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Dr. Laurence J. Peter, creator of the Peter Principle, said:
Competence, like truth, beauty and contact lenses, is in the eye of the beholder.
(Peter L.J. & Hull R., The Peter Principle - Why things always go wrong, 1969)
This quote isn't helpful if you're looking for a definition of "competence". If you've been looking for your contact lenses, however, maybe they were in your eyes the whole time and you've just experienced a classic "duh" moment.
You may have some specific criteria for evaluating your own competence. This is good and necessary on a personal level and should validate your self-esteem. But if you want to boost your career, all that matters is whether your manager thinks you're competent or not.
So the next question is: what does your manager expect from you?
I can spontaneously think of two completely different criteria for competence. Your manager's main goal is that you:
- provide great customer service
- execute processes as efficiently as possible
Of course you're an engaged professional and want to offer your customers both. But unfortunately trying to get the best of both worlds often results in mediocre performance and disappointed managers.
Let me illustrate the two examples:
An employee pops into your office an has a question. You know that it will take you 15 minutes to make your customer happy.
Great customer service
You drop what you were doing and take care of the unplanned request. The employee will be very happy but you might have to go home later than planned or won't be able to deliver some things on time.
Efficient processes
Dropping what you were doing is not efficient, so you ask your customer to send you an email and promise to take care of the request within 72 hours. The employee seems a bit disappointed when he leaves your office and you lock the door behind him to avoid further distractions.
Depending on what is expected of you, both reactions can be appropriate. The art is to find out what your manager expects of you.
Since many managers have trouble formulating their expectations, here's a hint:
- If your company has 1 HR person per 50 employees, you should be able to provide customized services and satisfy spontaneous requests at once.
- If there's only 1 HR person per 300 employees, you're probably better off defining some Service Level Agreements (e.g. all requests must be sent to hr@YourCompany.com and will be processed within 72 hours).
...and did you find your contact lenses?
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No, I'm not depressed and I'm not borderline suicidal either.
Yes, I'm a big fan of Heroes. Although lots of people say that it's lost its edge, I still luh-huve it. Very much, very deeply and very fondly.
At the beginning of ep 3x10 (for the die-hard fans: at 9 min 4 secs) Brea Grant playing the character Daphne Millbrook says
We're all gonna die...
Yes, we're all gonna die. Someday. Eventually.
I can only speak for myself, but tomorrow will be the first day of the rest of my life.
So what is today? The day before the first day of the rest of my life? How long will my life be? Who knows, who cares? I once heard that TODAY matters. What about tomorrow? Too complicated? Too ethereal? And what does it have to do with HR? And what does "ethereal" mean?
[switch to HR topic]
Too touchy-feely pink-and-fluffy?
[now we're back to HR]
Yeah, HR is all about emotions and being nice to each other.
Oh wait, aren't HR peeps known to be tough as nails, emotionless and slaves to the corporate line? Yes, no, maybe, a little, a lot, very much, not at all?
In case you've been wondering: no, this post has no purpose.
I've been enjoying some time off the Interwebs. One year ago I would have felt miserable being away from the Net for more than 5 hours. At the moment I haven't been posting for quite a while, I check my emails once a week (usually) and have been ignoring Twitter completely (hey, is it true that Twitter rejected a multi-billion offer from Facebook?).
Tim Ferriss would probably call this a "mini-retirement" from the Web.
I'm too young to be a retiree, but it's never too early to retire.
Okay, I'm not sure if the last statement sounded cool, insightful, lame or whatever. Maybe some Net-addict will add it to some online quotes database?
Buddy, are you still checking my blog from time to time hoping that I will post something? If so, puh-leaze leave a comment ;-)
And now for the punchline:
I enjoyed my time being (more or less) offline. I miss being (actively) online. I love writing. Lately, I didn't have anything to write about. But the Bamby movie told me one thing: If you have nothing nice to say, shut the fuck up. Or in my case: if you have nothing interesting to write about, just read books, try out Ramsay's Broccoli soup (it's delicious!), watch Heroes and have a good time.
And that's the Word for today.
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:
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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There are things most HR professionals would love to say from time to time. I know I do. But insulting people is (un)fortunately not in our job description ;-)
Dr. House doesn't care. He's rude, insensitive and he speaks his mind. I'm only halfway through episode 1 of the 5th season, but he already inspired me. Someday, maybe, I'll tell a line manager:
You're being an idiot!
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The pizza delivery guy really impressed me. I met him the other day in the elevator and immediately commented on his huge delivery bag.
"It's for family pizzas," he explained. I grunted something to indicate that I understood.
"They're really convenient." And without missing a beat, he added "The prize is very good, and they even come with a free drink."
That's when we reached the ground floor. If he had handed me a 4-color leaflet with a list of available toppings and a big fat phone number printed on top, I would have asked for his CV and given it to the sales director first thing the next morning. Okay, we don't have a sales director, but you get my drift.
Afterwards I wondered how our employees respond when asked where they work. Do they just mention the name of their employer or do they add two or three positive things about our company or products?
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It's tagging season again. This time I've got tagged twice. The HR Blog Diva who tagged me last December for the Christmas Meme got tagged three times. This is what happens when you become an online celebrity ;-)
The interesting thing is that both Maren Hogan and HR Maven informed me via Twitter direct message. And Maren answered the challenge via vlog (or whatever young people call these things nowadays). The times they are definitely a-changin'.
So I'm supposed to tell you six random things about myself. Luckily I'm good at saying random things...
- I burned my arm when I was 1 year old and I still think that the scar looks kinda cool
- I bought my first bass guitar when I was 16 and joined my first rock band 1 year later
- The ironing board is still standing in my living room
- I've had my driving license since 1991 but bought my first car this April
- I'm trying to come up with number 5. Hey, that was random!
- The Chief Personnel Officer at a former company gave me a Fender Stratocaster and I call her White Beauty
Bonus: I call my Black Golf "La Nera"
Now I'm supposed to tag 6 innocent bloggers...
- Rachel Robbins
- HC3
- Claude Rinfret
- Mr. Scrubby
- Cali Ressler (5 random things)
- Jody Thompson (5 random things)
Okay, I cheated a little bit with Cali & Jody because they already posted random things in August.
But you know what? Sue me! And by the way, I live in Switzerland. Good luck! A judge would probably pat you on the head, give you a lollipop and say that he finds you amusing.
And here is the Tag Policy (approved by the Executive Management):
- Link to the person who tagged you.
- Post the rules on the blog.
- Write six random things about yourself.
- Tag six people at the end of your post.
- Let each person know they have been tagged.
- Let the tagger know when your entry is up.
*****
UPDATE
JT O'Donnell said in the comments that 5 (or 6) things were doable. So I'm also tagging her now ;-)
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It's almost scary how much I love the Interwebs. And sometimes I can even go a bit overboard with my enthusiasm.
Jenn Barnes published a post on HRM Today called 10 Reasons Why HR Professionals Should Blog (hint to recruiters: she's currently looking for a job!).
So I started happily commenting on 5 of the 10 points and hit the "add comment" button. Afterwards I realized that my comment was almost as long as the original post and felt that this was a really rude thing to do. Luckily the HRM Today engine (hosted on Ning) lets you delete comments.
On the other hand I really liked what I had written, so here it is, so to speak within my own four virtual walls.
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Comments on the 10 Reasons Why HR Professionals Should Blog
1.It's fun
Yeah, you betcha. I'm definitely having a blast with this whole online stuff including my blog!
2. It's a great conversation starter
Nope, my techie friends are usually not interested in HR and many of my HR buddies think the Interwebs are for crazies and don't have time to read these blog thingies. Seriously, most times I mention my blog during a conversation the topic changes within 20 seconds or less.
And then people wonder why I spend so much time with my HR blogger friends on Twitter and HRM Today ;-)
6. You participate in talking about the profession instead of hearing about the profession from others (especially those pesky "experts").
It's true, exchanging ideas with and learning from like-minded people from all over the world is amazing.
And the funny thing is that some of them are actually "experts", but in this situation they're just another blogger who talks to you instead of at you.
8. Sometimes you have fans - and they are adorable and sometimes even "star struck" when they meet you in person. Really!
Star struck? Not yet. But I'm realizing that some truly awesome people are reading my blog. Some leave comments, others tell me through email or Twitter. Some are complete strangers who impress me with their insights or just because they're friendly and supportive. Others are bloggers I truly admire and I would never have expected them to notice what I write.
10. You learn more about yourself, the profession and technology than you ever thought possible.
This is so true! When blogging I reveal my point of view on certain things and everybody in the world with an Internet connection can potentially read it. This forces me to think very hard about certain things. It's amazing how much I learned and the matrix (as in Gibson, not the movie) is a major reason why my passion for HR is still growing and growing.
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