This Blog Has Been A Major Distraction For Me

Yes, you read that right. This blog has been a major distraction for me.

Yet, the doors it has opened, the interests it has spawned, the friends I've met and the communities I've discovered are so worth the time, effort, blood, sweat, tears (!) 

Ha, it's not that bad but it most definitely is a commitment and one worth its weight in gold.

I was presenting a session on the benefits of blogging a few weeks ago and one participant asked, "how do you find the time?" My response, "I am a blogger. I make the time. It's that important to me."

There are HR pros, recruiters, career-advisors, coaches, leadership pros, writers and more breaking ground and making a difference every day from conferences, meetups and webinars to newsletters, radio shows, and more. For each one I linked to, there are many, many more out there.

This is not about me, it's about people knocking down doors and taking names. Here are some of the wonderful organizations and conferences  I've recently had, or will have, the honor of being part of in one way or another:    

   

   

  

 

 

Yup, this blog has been a major distraction for me . . . . and I wouldn't have it any other way.  

Your (HR) Personal Trainer

I have a regular little HR love fest going on here with Fresh Eyes and MN SHRM 2011, My Kind of HR, HREs Don't Run HR Departments and now today's post.

What the heck, this is an HR blog anyway.

I am taking a page from my daily life and making a connection to HR in 1-2-3 . . .

I hired a personal trainer. Her name is Kami and, for the next six months, her job is to get my butt in shape so I can feel healthy and strong again - strong enough to train for a half-marathon next spring, without injury, and finish respectfully (before the clean up crew comes out and has to clean around me.)

Not my trainer but my motivator 2009

This arrangement has worked well so far - she tells me what to do and I do it. Ah, the makings of a fine relationship.

I've been doing this HR stuff for a long time and have seen as many people succeed in HR as not. If I were an HR personal trainer, I'd train HR pros on the competency equivalent of strength, endurance, and flexibility: development, discernment, and dialogue.

IMHO, the strength of these three competencies is the difference between the successful and unsuccessful and between the successful and exceptional:

• Development. This is case development, point/counterpoint and building a position or course of action. It's research, letting no question go unanswered, and identifying impacts and influences. It's at the core of everything from advocating for new programs to setting strategic directions.
• Discernment. Not all information is created equally nor is it weighted equally. It knowing what's important to the development at hand, what can stay and what can go, and the impact (politically or culturally) of including or excluding info or advocating one direction over another.
• Dialogue. Nothing gets accomplished singularly and this is dialoguing with others via orally and in writing, with body language and through action. If you can't write it or speak it clearly, you will have an uphill climb in influencing others and impacting action.

So, what do you think - if you were an HR personal trainer, what would you train your clients on?