Author Archives: Ben

Why and How To Read a Book per Week

How to read a book a week

Someone reached out to me the other day to ask what books I might recommend for an HR Generalist. I’ve been doing a handful of book reviews lately, and I also saw that my good friend Trish wrote on the topic as well, so this seemed like a great time to bring up my philosophy on business books.

Get an MBA… From books?

One of the best resources I’ve come across with regard to organizing and explaining the need to read books is PersonalMBA.com. Josh Kaufman has put together a resource to help business leaders learn everything they need to know without adding in the time and monetary cost of going to school for an MBA. A few places to start:

My take on reading

I helped set up a corporate library. I am a firm believer in employee reading programs. Obviously I’m a fan of books. But why? Am I a nerdy bookworm? Well, yes, but there are other reasons for reading as well.

Books make you smarter in all areas of your life.

“The difference between where you are today and where you’ll be five years from now will be found in the quality of books you’ve read.” – Jim Rohn

I make mistakes. Sometimes too often. But I learn from them. I do what I can to figure out where things went wrong and make a course correction. Imagine if you could learn from the mistakes of others as well. What if you could hear their take on how they could have changed their actions or beliefs to avoid problems and costly errors.

You can.

Not every book has something valuable in it. I recently reviewed a book that was an interesting read, but I really didn’t get any value from reading  it. Other books on my shelf at work are highlighted, dog-eared, and tattered from reading and re-reading the lessons they contain. To sum that up:

“Smart people learn from their mistakes. But the real sharp ones learn from the mistakes of others.” - Brandon Mull

Don’t be crazy

I don’t sit around reading HR textbooks all day. I mix up my reading between contemporary/classic fantasy (Jim Butcher=favorite), science fiction (F. Paul Wilson’s Repairman Jack series), self improvement (marriage, parenting, etc.), and whatever else looks interesting. But while the some of those are purely for enjoyment and stress relief, I still make time to slip books in that I can learn something from to apply in my work or life.

How to read a book a week

I lamented earlier this week that I’ve spent my Books a Million gift cards from Christmas already. And I’ve finished the three books I purchased. How did that happen in less than 30 days? Well, I carry my books with me wherever I go. Sitting in the car waiting on the kids to get out of school? There is time to get a few pages in. Waiting at the doctor’s office? You can read whole chapters. ;-) Seriously, though, those little pieces add up. I spend a more concentrated 15-30 minutes each night if I can fit it in, but honestly having those little pieces here and there during the day can easily add up.

If you put your mind to it and take reading a book per week seriously, that would be over 50 books this year alone (with two weeks off as cushion). If you’re only halfway successful, that’s 25 books you may not have otherwise read. That knowledge can never be taken away from you. A large portion of adults never read another book after they graduate. Don’t be included in that statistic!

Hopefully I’ve imbued you with some of my own enthusiasm for reading. Now, I’d love to stay and chat, but my book is calling me…

I’m always looking for good recommendations, so if you have one, please feel free to share!

Using a Team Mentality for Higher Performance

Studies show that athletes who train in groups perform better than athletes who train by themselves. This is true not only as an athlete, but at work as well. I’m currently training for the 2012 Andrew Jackson Marathon in Tennessee. While I would have been able to get enough training under my belt to finish the race, there’s no way I would have trained as hard as I have without the great companions I have. When March 31st rolls around, I am going to be ready for my first marathon. How can we translate the success that I’ve seen as an athlete to the workplace for all of us?

A sales pitch for accountability partners

Dale Carnegie, one of the most successful businessmen in American history, attributed much of his success to what he called a “Mastermind Group.” He would routinely gather fifty successful people at his home and discuss issues and solutions to problems. Those interactions and relationships were continuously providing new ideas and alliances to help him in his leadership position. Benjamin Franklin did something similar with a group he called “Junta,” and there are stories of other leaders in history doing the same sort of thing.

Hint: You don’t have to be a millionaire steel magnate to pull this off or see the benefits. Having just two or three people you can rely on as a sounding board for ideas can help you become more successful. If “mastermind” sounds a little hokey, feel free to call them your “personal board of directors” or “peer reviewers” or something else more innocuous.

When I speak I usually mention this hard-hitting quote by Jim Rohn: You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

Want to be great? Spend time with great people.

Pick wisely

Finding someone to hold you accountable probably won’t be very hard. It’s finding someone with the judgement and ability to add just the right amount of pressure to keep you on your toes. This is true for mentoring relationships as well. Too laid back? The protege won’t get anything out of the relationship. Too tough? The protege will start to resent the forceful relationship.

Ask questions. Dig into motivations. Find out what short and long term plans are and how those intersect or parallel with your own. If it looks like a fit, move on to the next step below.

Pick a priority

Let’s say you find someone willing to work with you. They don’t have to be a mirror image of your own dreams and aspirations. They can have one specific piece that aligns with your own goals. For instance, they may want to return to school for their graduate degree, or maybe they want to pass the PHR or SPHR exam. Whatever the case, you are free to work with them through the specific “project” and then find someone else for the next stage of your career.

With a little work, you can find someone to team with for higher performance. And you’ll be following in the footsteps of some of the most successful people in our history. Pretty neat, eh? I have correlated running to work performance before in a post about keeping a “running” log of your performance. If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy that one as well.

Anyone thinking of a way to harness this sort of relationship? I’d love to hear about it!

2012 SHRM Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia

So, are you thinking about going to the 2012 SHRM Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia? Yeah, me, too.

I was able to attend back in 2010 due to the boundless generosity of my friend Eric Winegardner. However, at that time I was working in a 6-person HR department as the low man on the totem pole. Nobody cared what I thought. Nobody wanted to hear my ideas. So when I returned from the event, my enthusiasm and fervor was quickly extinguished.

While I enjoyed the experience, I didn’t get a lot out of the event in the form of takeaways.

If I can attend this year, that’s going to change drastically.

My hopes for the 2012 SHRM Annual Conference

First of all, it’s right next door in Atlanta, Georgia. That alone makes it more appealing! :-)

Seriously, though. I work in a small company. I have some support from the Operations Team, but the main body of HR duties is mine. And while I love it, sometimes it gets a little overwhelming. I realize that I can’t be great at everything. I can’t have all the answers to every benefits, employment law, and recruiting question someone throws at me. And I certainly don’t have time to look into the “nice to haves” like online performance review software, leadership development strategies, and internal culture training. However, learning opportunities like the SHRM conference affords don’t come along every day.

I’m working to see if there’s money in the budget to attend the 2012 SHRM Annual Conference. Even if there isn’t, I’m going to try to make it happen one way or another.

Is anyone else already planning to attend? I’d love to meet you if so!

Creatively Ever After (Book Review)

A while back I received the Creatively Ever After: A Path to Innovation book by Alicia Arnold to review. I had a tough time getting started, and it sat on my shelf for a few weeks at one point. I’m a naturally creative person and a fan of solving problems through a creative process. However, I just couldn’t get into this book. It might be that I don’t have much trouble coming up with ideas, or it could very well be some other reason. I’d love to hear from someone who is a more analytical thinker about what they thought of the book. No offense to Ms. Arnold, but this one didn’t appeal to me.

What’s it about?

The basic premise is that Jack and Jill (from the nursery rhyme) want to change their story. You know…

Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water,
Jack fell down and broke his crown and Jill came tumbling after.

They meet someone who helps them work through a creative process to develop potential solutions and narrow them down to workable actions. And at the end, well, I’ll let you read it to figure out how it turns out.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for a book that focuses on creative problem solving with a heavy dose of “cute,” then this book might be for you. If you’re looking for something that provides more real world issues/solutions and ways to teach your people to be more creative/innovative, then you might want to keep on looking.

Click here for more book reviews.

How to create and distribute an employee survey in 10 minutes

We use employee surveys at work to measure employee satisfaction, gather confidential feedback, and uncover hidden issues and trends lying under the organization’s surface. Some companies spend money and time on expensive survey tools, but as long as the right questions are asked, the followup is more important than the method.

I personally like Google Docs as a tool for creating a quick and easy (and free!) employee survey. Here’s how to do it:

  • Go to Google.com/docs
  • Log in or create a free Google account if you don’t have one already.
  • Click “Create”
  • Click “Form”
  • Enter the information you’d like your survey to contain
  • Click the link at the bottom of the screen to view the published form
  • Highlight the link, right click on the link text, and press Ctrl + C on the keyboard to copy the link
  • Open an email and press Ctrl + V on the keyboard to paste the link into the body of the email
  • Send the email to your employees!
  • To view the responses to the survey, log into your Google Docs account and click on the survey in the document list to open the spreadsheet full of responses

There’s more to it than that short explanation, but that is the most basic way to create and distribute an employee survey in less than ten minutes. To give a little better illustration, I created this short screencast to show some of the steps involvled. Click here to open the screencast video in a new window. If you have questions on how to do this after reading the directions and watching the video, feel free to reach out to me for help.

Field Tested-Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans (Book Review)

I work for a government contractor in the defense industry. We have a large number of veterans working for us, so I am always looking for ways to understand them better. Recently I received a review copy of this book, and I was really excited to dig in. As usual, I read with an eye on the corporate culture aspects, and I thought the author, Emily King, did a great job of addressing those. Here are my top 4 “Aha!” moments while reading Field Tested-Recruiting, Managing, and Retaining Veterans.

#1 Put yourself in their shoes

This was the single best explanation for how a veteran must feel when they join the private sector that I’ve ever come across. Basically, the author asks you to imagine that you take a job in a private employer and work there  for twenty years. Then, you retire from that company and go to work for the military. Imagine the chaos and difficulty of trying to navigate the landscape of an entirely different organization and culture. That is how veterans feel when they come to work for us after completing a military career. Continue reading →

Don’t be a fan, be a player (#HRevolution 2012)

I spent some time on the phone with my good friend Trish McFarlane the other day discussing HRevolution 2012. This event is going to be fantastic. Then I heard the phrase “don’t be a fan, be a player” today, and I knew the two topics were related.

You see, HRevolution isn’t your average, ordinary event.

There’s a reason we talk about “participants” when we discuss HRev. Why? Because they are expected to participate. We want people to come and share ideas, ask questions, and walk away with more than they came with.

The differences between this event and the traditional conference are many, but that is one that I keep coming back to as the main sticking point when comparing the two.

Give it a chance

If your employer pays for you to attend conferences during the year, this is one you need to seriously consider. You will walk out the door fired up and ready to take on whatever is thrown at you. Not sure if it’s right for you? Email me and we can discuss your individual position and how it might be applicable (or not) to what you need. The positive side is that it’s not going to cost you a thousand dollars to attend this event. We have done our best to keep costs low so that anyone can attend, no matter what career level they may be.

There’s a reason we have so many people who have attended every single HRevolution event. They believe in it, and you can, too.

Sponsors welcome

If you are a vendor in the HR space and would be interested in sponsoring, please reach out and I can get you the information you’ll need to make it happen.