SHRM Strategy Conference Wrap-Up

As a final follow-up to the SHRM Strategy Conference I wanted to share the following press information with you that was written by Kate Kennedy, @SHRMPress.

Oct. 5, 2011    HR Executives Consider Business Risk and Innovation

As human resource executives gathered Tuesday, Oct. 4, in Chicago to examine business risk created by technology, global competition and market uncertainties, an Internet entrepreneur turned the risk posed by social media upside down.  The biggest risk associated with social media is not investing enough time with it, BranchOut CEO Rick Marini told the 100 business leaders.

Social media is the most scalable way to get real-time information from customers, who in turn become marketers for you, he said. And Facebook, he added, brings incredible efficiency to keeping in touch. BranchOut is a professional network on Facebook

Marini was the dinner speaker on the opening day of the SHRM Foundation’s Thought Leaders Retreat -- “HR’s Role in Managing Business Risk” -- an exclusive event for chief human resource officers and CEOs.

Other quotable moments included:

·        To drive innovation, organizations need to set an aggressive vision and challenge orthodoxies, said Arun Leslie George, senior vice president and head of HR at Coromandel International of India. Align innovation to business goals and metrics, he suggested, noting: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”

·        The retreat, held before SHRM’s Strategy Conference (Oct. 5-7 in Chicago), continues Wednesday with speakers including Susan Podlogar, vice president of global compensation and performance for Johnson & Johnson.

Oct. 5, 2011    HR Thought Leaders: Balancing Risk and Opportunity

The Society for Human Resource Management’s Strategy Conference opened Wednesday, Oct. 5, with former General Electric HR executive Bill Conaty admonishing the 500 attendees not to forget the “human” in human resources.

“Don’t forget why we are at the table,” he said.

Conaty, co-author of The Talent Masters: Why Smart Leaders Put People Before Numbers, said the HR leader of the future will need to have a critical fit with the CEO and CFO, the trust and confidence of the senior management team and a capacity for complex problem solving and operational savvy.

Great leaders balance a passion for business with compassion for people, he said. Among his advice for professionals: “Great leaders do great succession planning.” “Be problem solvers vs. problem identifiers.” “When you stop growing, the game is over.”

SHRM CEO Henry G. (Hank) Jackson also included the importance of talent management in his remarks. “The question for all of us is: How do we differentiate our organizations and ourselves?  I would argue that as HR professionals … we must ensure that every employee has the opportunity to succeed at his or her greatest degree of potential.”

The 2011 Michael R. Losey Human Resource Research Award was presented to Dr. Sara Rynes, the John F. Murray professor of management and organizations at the University of Iowa and editor of the Academy of Management Journal. In accepting the award, Rynes described research as “the new competitive advantage.”

The conference, which features 17 speakers, continues Thursday, Oct. 6, with presentations by Jeffrey Garten, former undersecretary of commerce, and Bridget van Kralingen, general manager of IBM North America.

The conference followed the SHRM Foundation’s “HR’s role in Managing Business Risk,” an exclusive event held Oct. 4-5 for CEOs and chief human resource officers.

Why are HR executives considering risk now? Wayne Cascio, the Robert H. Reynolds chair in global leadership at the University of Colorado, said concern about business risk is a “byproduct of what happened and what we’ve been through with the global financial crisis.”

But he noted, “The danger of focusing on risk is that we miss out on the flip side – opportunities.” He encouraged HR leaders to put their organizations in “a position to benefit from an uncertain future event.”

 Oct. 6, 2011   SHRM's Strategy Conference: Talent Management Critical to Transformation

The company of the future defines its purpose so employees are truly inspired, has a global mindset and a broad network of ideas and talent, and is agile and resilient, finance expert Jeffrey Garten told attendees at the Society for Human Resource’s Strategy Conference in Chicago.

At the heart of the company of the future is HR. “It’s all about having the right people in the right places at the right time,” said Garten, dean of the Yale School of Management.

“The company of the future is a talent machine.”

Garten, former undersecretary of commerce for international trade, opened Day Two of the conference attended by top HR executives. “Leadership development has to be elevated to the same level as strategy and risk management,” he said, adding that he believes top executives need global experiences that allow them to experience culture and an understanding of public policy.

Brian Dickson, senior vice president of professional development at SHRM who hosted the conference, told the 500 attendees about a recent visit to Cuba by a SHRM delegation. At the heart of dramatic change on the island nation, he noted, is a shift from the public sector to the private sector. “Our time in Cuba brought home to me in a very vivid manner that change, anticipating change, adapting and managing change is integral to the well-being and very survival of our institutions.”

Thursday afternoon’s keynote speaker, Bridget van Kralingen, general manager of IBM North America, spoke about lessons learned from transformation and longevity. “Move to the future before it moves to you,” said the executive of the 100-year-old company. Don’t move when everyone sees it. “Move when it’s lonely.”

During the Oct. 5-7 conference, SHRM’s vice president of research, Mark Schmit, briefed reporters on the 2011 Job Satisfaction Survey, which will be released later this month. For the fourth year, job security was the top driver of job satisfaction, Schmit said.

For the first time, research included data on employee engagement and identified gaps between what employees value and how satisfied they are with what matters most to them. While 63 percent of employees responding to the survey said job security is very important to them, only 28 percent said they were very satisfied with their job security.

For more information about the Job Satisfaction Survey, contact SHRM Media Relations.

SHRM’s conference, “Creative, Effective and Scalable Strategies that Deliver Results,” ends Friday with Don Tapscott, author and authority on the impact of technology, speaking about “Rethinking Talent for the Age of Networked Intelligence.”

Birds Fly…Supervisors Die!

The title above is the outcome of critical thinking that occurred at the end of the SHRM Strategy Conference yesterday at the Chicago Fairmont as Don Tapscott delivered and ended his talk with an analogy that was extremely powerful.  Of course, we are not talking about individual Supervisors literally dying.  Instead, focus your thoughts on the potential idea of “supervision” perhaps going by the wayside as we continue to move toward more collaboration in organizations.  Whereas, I see collaboration is people who work “together” and not “for” others to accomplish the mission of the organization. 

As you watch the video here that I found on You Tube (not exactly the one he used), listen to the author describing the way these birds join forces (as an organization) and what they are doing together in the first place (mission).  It reminds me of how I chunk the information presented in my Organizational Behavior class at UIS.  First we talk about the individuals (the bird), then the groups which are made up of individuals (listen for “groups” of birds), and finally the makeup of the organization and how the individuals, groups and organization itself affect organizational behavior (the swarm).  Notice that no one bird continuously takes the lead (supervisor).  Ironically, they don’t even collide (conflict).  The work together elegantly, swiftly, and precisely to achieve the organizational objective (in this case spotting their prey). I will forever see swarms of birds in a totally different way than I did the day before Don’s talk. 

This presentation, by far, was the most thought provoking of all those I attended this week.  I give credit to the SHRM conference planners for choosing some outstanding speakers.  My second favorite was the one I wrote about in my first ILSHRM blog Steve Cadigan.  Others I found insightful, educational, and inspiring where Bill Conaty, Bridget van Kralingen, Cynthia Worden Lee, and of course one of this year’s ILSHRM keynoters Jason Lauritsen.  If you are having a conference, I would definitely recommend any of these speakers above.

Other posts written about this conference are:  ILSHRM Represented at SHRM Strategy Conference  and CEOs Sit-Up, Take Notice, & Incorporate THINK DIFFERENT.

-Donna Rogers, Director ISC SHRM