I am working a bit late today; after a hours drive, I had 3 PAPI profiles to score and prepare for, Trade Union Agreement to write. I made my self some coffee, started to Sync the phone, that Laurie R. hates: Nokia E71.

After some coffee was drunk, the papers sorted and stacked, I noticed that Life must have thought I needed a reminder that there is grace around me. That  beauty and reward does NOT always lies in shuffling stacks of paper. In this case beauty was ON the stack of papers. I thank that gorgeous girl for reminding that you don’t need a cool job (i.e. HR Partner) to be cool.

Just be a feline princess…

Ever so often when I worked as a “hired gun” consultant I ended up with an organisation, that had the sweetest, kindest, innovative values – most often produced in High-gloss paper format, distributed generously to the employees.

More than once I attended “Value-implementation” workshops where the TopBrass told with great vigour and enthusiasm [on occasion not] about the creation behind the values, how much the costumers will benefit and on quite a few occasions how much more happy the employees would be, once they had taken to heart, this spanking brand new set of core values.

Now, is that nice, isn’t it. Few pamphlets, social gathering backed up with a new employee – manager conversation sheet, developed either by some high-priced consultant [not proud to admit: me] or some born-again HR Consultant, that has taken this golden opportunity to get out of the organisational shadowland and finally do something everybody will notice – and most likely hate.

so – to sum up:

Values created – CHECK

Values presented – CHECK

Values implemented according to what-ever new management fad, the CEO has stumbled upon: CHECK

And then nothing happens… the employees still feel disgruntled, they bitch about how much they have to disregard their own inner values, in order to comply.

Then the CEO calls either me again to complain that the values are malfunctioning. When I told him, noooo it is not the values but how they were made [Never do that if you are the consultant that helped concieving those darned values - then blame the organisation for lack of maturity].

At Copenhagen Business School there is a Ph.D. student, Susanne Eckmann. She has written an excellent article in the newspaper “Weekendavisen” – and I think she sums it up very nicely: It is a question of authenticity. Not the values, but the selfperception of the employees. Only do the important things, only the creative things and only in accordance with the employees own inner core value. If it does not happen to please that inner core, she states that “alienation” from the employee towards the organisation happens. And I tend to agree.

The higher education – the higher frustration, when the employee are ordered to do the tasks that is not interesting, creative or in accordance to the inner core. Atleast this is the humble opionion of this HRDragon. I have a MA and a BA and a 2 year consultant education from a highly esteemed institution in DK.

Yet I still have to answer questions on OHS, maternity leave, regulations, answer strange questions from future candidates. On occasion I do the “crazy OD” stuff… But, after working 2½ years with purely OD stuff, I can say onething: Dude, that is really hard to be creative on demand… But had you asked me when I was fresh out of university I would have puked out of sheer disgust to do such low-status jobs….

As she ends the article: Who gets to be free, creative and critical all the time?

1. Don’t be an asshole.
2. Don’t divert attention away from the mission and vision of the organization.
3. Don’t cause problems that are bigger than the problem we’re trying to solve.
4. If you don’t like it, leave.

http://punkrockhr.com/punk-rock-employee-handbook/

She is right… use common sense, accept that you are not the center of the universe and things have to be done – and you have to do them, as you are being paid to do so.

Kindest,

Steen

but does it work?