What are you doing? Lots of stuff, right?

It’s easy to be seduced by action – doing all the whats of what we’re doing.

Image copyright: annnna

It feels good to be busy. It feels good to do stuff without thinking. To feel wanted. To roll along. To do.

So nice in fact that sometimes we get into things just because we can, or always have, or someone says please.

For one day only, see what happens if you ask yourself and your team, why?

1. It brings the what into focus
2. It defines success
3. We’re likely to be more motivated when we know why it matters
4. It releases creativity – for alternatives whats that get to the why better
5. It creates options and helps prioritise
6. A clear common cause aligns resources
7. Decisions are faster and firmer
8. It can save a lot of work – particularly if there is no why and you can stop, or not start

No getting away with “because I have to” or “you told me to” — to get the benefit you have to go deeper than that. Visit the why-stuff-happened world of root cause analysis to work out why stuff should happen.

The 5 Whys Method.

Legend has it that Sakichi Toyada, founder of Toyota Motor Corporation, invented and systematised the 5 whys method for engineers looking for the seat of a given problem, although anyone who’s been a kid knows that asking a bunch of whys is the way we’ve always learned. You can use his method to determine the future, not just analyse the past. Just ask why (about) five times.

I’m about to drive to Cambridge to attend a conference (the possible action)

• Why? – I need to connect with some people in our market (first why)
• Why? – To find some potential pilot sites for our next product (second why)
• Why? – We like to do live testing before we do any marketing (third why)
• Why? – We’re obsessed with quality (fourth why)
• Why? – The golden rule; treat others as you’d like to be treated. We don’t want to sell anything that hasn’t proved its worth in the real world and we know is up to the job (fifth why, root cause)

So going to Cambridge is the tactic that will fulfil some personal goals and further the strategy and values of the company. If the answer to number 2 was, “I always go, they expect me there”, I’d save myself an awfully long drive.

Whenever you need to commit resources, better know why.

Neatly filed under Leading,Managing
Tags: planning, resources, values

Most HR departments do personnel administration, not human resources management.

Back when I was hired for my first job, I spent a few minutes with someone from Personnel who walked me through the mandatory administration tasks to get me on the payroll. Which was nice, obviously. My relationship with that department consisted solely of the monthly ritual of a wage slip passing into my hands.

I’m sure they did other things too. Hiring and firing type things. Working out benefits and salary structure type things. Administrative things.

Personnel departments mostly concerned themselves with hiring and administering good talent.

But it’s not the companies with the best talent who win. It’s not just about hiring well. It’s about nurturing and developing talent, bringing the best out of it, and getting it to work together for a common aim. Winning is about management.

Personnel people worked that out. They invented HR Management and talked about their role as strategic partners with a seat at the leadership table. Personnel departments became HR Management.

HR Management implies something more than handling the day-to-day administrative tasks. It implies the focused development of the expensive, value adding, parts of the organisation to improve performance of the individual and the whole.

Some companies pull it off.

But most don’t.

Twenty years after the revolution, HR departments mostly do Personnel. Working out payroll. Developing procedures not people. Administering not managing. Sitting in on interviews to ensure compliance with policy. Inventing arcane, time consuming, meaningless performance “criteria” that turn appraisals into exercises in form filling.

HR departments are perfectly good at doing administration – so were Personnel departments and so are specialist outsource specialists, probably at lower cost – but not much good at doing what they promise.

So what to do?

To misquote David Packard, HR is too important to be left to the HR department. Let HR do administration (whilst talking about strategy) and stop them getting in the way of humans, resources, or management.

Neatly filed under Managing
Tags: resources