*I was recently contacted by Steve Browne, the Executive Director of HR for Larosa’s Inc, regarding an experience he had while camping with the Boy Scouts.  He asked to share it with you and I whole-heartedly agreed.  Here is today’s guest post from Steve:

When we talk to each other at work, on Twitter, or on other social media sites, we assume that we know each other and it’s very cool that people develop that familiarity from short conversations or 140 characters.  We think we know someone when we usually only see one facet of who they are.  It’s important to realize that each person has many other facets.  We all have a myriad of roles we fill each day and one of the ones that I absolutely love is being the Scoutmaster of Troop 941 – a Boy Scout troop in West Chester, Ohio.  My son is in the Troop and I have been in scouting for eight years now!

My son and I recently completed our annual Summer Camp trip to Camp Frontier in the remote village of Pioneer, Ohio.  It was fabulous and each day brought more and more amazing opportunities to see what the boys were doing.  One particular highlight is that our Troop built an 11-hole putt-putt course in the woods of our campsite only using logs and rocks that they found on the ground.

So, what does this have to do with focus ??

Each day at camp, there is a Leader meeting for Scoutmasters. It’s a time to talk to the Camp Commissioner, discuss the schedule, and also give feedback about good things or concerns.  The vast majority of the feedback is negative, even though there are truly few negatives around. They are more “preferences” than complaints.  During one of the meetings, after the adults groused about how far they had to walk to the meeting, how the latrines smell, and if a swim test occurred or not, one of the leaders said, “Hey, did you see the Barred Owls near Ecology?”

I jumped at the chance to talk about something positive !!  The conversation then switched to the beautiful grounds and the many types of wildlife we all had seen during the week.

It reminded me of work environments and of HR in general.  Too often when we talk about work, and especially about the people we work with, we’re negative.  It is so easy to look at what’s “not working” vs. focusing on the great things that happen around us each day.Don’t get me wrong, I fall into this trap too.  But, this experience at camp shocked me out of it.  Since then, I have been  focusing on the positive things that happen each day.  Every day I do this, it gets to be more of how I choose to approach the day and I’m becoming a better human.

So, where’s your focus ??  Why don’t you take a second and take a look.  You’ll be surprised when you take some time to reflect.

By the way . . .

Here’s the owl !!

Do you work in an industry that has a professional association?  Well, many industries have these and as I’ve found in human resources, it’s often a love/ hate relationship with the association.  For HR, the association is SHRM (Society for Human Resources Management).

Initially, SHRM took a stance on social media that gravitated toward risk avoidance.  It started like many associations where they bring in the lawyers who only tell members why they should not use it.  However, since there are many benefits to using social media that can surpass the risks, their stance is starting to change.  I’m happy to report that we’re now seeing SHRM at the national level as well as some of the more progressive state SHRM councils adopt a pro-social media stance!  One that I’m particularly interested in is my state council- Illinois.

The Illinois State Council of SHRM is geared up to show their progressive attitude this coming Monday and Tuesday  (8/2- 8/3) at the state conference. This is a conference for 500 HR professionals  who will come together to not only learn about social media, but also about the core functions of HR including:  talent management, legal/ employee relations, strategic HR, and HR tools.  I’m most looking forward to the keynote by Pamela Meyer, PhD, who will be speaking about highly engaged organizations and innovation.  Two subjects near and dear to me from a work standpoint.

If you’re not signed up, I encourage you to join me there.  After all, it’s time we all participate more in our professional association.  You’ll also get to meet fellow HR professionals/ bloggers:

Mike VanDervort

Sarah White

Charee Klimek

So don’t wait….click HERE to register today!  And, be sure to follow me on Twitter to see what’s going on at the conference.  You can also follow the conference at @ILSHRM and on their blog, IL State Council Blog.

*Many thanks to the IL SHRM Council for hosting my participation in this event.  And, a special shout out to John Jorgerson and Dave Ryan.

Everyone lies.

Try to think of one person you’ve met who doesn’t lie.  It’s impossible.  From the moment we’re old enough to start having some shred of freedom to make decisions as children, we lie.  Of course when young children do it, we tend to call it a “fib” or a “white lie” because this implies that it is not a big deal.  ”Johnny, did you color on your wall?”  ”No mommy.”  Johnny says this even though he’s an only child and the only one in his room all day.  Why?  Because the power that Mommy has over him scares him and he’s afraid to tell the truth because he knows there will be consequences and he doesn’t want to deal with them.

We also deceive in order to:

• Avoid disapproval
• To manipulate
• To maintain control
• To avoid consequences
• To save face for ourselves or others

That is really the essence of why people lie.  As adults we may try to convince ourselves or others that lying is a good way to spare someone’s feelings or avoid a sticky situation.  It becomes so routine that we do it almost involuntarily and even when we don’t need to lie.  Ever ask a co-worker how they’re doing and they say “great”?  Then a day later you learn they just lost their house or their spouse lost their job?  But, the person lies to you so they don’t have to deal with explaining how they really feel.  Most people would argue that this type of lie is about saving face or keeping things private.  That’s fine.  It’s still lying.

So, knowing that every one of us tells little half-truths, lies by omission, and some tell outright huge lies, what are some signs we can look for to determine if we’re being lied to?  As managers or leaders, how can we tell when it’s happening?  Working in HR certainly gives one the upper hand in spotting deception.  After years of interviewing, questioning, and investigating employee relations issues, I’ve been able to learn what to watch for.  Here are a few common tell-tale signs:

• Body language-  When someone is being honest, they will turn their body toward you.  They will look you in the eye and you will not see them being nervous.  If the person is lying, they will do all they can to look away  or down without realizing it.  They will fidget and move their hands either to their face or mouth.
• Speech and word choice-  In my experience, I’ve found two extremes in this area.  Some people will talk more quickly and become defensive.  You’ll notice that they are speaking in a way not normally characteristic of their behavior.  The other extreme is that the person may shut down.  They become quiet and do not want to answer your questions.  They also tend not to use words like “I” or “Me” in what they are telling you.  This is a subconscious attempt not to take responsibility for what is going on.
• Changing the subject- Another tell is that the person will try to get you off the current line of questions and change the subject so that they can feel comfortable again.
• Avoidance- You may not know that someone is lying behind your back.  One way to tell is the person will begin dodging you.  Do you have an employee that is normally friendly and chatty and suddenly they are not taking your calls or avoiding you when they see you coming?  It’s a definite sign that they’re avoiding you for a reason and this is a subconscious way people cut you out.

There are many other signs, but these are the ones that are often most noticeable.  What signs tell you that someone is lying to you?  Share them in the comments.

As an aside, the thing that got me thinking about lying was hearing an old Thompson Twins song ‘Lies’ from 1983.  Enjoy!

An interesting phenomenon that happens when you blog and start to get a following is that PR people come out of the woodwork to offer you the opportunity to get copies of the latest and greatest business books.  I’ve never fancied myself a book reviewer, so a majority of the time I don’t get the books because I don’t write with the purpose of promoting a bunch of stuff just so that I can get it for free.  BUT, once in awhile something catches my eye and I agree to check it out.  Rarely am I inspired to write about it, but today is one of those times when the moon and stars aligned and I found a book that I not only enjoyed reading, I want to share it with you.

Consider me your own Billy Mays, HR-style of course.

I received a copy of ‘Do More Great Work‘ by Michael Bungay Stanier.  I’ll be honest, the title didn’t really grab me.  There are many books that attempt to tell us how to try to do great work instead of good work. What got my attention was this:

“You work hard.  You put in the hours.  Yet, you feel like you are constantly treading water with good work that keeps you going but never quite moves you ahead.  Or worse, you are mired in bad work- endless meetings and energy-draining bureaucratic traps.”

So, that just described almost every working Joe I know.  What interested me even more is that the author gives fifteen maps (exercises) that require you to put pen to paper and analyze the work you are doing and gives you specific techniques to move the needle to doing more work that will challenge you and stretch your creativity.  Here are a few examples of the types of maps that are included:

• What’s Required- Tool that helps you delineate your priorities with that of the organization
• What’s Calling You- Helps you look at your life in general and then at work to plot out what is important to you and how you can spend more time in those areas
• How Courageous Are You-  Learn what you will do vs. what you want to do.  Determine what is easiest to do vs. what tasks or projects will have the greatest impact
• What to do when you lose your “Great Work” mojo

So there you have it.  I’m not getting paid to endorse this- I just got a free book.  I will tell you that visually, it’s different from 99% of the books out there.  It made me want to pick it up and write on the maps inside.  For me that’s huge because finding a tool I will actually make time to use is a challenging thing.  I haven’t used all fifteen maps yet, but after using five, I’m ready to plow ahead.

After all, who doesn’t want to do more great work?

*Michael Bungay Stainer is the founder and senior partner of Box of Crayons, a company that works with organizations to help them do more great work.  A Rhodes scholar who earned degrees in the arts and law, he is a popular speaker and was named Canadian Coach of the Year in 2006.  Check out his blog and follow him on Twitter (@BoxOfCrayons).

There are only so many people in life that I want to have a relationship with.  My family,  friends, and some colleagues make the list.  In addition, I want to have people like doctors, hairstylists, and neighbors know enough about me that they qualify as relationships too.  But beyond that, do we really need to be forming relationships with every person we come into contact with?  Personally, I get irritated when a waiter or waitress wants to sit down and chat me up while taking my order at a restaurant.  Why?  Because a majority of the time by doing this they ultimately mess up my order.  And, if I am at a restaurant, I want to be visiting with the people I am there with, not a random person on the wait staff.  Sound harsh?  Well, it’s just one area where I want my service to be fast and efficient, but not a relationship.

The real disconnect comes from the fact that we are taught that in order to give good customer service we must connect with the customer or client.  We must think how they think, know what they want, provide service higher than their expectations.  That is all true, but in 2010 as we are moving into a self-service world for many transactions,  as organizations we need to have our eyes open to the areas where we can implement this to actually provide better customer service.

As organizations, we need to connect with customers where THEY are.

We can start by implementing technology to help customers who are technologically savvy. From the self check out lanes at grocery stores and other retailers to the applications we can now download on our phones that help us take care of quick, day-to-day tasks, this is a real improvement for many customers who are capable of quickly taking care of their own transaction.  How often do you walk into a bank to have a teller wait on you?  A majority of consumers are using ATMs, debit cards, and online banking to take care of their own needs.  Personally, I’m looking forward to the day where I have a self service option where ever I go.  And, that includes human resources.  There are just some functions that can be automated effectively like obtaining forms online, submitting leave requests, changing personnel data such as addresses and phone numbers, etc.

One benefit is that you have one subset of customers who can quickly take care of their transactional needs and this frees up the employees to spend time with customers and clients who need personal attention for more complex issues.

What do you think?  Do you want to have a “live” HR person every time you call?  Where will customer service and HR go in the future?  Where should it go?