Follow-up: What have I learned at the Strategy Conference in Human Resources in the spring of 2009?

The first thing I noted while checking the notes is that I didn’t pay that much of an attention on what I’ve written. Most of the things I’ve written are not in my head. And that’s, simply put, bad. I’ve slept 5 hours prior to the conference, and almost 12 after it, but my memory isn’t helping me all that much two days after.

Still, these are the things I noted as important:
1. (a very well arrived reminder) In getting business solutions, you should first know how to listen to the other party;
2. How to make someone change its actions (whatever that may mean):

a. Why doens’t that person change? (ask)
b. How can you involve that person to wish, for herself to change?

3. The best example leadership on Earth: building the pyramids;
4. In a time of crisis, HR should take care of:

a. Reducing costs (including salaries);
b. Reducing personnel;

in a responsible manner;
5. It’s still not too late to take proactive measures regarding the crisis;
6. Profit is King, cash is King-Kong;
7. You can have the qualities of a leader, but still not have leadership (no followers);
8. Rather than bluntly reducing one specific thing with X percent, you should optimize a process, you can get better results in such a way (analyze procedures, and work on them; the price cuts may have no relation with the current performance of a process; look carefully at the process and work on that);
9. If you have a bad working person in an organization, it’s better both for your company (for obvious reasons – reduce losses) and for him to leave the company earlier; Why is it better for him? Simple: if he will leave 6 months later, in a full-manifesting crisis, he will be unprepared, and it will be hugely difficult for him to get a job at that time; Until then, he can prepare; Help him get a better job in a not-so-bad time by firing him earlier;
10. HR people should be 25% of their time on the field, talking to people;
11. Think at any task in three areas: from a tactic => to a strategy => to a context; e.g.: I can do a training (that’s a tactic), which will make the team reach it’s objectives better (that’s a strategy), which in turn will help the company and industry perform better (context);
12. In five years’ time, 80% of what HR people do today will no longer be doing; Learn to adapt.

Some of the speakers saying these were the following:

• Dr. Lisbeth CLAUS, Ph.D., SPHR, GPHR, Professor of Global HR, Willamette University, USA;
• Anca Georgescu ALADGEM, Chief Human Resources Officer, Romtelecom;
• Brent W. MATTSON, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Learning & Development Executive, Enterprise Learning & Talent Management, Bank of America;
• Dave ULRICH, Partner and co-founder The RBL Group and Professor of Business – Ross School of Business, University of Michigan;
• Radu PANAIT, HR Vice-President, Ursus Breweries Romania.

I was late at the very first session and I had trouble identifying who said what, and also I may have poorly understood things, so I won’t associate a thing being said with a speaker.

How was the message for you? Did it help you understand HR a bit better? You can leave a comment below.