Contest: Ugliest Tie

It's not an HR Challenge. It's just a fun little contest... for the ugliest tie.

Send me a picture of your ugliest tie. There's a few rules, and a very tough jury, but you might win a book!

Ze Rules
Send me a picture of your ugliest tie.
Condition: you must have been wearing this tie at least once in a professional setting. Srsly!

I need to see it!
Post it anywhere you like on the Interwebs. But make sure I know about it. I'll then add it to my Picasa account for everybody to see.

The jury
Ties are mostly part of a man's, man's world. This is why I asked 5 wonderful ladies to perform some jury duty:

• Meg Bear from Talentad Apps
• Cali from Cali & Jody, the wonderful ladies who brought you ROWE. And although you'll never realize it, also the ones who made sure Skynet will never conquer the world!
• HR Minion from The Awesome & Geeky HR Minion Blog
• HR Maven from the Incredibly Cool HR Maven Blog
• JT from Careerealism, because every job really is just temporary!

The book
The winner will get a book. If you win, I'll ask you to send me a link to your Amazon wishlist and you'll get a book sent to you by snail mail.

Here's my ugliest tie. I've got way uglier ties, but this is the blarghiest one I've ever been wearing at work.



Now it's up to you. Do your worst!
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HR Challenge: Compliments To Annoying People [update]

The newest HR Challenge is still up at JT's. What are you waiting for? Go post your reply so you can stop worrying about the scary gun from the future.

Brazen Careerist mentioned our challenge (see the "In The News" section).

Replies so far (see JT's comment section for the replies):

• Raphael Sita
• HR Minion
• Mark Stelzner
• me

And a former coworker left a comment, but refused to make me a compliment. Thanks ;-)

But wait, it seems that one very important contribution is still missing... yours!
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New HR Challenge Is Up At JT's

The newest HR Challenge is a team effort between JT O'Donnell and yours truly.

Like I already said on Twitter:

It sounds sweet, it's totes tough!

Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, and I know you're way too cool not to accept it, is to read this and then to post your reply.

And in case you're still hesitating, there's a gun from the future pointed at your head!
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Challenge: A World Without HR [Update 5]

Here's another contribution to the A World Without HR Contest:

• HR Minion (including dress code policy and nepotism)
  

Previous entries:

• Laurie from Team Building Is For Suckers
  
• Rick from Flip Chart Fairy Tales
• Wenchie from HR Wench
• Rachel Robbins from The Employment File
• Kris Dunn from The HR Capitalist
• Michael Wade from Execupundit.com
• Liz Williams from CollaborationZone

Thanks to everybody who participated!
You're so diverse, I'm proud of you ;-)
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Challenge: A World Without HR [update 4]

The long awaited contribution from Laurie is here. I've said it before, but it looks like this woman's core competency is to be both crazy and brilliant at the same time:

• Laurie from Team Building Is For Suckers
  

Bonus: Contribution to the first challenge

• Rick from Flip Chart Fairy Tales (and, of course, he had to break the rules...)

Previous entries:

• Rick from Flip Chart Fairy Tales
• Wenchie from HR Wench
• Rachel Robbins from The Employment File
• Kris Dunn from The HR Capitalist
• Michael Wade from Execupundit.com
• Liz Williams from CollaborationZone

Who's next?

More information in the original challenge post.
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Challenge: A World Without HR [update 3]

Here are two more entries to the "A World Without HR" challenge:

• Rick from Flip Chart Fairy Tales
• Wenchie from HR Wench

Previous entries:

• Rachel Robbins from The Employment File
• Kris Dunn from The HR Capitalist
• Michael Wade from Execupundit.com
• Liz Williams from CollaborationZone

Who else wants to participate? It's still not too late.

And to make it a bit more challenging, try writing from the point of view of senior management. What do you think they would miss?

More information in the original challenge post.
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Challenge: A World Without HR [update 2]

Here are links to the newest entries to my challenge "A World Without HR":

• Rachel Robbins from The Employment File
• Kris Dunn from The HR Capitalist

Previous entries:

• Michael Wade from Execupundit.com
• Liz Williams from CollaborationZone

It's not too late if you want to participate. And seriously, why wouldn't anybody want to participate ;-)

More information in the original challenge post.
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Challenge: A World Without HR [update]

Here's are the first replies to my newest challenge "A World Without HR":

• Michael Wade from Execupundit.com
• Liz Williams from CollaborationZone

The challenge is still open and everybody is welcome to participate. More information in the original challenge post.
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Challenge: A World Without HR

Here's a new challenge: What would happen in a world without HR?

Imagine it's the HR rapture
Within an instant all HR professionals disappear while everybody else stays.

It's easy to imagine with cab drivers. The immediate consequence would be lots of accidents. In the long-term there would be transportation problems at the local level.

Without any HR professionals around the economy wouldn't fall apart, but in the first weeks I assume there would be problems with salary payments and nobody would know where to find the templates to issue employment contracts to new hires. Of course, it wouldn't take long for finance to step in with payroll and legal would take care of contracts.

And here's the challenge
The worldwide fraternity of senior executives meets 6 months after the HR rapture to discuss why they miss HR. What would they say?

Challenge: Asshole Rating Self-Exam (ARSE)

In my last post about Robert Sutton's book "The No Asshole Rule" I challenged all HR Professionals to do the ARSE and report their personal score in the comments.

Congratulations to all the courageous ones who disclosed their scores! Here's an update

• 7 people participated with an average score of 5.43
• no Certified Assholes participated
• Laurie came up with the (not yet) scientific term AQ (Asshole Quotient)

I've published some statistics here.

Both in the book and in the online ARSE, the test consists of a total of 24 questions to the following topics:

• What are your gut reactions to people (8 questions)
• How do you treat other people? (10 questions)
• How do people react to you? (6 questions)

All "true" statements are counted which leads to the following possible results:

• 0-5 true: you're not a certificed asshole (if you answered honestly)
• 5-15: borderline certificied asshole
• 15 or more: full-blown certified asshole

To make my little statistics project possible I tweaked the categories to 0-5, 6-15 and 16-24.

The challenge is still open! Don't be afraid and don't be shy!

Book: The No Asshole Rule

I finally finished reading the famous book by Robert I. Sutton (PhD), professor at Stanford University. Bob's book is called "The No Asshole Rule".

Professor Sutton won't bore you with politically correct, scientific lingo. In fact, the first sentence of the book is:

When I encounter a mean-spirited person, the first thing I think is: "Wow, what an asshole!"

This book manages to combine scientific research with real world stories in a way that everybody can understand and relate to.

You will get information about studies regarding bullying, emotional abuse and harassment at the workplace. But in the end, Sutton will still call the "über-jerks" (see chapter 3) by their real name: assholes.

The book contains descriptions and definitions of abusive bosses and co-workers, examples and tips for surviving and leaving an asshole-infested work environment and, probably most important of all, recommendations that will help you realize that you're an asshole or help you avoid becoming one.

Chapter 6 is almost shocking as it describes the advantages of behaving like an asshole. But this only shows that Sutton analyzes a topic from every possible angle as the true scientist he is.

Here are some of the references that the trivia fans and celebrity addicts will enjoy: The Godfather, Virgin's Richard Branson, Disney's Michael Eisner, Google's Sergey Brin and many more.
(Prize question: which ones are the assholes? Oh, I forgot to mention Steve Jobs!)

And still, in the end there's no doubt that this book is not trivialized pop-science, but rather solid research explained in a way that even I can understand.

Bob Sutton's blog: Work Matters

The Self-Test from chapter 4 is also available online:
ARSE (Asshole Rating Self-Exam)
It's not really about "Am I an asshole or not?" but rather "where do I, or may I, behave like an asshole?".

2 weeks ago I was a 4 ("You don't sound like a certified asshole"). Today I'm a 5 ("You sound like a borderline certified asshole"). I'm not as nice as I used to be...

Challenge:
Do the test and post your score in the comments!

Guest Post: Rachel On Communication For Managers

This is a guest post by Rachel from The Employment File.

Rachel posted her Deathbed Managerial Advice in response to my "5 Things to say to Managers" challenge. Then I challenged her on her #5 "COMMUNICATE".

I must have said something like "this is great advice, but how do you motivate managers to really communicate when most of them will say that their voice mail is always available and that they have an open door policy (they usually say this when they work in an open space)."

Without missing a beat, she sent back the article below and allowed me to publish it. Since I like to have the last word, I wrote back some feedback, but she qualified my suggestions as "selling and schmoozing" to managers.
...and she challenged me to write a follow up post on "selling an idea to managers".


HR Advice to Managers: Communication

Having your door open or your lines clear is not communicating. There's nothing wrong with being available for these types of communication, but they should not be your primary communication vehicle. Communication is a two way road. While on the one side of the road you have employees "driving" towards you, that lane should be relatively free. On the other side of the road, you're approaching the employee, that lane should be bumper to bumper traffic.

So, let's say that you're on the road and you're ready to initiate communication. If it doesn't happen in voice mail and email where does it happen? Hopefully it's face to face. However, we're aware that it's not always easy to get face time with an employee. You should have set times to communicate with the employee on a weekly basis and work "on the fly" on a day to day basis. It means stopping for a second and checking in. What do you check in about? Well, think of how angry you would be (or your spouse would be) if you came home from work every night, asked how their day was, and then moved on to read the paper. While this is communication, it is communication at a very basic level. This is not the level of communication you want to give your employees or your spouse. Instead of, "how are you" try something like "I know today must have been hard for you working alone. I want you to know I appreciated it." Or instead of "This is the new policy, make sure you follow it" try "Here's the new policy, take a day to read it and come up with questions and then we'll have a staff meeting where I can address your concerns." See the difference?

One of the best ways to communicate with an employee is to provide them with feedback. Everyone loves to be praised! Make sure you reinforce their behavior when they do something right. This does not mean going on about how your administrative assistant can measure coffee, it means telling that assistant that you appreciate her getting your coffee with a smile when you know she'd rather be working on a more challenging project. Now, the opposite of praise is criticism. Don't worry! People don't hate criticism as much as they say. Most people want to better themselves and the best way to do that is to receive criticism. Now how you communicate that criticism matters. Don't tell Jim that watching him do a presentation is like watching paint dry. Tell him that he should look into it, and then....give advice on how to do that. Make sure criticism is always followed by advice on how to improve. It's just good communication.

As for HR, since full communication can be difficult to maintain, we like to give you reminders to keep you on the right path.

Challenge: J.T. O'Donnell's 5 Things

I was checking out Technorati and found by chance a link to J.T. O’Donnell's Deathbed Advice To Managers.

I absolutely love this statement:

There’s just no room for poor management styles anymore because employees are fighting back by quitting. HR knows best: replacing ineffective management is one of the most cost-effective ways to reduce turnover.

And if you think that "Employees hear what they see" sounds intriguing, then you absolutely have to read J.T.'s full list.


PS: My Technorati rank went up 2'879'935 in the last 40 days. But maybe this just means that almost 3 million people registered their blog after I did ;-)

Challenge: Frank's 5 Things

Frank over at The Employment File joined Rachel (also from The Employment File) and posted his own morbid advice.

if it ain’t broke, break it

This is certainly some controversial advice and of course I posted only part of it as it sounds more provocative this way.

This really makes you want to click on the nice link above and read Frank's "5 Things", right?

Challenge: Rachel's 5 Things

Rachel over at The Employment File posted her Deathbed Managerial Advice. After the somber organ music etc. now we even got a deathbed. I definitely don't want to see what your HR offices look like...

Here's my favorite:

Don't let the title go to your head.

I also read on The Employment File that Rachel just completed her Master's degree in HR this summer. Congratulations!

Of course, ze liste has been updated (mais naturellement).

Oh yes, and in case somebody asks for "the Swiss HR Priest who started the HR Death Cult", please tell them that I disappeared without leaving a forwarding address. Thanks.

I wish you all to live long and prosper!

Etienne
Founder, Owner and Proud Contributor to the THE Blog
(also President, Senior Vice President, Chief Communications Officer for Global Publishing and all around Executive Nice Guy)

Challenge: Ask A Manager's 5 Things

I asked a manager and she answered!

Ask A Manager's "deathbed advice" features the 5 final things she would say to managers.

And yes, I did say in the challenge: "Imagine, you're an HR professional and you will die soon". But I never thought that so many people would take it literally ("last gasp", "somber organ music", "things I must tell you before I go", "deathbed").

I guess it's true, HR people have a wicked sense of humor...

And the list has been updated.


Correction (2 December 2007):
I always thought the wise one was a man. I was wrong and corrected the text above.

Challenge: Liz' 5 Things

Liz Williams over at Collaboration Zone accepted the challenge and posted her "Five Things I Must Tell You Before I Go".

My favorite is no. 5: Leave room for others to add their thoughts.

I've added Liz' 5 things to the list.

Challenge: Wally's 5 Things

Wally Bock over at the Three Star Leadership Blog has accepted my challenge and posted a great article called Last gasp advice for managers.

But sharing wisdom from his rich experience isn't enough for him. He also took the "you will die soon" part seriously, even including "somber organ music".

Finally, he calls me the "Swiss HR Priest". Do I see new business cards in the near future?

The challenge is still open! You can get more information here and also read HR Wench's "5 Things" whose article "I Say Good Day Sir!" inspired this challenge.

Challenge: 5 Things to say to Managers

Imagine: You're an HR Professional and you will die soon. What are the 5 things you would say to the managers in your company?

Remember, you're dying. You have nothing to loose. And if you believe in Karma, lets assume for the sake of this challenge that your comments don't count against your Karma score. So you can say whatever you want.

What would you say?

Here is some background information. I challenge every HR Blogger to write about their "5 Things" and send me the link to their post.