Fellow FOT’er, Tim Sackett, got me out of bed. Early. How? Sackett was a speaker at this years #SHRM14 Conference and was slotted at the highly-sought after, prime-time…7:00am. Yes. Whew. Of course I love Sackett as a writer and as a co-host on the CYA report, but had never seen his live presentation. So my alarm went off at 5am so I could support my friend in his hour of glory. His very early hour of glory.
His presentation “What Your CEO Wishes HR Would Start Doing” intrigued me. I am one of the fortunate few VP’s of People (HR) whose CEO had the great foresight to have HR representation on the executive leadership team (me). So I wanted to see if Tim got it right. I’m happy to say, I think he did. I’m not gonna give away all Tim’s secrets because I want you to check him out yourself at a conference near you. But here are some of the highlights I think he got right. Your CEO wants you to:
- simplify everything. Emails, proposals, meetings, phone calls. My CEO, David Gray, will likely throw a tomato at my head if I continue to send him emails “below the fold”.
- get in their face (figuratively). If you give your CEO honest feedback about the company, culture, her (like how I said her), feedback you think might actually get you fired, you will likely get more respect. Very few people have the courage to tell their CEO the truth. Don’t filter. Because most info CEO’s get is so filtered it’s worthless.
- act more than plan. Pretty charts don’t mean nuthin’ but action does.
- understand the talent of your competition.
- stop being an HR terrorist with the law. It is not HR’s job to eliminate risk – it is our job to advise on risk. I teach this to my HR team.
- say yes. I too advise this to my HR team.
- give away HR’s non-essential, non-value jobs to someone else. Tim’s example: For some unknown reason HR LOOOVE’s to hang on to creating dress code policy. Give that away to someone else – say the employees who have to live by it. You need to spend your time on work that will drive engagement, productivity, company health and profits.
- be one of your companies biggest evangelists. If you are willing to tattoo your company logo on your booty – you may just be the biggest evangelist. In all seriousness, if you can’t evangelize to others how great your company is, you may need to consider a new place to work for everyone’s sake.
There you have it. Check out Tim Sackett at www.fistfuloftalent.com and at www.timsackett.com.
if more people follow your advice and Tim I’ll be out of work LOL
On bullet 2 – “feedback you think will get you fired…” In a healthy environment being a “yes man” wont get you anywhere. Unfortunately I have witnessed, though never worked in, environments where being a “yes man” will get you everywhere. And if you’re working in an environment like that it should be hard to comply with the last bullet about being an evangelist. Great take-aways Dawn.
Although all leaders love to get their ego stroked (me included) an unhealthy leader wants to be lied to about the state of the company. If you think your boss only wants a Yes Man, time to find another job. Great thoughts @steph
yeah leader alays remain in their big ego and they love it
Agree!
CEO are busy they need it fast and simple