I’m working on a bit of an idea here:
HR communications is like communicating to your partner about sex: it’s awkward and difficult, and can be intensely personal. On the other hand, if you can manage to get it out, out there where the other person can actually HEAR it, the results can be so GOOD.
This came to me as I wrote an email today – the email where I apologize profusely to my colleague for being AWOL this evening.
My son, a cunning liar, told the teacher I hid his project and he couldn’t do the presentation. Silly boy should have figured out that my mommy sense can get me the full scoop no problem. I have ‘duty’ at the school for the afternoon kid pickup. Busted: I know enough to be able to pull a Canada project out of thin (internet) air. Complete with photos: Port Dalhousie Merry Go ‘Round. You should go.
This is what the email says:
A couple of Grammar ones that I have: Look for the red (Is this a good way to do this? What works best for you here...)
I'm just wondering if you like a certain format that I can duplicate.
So: no kidding. This is my job.
A couple of weeks ago I attended a seminar on blowjobs. (Please Google this now if you don’t know what that is…heh heh heh). I digress.
I went with my friend, after ‘registering’ or rsvp-ing (I was in the 2nd tier invite – friend of a friend), to a beautiful home in what once was a modest middle-class home from 50’s, now a stunning Martha Stewart worthy dwelling (how do they Do that with 2 kids?). I paid a modest sum and for that fee, enjoyed wine and munchies in a beautiful home and learned how to “Give Great Head” (that was the seminar’s title). And I had the Chatelaine Sex Columnist (no less) give me the low down. Low. Down.
Aside; and I got to find out that he is, like, the luckiest bastard. Hey: No Complaints.
Which is where I come (ok, no puns, please) to see the parallels grow (I was going to say ‘mount’, nasty).
Think about it: You have a managerial level staff, there are issues: she’s very competent; gifted, even. But she’s just got a way of letting the thin veil slip a bit too obviously. It’s ok to hold your Board in thinly veiled contempt. We, as a board, perhaps deserve (d) it. The funniest part was that due to the fact I was doing virtually nothing (I was ‘disengaged’; I stayed for as long as I did maybe to truly understand the crisis of worth…. that’s another story, I think) I was able to avoid the real stingers. Irony. No: bad communication – awkward interactions causing pain and bad feeling.
Sound familiar?
I tell you, this is the thing. Think of it:
At the seminar I learned:
The penis can take it: it’s a muscle and will not break if you apply a bit of pressure. Especially along here, and right there.
In HR:
Your employees won’t all quit if they find out you’ve been doing something bad (ok: they would, maybe, if it was REALLY evil) or treating them badly. They will not break under pressure. Work with them to get to the right answer, then to make that happen. If you can get them to tell you what they think (ok: there is another Whole can of worms) and then ask that question:
…and this is when it gets so real, so close…..so very close:
“ …Like That?”
Put a plan out there: “we propose this: what do you think?”; “Does this work for you?”
Oh, yes! Yes, that’s what I’m talking about; an incentive system that actually rewards me for getting something right, not getting it done; for working, instead of getting a pedicure on your ‘work from home’ gig.
Somebody told me sex gets better…they also must have had good communication, ‘cuz it really does.
In a very good CityTV documentary panel-style show about sex, George Strombolopulous (sorry if it’s spelled wrong, G) says something like: Guys can take direction from a coach about a play, but not from a partner about a ‘move’. I concur: but it works both ways, in both cases. Men are no more able to express ‘what they really Need’ from their job, any more than a woman. Plus, if they say the wrong thing here they’ll lose more than a good lay (or basic lay, whatever).
Screw up the HR conversation, and you have lawsuits, high turnover, low morale…oh, and don’t even THINK about really using the sex analogy, ‘cuz that’ll land you in jail.
HR communications is like communicating to your partner about sex: it’s awkward and difficult, and can be intensely personal. On the other hand, if you can manage to get it out, out there where the other person can actually HEAR it, the results can be so GOOD.
This came to me as I wrote an email today – the email where I apologize profusely to my colleague for being AWOL this evening.
My son, a cunning liar, told the teacher I hid his project and he couldn’t do the presentation. Silly boy should have figured out that my mommy sense can get me the full scoop no problem. I have ‘duty’ at the school for the afternoon kid pickup. Busted: I know enough to be able to pull a Canada project out of thin (internet) air. Complete with photos: Port Dalhousie Merry Go ‘Round. You should go.
This is what the email says:
A couple of Grammar ones that I have: Look for the red (Is this a good way to do this? What works best for you here...)
I'm just wondering if you like a certain format that I can duplicate.
So: no kidding. This is my job.
A couple of weeks ago I attended a seminar on blowjobs. (Please Google this now if you don’t know what that is…heh heh heh). I digress.
I went with my friend, after ‘registering’ or rsvp-ing (I was in the 2nd tier invite – friend of a friend), to a beautiful home in what once was a modest middle-class home from 50’s, now a stunning Martha Stewart worthy dwelling (how do they Do that with 2 kids?). I paid a modest sum and for that fee, enjoyed wine and munchies in a beautiful home and learned how to “Give Great Head” (that was the seminar’s title). And I had the Chatelaine Sex Columnist (no less) give me the low down. Low. Down.
Aside; and I got to find out that he is, like, the luckiest bastard. Hey: No Complaints.
Which is where I come (ok, no puns, please) to see the parallels grow (I was going to say ‘mount’, nasty).
Think about it: You have a managerial level staff, there are issues: she’s very competent; gifted, even. But she’s just got a way of letting the thin veil slip a bit too obviously. It’s ok to hold your Board in thinly veiled contempt. We, as a board, perhaps deserve (d) it. The funniest part was that due to the fact I was doing virtually nothing (I was ‘disengaged’; I stayed for as long as I did maybe to truly understand the crisis of worth…. that’s another story, I think) I was able to avoid the real stingers. Irony. No: bad communication – awkward interactions causing pain and bad feeling.
Sound familiar?
I tell you, this is the thing. Think of it:
At the seminar I learned:
The penis can take it: it’s a muscle and will not break if you apply a bit of pressure. Especially along here, and right there.
In HR:
Your employees won’t all quit if they find out you’ve been doing something bad (ok: they would, maybe, if it was REALLY evil) or treating them badly. They will not break under pressure. Work with them to get to the right answer, then to make that happen. If you can get them to tell you what they think (ok: there is another Whole can of worms) and then ask that question:
…and this is when it gets so real, so close…..so very close:
“ …Like That?”
Put a plan out there: “we propose this: what do you think?”; “Does this work for you?”
Oh, yes! Yes, that’s what I’m talking about; an incentive system that actually rewards me for getting something right, not getting it done; for working, instead of getting a pedicure on your ‘work from home’ gig.
Somebody told me sex gets better…they also must have had good communication, ‘cuz it really does.
In a very good CityTV documentary panel-style show about sex, George Strombolopulous (sorry if it’s spelled wrong, G) says something like: Guys can take direction from a coach about a play, but not from a partner about a ‘move’. I concur: but it works both ways, in both cases. Men are no more able to express ‘what they really Need’ from their job, any more than a woman. Plus, if they say the wrong thing here they’ll lose more than a good lay (or basic lay, whatever).
Screw up the HR conversation, and you have lawsuits, high turnover, low morale…oh, and don’t even THINK about really using the sex analogy, ‘cuz that’ll land you in jail.
posted by marthajane at 7:53 PM
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