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March 2014

60-Second HR MBA: When Custom Work Makes Sense

There's an old saying/reality in the software business:

"Customization is the bane of software companies".  

That's because every customization you make to an existing software platform causes one of two things:

1. It causes you to write custom code that may cause you to run different versions of the software to accommodate the changes a customer is requesting. You have to keep up with different versions. OR:

2. Customization in your core single product that everyone isn't going to use just creates complexity and layers to the code bases that makes future releases/upgrades/bug fixes more problematic.  The more custom code you write in a single product, the more things will break or need band-aided in the future.

The bottom line is that customization causes complexity. The same logic holds true for your HR shop.  If you're good, you've got a set way of doing things, and if you do it the same way often enough, it's going to work pretty well.  But you'll have requests from your client group often to do it different ways.  It's hard to say no, but you should say no when you can.  Complexity eats away at your ability to deliver in an efficient way.

You know when customization for your HR client group really makes sense?  The same time that it makes sense for a software company.  When the work that you'll do to customize creates features that can be rolled out to more than one person/client.

Say yes to custom work that results in your HR practice being deeper and capable of delivering more.  Make sure you approach it like a product manager, to make it replicable.  

Run away from other custom work if you can.  But the take above means that if you run away every time custom work is requested, you're probably transactional - not strategic.


GETTING RICH OFF STOCK OPTIONS: The Big Lie..

I'm up over at Fistful of Talent talking about the fallacy of stock options and something sneaking into the scene called "liquidation preferences".  Here's a taste of what I'm talking about:

"Let’s examine the Kris Dunn history with forms of equity: Options

1.  Young KD works for just formed Fortune 500 company and due to decent timing on when he joined, has stock options upon IPO and, at one time, can count a payoff near 7 digits.  Said company craters into bankruptcy, and young KD first connects the term options with the word “vapor.” Executive for company actually opens drawer and peaks in at a sheet to tell me the number of options I would receive upon joining in secretive fashion.  What could have possibly gone wrong with that type of LTI intro?

Stock options - they don't usually go the way you want them to go...

Go get the whole post here.  And find out more about how it's even tougher today for the average employee to get paid via stock options due a nasty venture capital trend called liquidation preferences.

Compensation day at the Capitalist....


The Top 100 Movie Quotes for HR Pros: #80 is Brad Pitt: "What's the Problem?" (Moneyball)

Recurring series at the Capitalist: The Top 100 Movie Quotes of all time for HR Pros.  In no special order, I break down the 100 movie quotes that resonate most for me as a career HR pro.  Some will be funny, some will be serious... Some will tug at your heart like when the Fox voice-over guy said, "Tonight - a very special episode of 90210"... You get the vibe... I'll do it countdown-style like they're ranked, but let's face it - they're ALL special..

"What's the Problem?"

--Brad Pitt as Billy Beane in Moneyball

When you watch this clip, there's a couple of things happening that are pretty powerful from a Human Capital perspective:

1.  Billy Beane is using an open-ended question to engage a team.  "What's the problem?"

2.  The question is being used as a warning signal from a leader that change is not only needed, it's required.  That's why the question continues to be asked by Beane and why he gradually grows more impatient when his direct reports are unwilling to walk down the path of thinking differently.

3.  It also becomes a classic clip from the perspective of watching someone (the head scout to Beane's right) refuse to manage up in even the slightest degree.  You'll see that guy not only refuse to play along, but be outright belligerent from the perspective of trying to understand what Beane wants.  That guy loses his job shortly thereafter in the movie.

If you can't get onboard with change, you'll be part of the change, my friends.

"What's the problem?" is a pretty powerful question when trying to lead a team down a new path.  

(email subscribers, click through for the video below)


Google: Ability to Learn on the Fly is our #1 Hiring Criteria

Too good not to share about hiring at Google (via Tom Friedman in the NYT):

"LAST June, in an interview with Adam Bryant of The Times, Laszlo Bock, the senior vice president of people operations for Google — i.e., the guy in charge of hiring for one of the world’s most successful companies — noted that Google had determined that “G.P.A.’s are worthless as a criteria for hiring, and test scores are worthless. ... We found that they don’t predict anything.” He also noted that the “proportion of people without any college education at Google has increased over time” — now as high as 14 percent on some teams. At a time when many people are asking, “How’s my kid gonna get a job?” I thought it would be useful to visit Google and hear how Bock would answer.

Friedman's interview with Bock indicated Ability to Learn on the fly was the #1 hiring criteria at Google:

“There are five hiring attributes we have across the company,” explained Bock. “If it’s a technical role, we assess your coding ability, and half the roles in the company are technical roles. For every job, though, the No. 1 thing we look for is general cognitive ability, and it’s not I.Q. It’s learning ability. It’s the ability to process on the fly. It’s the ability to pull together disparate bits of information. We assess that using structured behavioral interviews that we validate to make sure they’re predictive.”

Cognitive, but not IQ.  A fast processor that allows you to process on the fly and make quick, accurate decisions.  

What was the last thing on Google's list?  Deep subject matter expertise:

"The least important attribute they look for is “expertise.” Said Bock: “If you take somebody who has high cognitive ability, is innately curious, willing to learn and has emergent leadership skills, and you hire them as an H.R. person or finance person, and they have no content knowledge, and you compare them with someone who’s been doing just one thing and is a world expert, the expert will go: ‘I’ve seen this 100 times before; here’s what you do.’ ” Most of the time the nonexpert will come up with the same answer, added Bock, “because most of the time it’s not that hard.” Sure, once in a while they will mess it up, he said, but once in a while they’ll also come up with an answer that is totally new. And there is huge value in that."

Curious. Learn on the fly.  Sounds about right.

Hat tip to Jack Grayson who gave me the article.  Thanks Jack!


HELICOPTER MOM: Where Should Your Kid Go To Work Out of College?

That's right - I'm calling you helicopter moms out.  You're hovering over your kid more than a CIA drone over Osama Bin Laden's house in Pakistan a few years back.  You've controlled all the details until now, but you're probably disappointed that you'll have to stop doing that once they break from college.

Why stop? Keep hovering, heli-mom!  I've got your playbook in my latest post over at Halogen Software.  I know where your kid needs to work in that all important first job out of college. Helicopter_mom Here's a taste from the post:

"What's a sweatshop of the information age?  

It's a knowledge intensive business where your kid can pick up four years of experience in the first 12 months.  

If they stay three years, they'll have the equivalent of 12 years of experience.  That means they'll be ready to be an overachiever by the time they're 26, which let's face it, is what you desperately want.

But you have to give something to get something.

The most common feature of the information age sweatshop: it’s a cruel place to work."

Go get the rest of the post over at Halogen Software.  I've got your plan post-college, helicopter moms.  Your welcome.  Keep on hovering.