopped apologizing.  As I was turning people away, I was forming a bond with other people who shared my passion.  And it’s the bond that builds the business, not to mention character.

Leadership, not salesmanship

One of the things I love about my current employer is that we are the hands-down leader in our industry niche.  Not just in the brochure, but really.   Therefore, we get the privilege to educate and lead; not sell.  Our marketing literature tells the truth with passion, not spin. We explain, rather than persuade; we attract, rather than promote.   It’s a good place to be.

Let’s face it, there are thousands of posts in the HR blogosphere that look just like the next. Many, take the “unconventional” approach and growing legions of HR-bloggers resonate with a distinctive “anti-HR” and presumably pro-business message. Yes, there are a lot of us.  But very few are truly different.  Rare, does the content stray to points that truly engage innovators and enrage dissenters.  Instead, HR-marketers strive to differentiate themselves with snappy HTML pages, neato flash programs, smart design templates, and succinct bullet point messages. Keep it short and crisp, they say, people don’t have time to read all this….

Sure it’s easy to do the same; but that doesn’t work for me.  And it won’t work for my clients who are thoughtful, passionate, reflective and discerning.  If you don’t have the time to read my stuff, make the time.  It’s good stuff.  Sound arrogant?  It is.  Winston Churchill famously remarked, History will be kind to me because I intend to write it. I love that and use it in my motivational lectures.  It resonates with people who love and appreciate leadership. See, Churchill didn’t write the book– he was the book. He had conviction and, yes, definitely arrogance.  He believed in his own stuff and he had a passion for it.  As a result, a lot of other people believed it too.

So yes, we do make an enemy or two because of our rebellious bent and highly critical perspective.  We don’t want to fit in to a profession that is not living up to it’s potential.   At Switch HR, it is our very love for the human resources profession and the good souls who we serve that drives our passion– in favor of the things we can do well; and against the things that waste our HR-time and have no value.  Helping people succeed in business and in life is as worthy a profession as any other on the planet.  However,  we don’t want to just fit in. We don’t want to be SHRM Certified.  Leaders don’t want to conform. Instead, you can demonstrate that it’s okay not to conform.  When they see you are willing to be first into the fray–better yet, when you create the fray– they will be thrilled, even honored, to follow you into battle.

It’s about leadership, not salesmanship.  And in our tiny HR-world, we will keep plugging and offending and delighting as the case may be—knowing that a good leader inspires people to have confidence in the leader; but a great leader inspires people to have confidence in themselves.

So get out there and Switch HR. Be the real deal.  And don’t you dare apologize.