As a speaker at The Conference Board’s recent Senior HR Executive Conference, I had the opportunity to hear several other HR leaders speak about their approaches to development of their leaders. One speaker that caught my attention was Susan Schmitt.  Susan is the SVP of HR at Rockwell Automation.

While most organizations focus on leadership capabilities as they develop their management team, Susan shared a story of an exercise she went through in which several HR leaders from various companies found that the leadership capabilities they used at their organizations were almost identical to each other.  With that knowledge, Rockwell decided to look beyond the capabilities they were using and determine what ultimately drove successful leaders.

Instead of focusing on just the core leadership capabilities, they added elements that focused on fit:

• Skills, knowledge, experience and education-  These are traditional core leadership capabilities you look for in any organization.  Still highly important, but you need to take it a step further.
• Information processing capability- Ability to manage the complexity of the work.  This element determines if the leader, or potential leader, can handle increasing levels of volitality, uncertainty, complexity and abiguity in their work.
• Temperament- This is the point that Rockwell began to diverge from the traditional leadership capabilities.  They use specific techniques to focus on extremes in behavior that can inhibit or derail the leader’s success.  If it is found that someone has a temperament that is not conducive to successful leadership, they work on that capability or they are not promoted to the next level.
• Commitment-  Does the leader value the work and demands associated with the role?  If you cannot answer this in the affirmative, then you will not have long-term success with this leader.

While not widely used grouped in this way, I believe that Rockwell Automation is on a path to building successful leaders.  What elements does your organization use to determine the temperament or commitment of your leaders and people on the leadership track?  Would you prevent someone from being promoted to a leadership role if they did not have the temperament to deal effectively with people?

Share your ideas, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I was in New York City earlier this week to speak at The Conference Board‘s Senior HR Executive conference.  New York City never ceases to amaze me in regard to the types of events you can attend and things you can see in a very small radius.

The hotel was situated in lower Manhattan, one short block from Ground Zero and the new 9/11 Memorial.  Across the street was the Canstruction exhibit which was well worth my time.  It was also just one more block over to Zuccotti Park where Occupy Wall Street protest was in full swing.  I’ll write more about the 9/11 Memorial and Canstruction  later.  Today, my mind is on Occupy Wall Street.

You can’t turn on the news lately without hearing about the Occupy movement in various cities across our country.  Even here in St. Louis, protestors are camping out and marching to block traffic on major bridges into the city.  It is certainly starting to disrupt things.  But, seeing the NYC protest up close made it much more personal.

My curiosity was around the specifics of what the group is protesting.  I had a general understanding of the major issues around lack of jobs, the economy, the greed of banks and corporate executives and the general distrust and unhappiness with our federal government.  Those are issues that many American’s can relate to as current stressors in our lives.  I was hoping to gain a better understanding of specifically what is the group protesting.

Protest and Civil Unrest

I approached the park and was immediately struck with surprise about the sheer number of NYC police on the scene.  They  were a sea of blue and it was nearly impossible to determine how to get closer to the actual protest.  I picked my way through the crowd and followed the voices that were rising and falling in unison.  As I approached the front of the park, I could see barricades up and protestors packed tightly into the space.  There were also many lingering around the perimiter with signs against the government and against the police treatment they have been receiving. 

The Occupy leaders were using a “human megaphone” approach to verbally reach the thousands of people gathered.  (Click through to watch a video that demonstrates their tactic.)  One leader would shout out his or her thought, then a circle 3- 4 people deep would turn out to the crowd and repeat the message.  People in that circle would then turn out to the crowd and repeat the message, and so on.  This was an effective way to cascade the message like a wave through the crowd and out to the perimeter.  Some protesters were technologically savvy and had smart phones and iPads where they were checking in on FourSquare and communicating on Twitter and FaceBook.  Others clearly did not have those luxuries.

Disappointingly, I did not walk away with greater insight into their plight.  They may have passion around their cause but are not taking advantage of getting their message out in a way so that we can truly understand.  And just yesterday morning, they began blocking streets and subway exits which caused many to be arrested.  This too just clouds the message and makes them appear less like the 99% they are claiming to be.

My Take Away

I will always support free speech and the ability to state your opinions.  I can’t condone trying to step on other people’s rights though, nor do I support the way they seem to be disrupting things now that could cause harm to other people in the city who are just trying to get to work and do the job they have to do.

The question in my mind is how can you protest not having enough jobs when every HR and recruiting professional say we all have jobs to fill?  There are hundreds of thousands of jobs going unfilled and why?  Because people are not willing to do many of them because they think those jobs are beneath them.  I sympathize with people who are laid off from their job because I have been in that situation before.  So has my husband.  We worked hard to continue building our skills and searching for work and it paid off.  That is not luck.  It was work. I’d like to see more unemployed workers be willing to take jobs they might not normally do and still be able to contribute to their family and community.

So, what do you think about this?  Are you following the Occupy Wall Street movement and do you care?  Do you feel passionately one way or the other?  Share in the comments because I’d like to know how other professionals are seeing the movement and whether or not it’s impacting business decisions you, or your leaders, are making.

I’m attending the Senior HR Executive Conference today and live blogging a panel session focused on enabling innovation.  Led by Kent Greenes from The Conference Board, three global HR leaders are sharing their organization’s strategy on how to produce innovative products and results.

Archana Singh from AMD, Monique Matheson from Nike, Inc. and Brenda Dennis from Cisco Systems Inc. are all able to articulate the vision and approach for innovation in their organization, how their cultures support the innovative ideas and the type of diverse talent needed to come up with innovative ideas that are actionable.

I like the example that Cisco Systems has to drive innovative results.  Cisco no longer thinks about diversity and inclusion, they have changed the focus to inclusion and collaboration.  By doing this as a business imperative, it’s brought tighter alignment between HR and the other lines of the business.  The challenge is barriers like language differences or cultural differences.

One way they drive innovation is by hand selecting teams to work on innovative ideas.  They:

• Choose a team with diverse experiences from diverse business units.
• Put them on teams that work together for 6 weeks- 6 months.
• These team members are supposed to spend 60% of their time on the new project, although Brenda shared the reality is they spend far more time on these initiatives.
• They recognize and reward ideas that drive 90- 180 day results.

One drawback I hear though is when they are  selecting the team members, they have a fairly tight set of criteria of who can participate.  For example, you must be on the promotion track.  This eliminates a “popularity contest” in their opinion but I think it eliminates more than that.  While it is beneficial to have criteria, I see the risk of alienating some of the best ideas that may come from the staff level or from people who have deep history with Cicso but may have never been on the promotion track.

Flanked by colleagues, fellow modern-age explorers of learning, I stepped into the room. An immediate sense of familiarity washed over me like a wave slowly crashing against the beach. The consoles, screens and other items deceptively telling my eyes and brain that I knew this place.  But, a mind can play tricks.

I chose a seat in the top row.  The buttons were no longer glowing, the dials and knobs no longer directing actions.  Suddenly, the large screens ahead flash and come to life, focusing in on the mission as it unfolds.  The three astronauts are desperately trying to get home and we see the torment in their faces.  Then, he appears on the screen, in this very room.  He’s the reason we are here now.  Flight Director Gene Krantz.

Whilt it may sound like fiction, the set up is true.  Attending The Conference Board’s Apollo Leadership Experience , I was fortunate to have the opportunity to learn not only about the space exploration program and astronauts, but to focus on the men who led the trek into space by designing the hardware and directing the missions.  Each leader brought a unique approach to the way they handled the numerous stressors, deadlines and potentially catastrophic situations they faced.

I have never found experiential learning at the level that The Conference Board offers.  I have high expectations of learning events and these never disappoint.  In fact, each time I attend, I come back to work with concrete ideas to use to address work issues.  So, when you add the unparalleled, behind-the-scenes access I experienced at NASA from the Neutral Buoyancy Lab and Mission Control for the International Space Station to being able to watch part of the movie Apollo 13 from the actual Apollo Mission Control room, the experience is worth every penny.  You will not find anything like it.

I know I’ll be taking many of the inspirational messages I learned with me and will be writing more over the next few months about innovation, adaptive leadership and research.

To register for the upcoming session in January 23- 25, 2012, click HERE.  If you have any questions, drop them in the comments or email me and I’m happy to share more of my experience.

As a human resource leader and practitioner, there are few conferences and learning opportunities that grab my attention.  One that is continually at the top of my list is the Senior HR Executive Conference.  This year, The Conference Board has invited me to lead a session with my colleague, Steve Boese.  We have both attended the event several times and this will be an opportunity to contribute by sharing our knowledge on HR, social tools and technology when communicating with employees, candidates and customers.

How Social Tools Can Empower A Global Organization

We’ll cover ways platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and other sites may be viewed as a distractions for employees.  However, as organizations continue to strive to work more efficiently with fewer resources, social networking is playing an increasingly important role.  Whether it’s idea generation, discovery or collaborating with the external and internal ecosystem of partners and suppliers, it is a mechanism that organizations will need to decide whether to embrace or be passed by.  We’re hoping to generate considerable discussion around this topic.

In existence since 1916, The Conference Board is a global, independent business membership and research association working in the public interest. They help their member companies by providing research and understanding around four key areas-  Economy, Markets & Value Creation; Human Capital; Corporate Leadership; High-Performing Organizations.  This enables the companies to have a trusted resource to provide the insight needed to make business decisions.  They also provide quality conferences and leadership experiences.

Steve and I hope you’ll join us in New York, NY on November 15- 16, 2011 for two full days of sessions.  There will be tracks on HR Strategies and Issues, HR Management and Process and one on Talent and Leadership.  You can join the Conference on LinkedIn, using the following link: Senior HR Executive Conference on LinkedIn or on Facebook, using the following link: Senior HR Executive Conference on facebook.