The enemy is us

Hmm, just realised I didn’t set myself a target for this blogging thingy.  Obviously not very SMART.  Regular like a diary?  Driven by events?  Waiting for inspiration to strike?  Probably should be aiming for more of a ‘real time’ approach – which I’ve obviously got wrong this week. 

We’ve been building up our panels for the Comments and Insight section on the website.  I’ve been enthused that so many have said yes - and that they’re also looking forward to the new site and what it can offer.  If their contributions are as sharp, interesting and wide-ranging as the debate at our HR Leaders Network on Tuesday we’ll have a winner! 

Frank Douglas, Group HRD at TfL and Simon Lloyd, HRD at Santander were both on form with ‘It’ll never happen here: HR and cultural change’.  We were exploring whether it did have to feel like knitting with soup; how it can transform organisations and results – or alternatively wreck business strategies.  CIPD are publishing a research insight on organisation culture next month, and I hope that it has challenges as memorable as these from the evening: 

‘When it comes to cultural change, I’ve seen the enemy, and the enemy is us. The function which has presented the most difficulties is not IT, is not Finance – it’s HR’.

‘If you have a performance management culture, you don’t need performance management systems. We have to be careful in HR of believing we can process engineer good management’.

‘HR is suffering from Stockholm syndrome – it’s identifying too much with the business’.

‘You need to be really brutal in disempowering legacy structures and empowering the new organisation’

‘If you want a jazz band, don’t hire the London Philharmonic’.

Perhaps you had to be there for that last one…..