Audacious HR

I love the word “audacious.” It’s bold. It speaks to a confidence and clarity that many of us long for in our work. It invokes a sense of courage and dogged tenacity. It’s melodic. Shoot, it’s just fun to say. Audacious.

I used to be a CHRO. CHRO Private sector. CHRO public sector. CHRO East and West Coasts of the US...CHRO large companies. CHRO small companies and now, though working with the arguably the world's most prolific Central Bank and definitely, NOT in HR at present, I still love HR. Heck, as an adjunct professor with the University of Louisville, every summer I teach HR. I can't get too far away from it. It's just in me. I adore Human Resources: the craft, the practice, the discipline. I love our roles as the keepers of human capital, the “soul” of our organizations. I love our struggle, our tension in determining to whom we are beholding, the never-ending dance to support both managers and employees, even the occasional call to “pick a side” from the internal clients with whom we work. HR will always be the human capital consciousness of any organization; sometimes we’re a great example of it and sometimes, well, we miss the mark. On our best days, your friendly neighborhood HR comrades model, espouse, produce, proclaim, celebrate and promote everything that is right about work, productivity and stakeholder/shareholder value. It’s on those days that we operate with audacity.

First of all, here’s what largely informed my HR practice: I love work, mostly the ideals associated with work. I always have. I love watching how people work and what it does for them. I love seeing people find meaning and purpose in their work and in their workplace (two different things, but more on that later). Starting my career as a labor and employment lawyer, I learned a great deal about human capital process and procedure and the interplay of the two; I also learned about the degradation of the two and what happens when that dynamic unravels over time at work. I’ve seen how work, and the places where it happens, have the ability to destroy people and sap their energy and talent—but I’ve also seen examples where work and the workplace affirm, validate, sustain, celebrate and nourish people. The quality of a person’s work can give them life or bring them death, and it’s sad that Human Resources often doesn’t fully appreciate the psychology of the work dynamic in this way.

Human Resources plays a critical role in shaping a work environment rich with professional and personal endorsement. I understood that as a young attorney, which is why I never became an old attorney. I left the practice of labor and employment law and worked in HR for more than 17 years. I’ve worked for myriad of employers and a multitude of industries, for great companies and not-so-great ones, for awe-inspiring bosses and hot-mess bosses entirely unburdened by tact or humility.

So, while I loved the “work” part of the traditional work environment, I infrequently loved the “environment” part. But when we discuss the ever-elusive concept of “employee engagement,” as HR often does, we have to remember that both work and the work environment matter immensely. In my view, from the standpoint of both an HR practitioner and a regular ole' employee, the traditional work environment is its own conundrum; as it is, it’s fraught with cultural and behavioral norms that can make work alternately euphoric or nauseating. Either way, in order to succeed, all employees, including HR, must wrestle, at some point, with figuring out the ideal work environment, especially these days as the dynamics of work, in a hybrid environment.

There’s often this inexplicable tension between being hired to be excellent—a change agent, an example of a new cultural norm—and actually being given the full support and latitude to operate in the fullness of your excellence. I’d say this is especially true of HR folks. This is where the traditional work environment gets to be a bit schizophrenic. Most organizations claim that people are “their most important asset,” and I believe that most CEOs genuinely believe their people are their competitive anchor, but I also believe that too many CEOs continue to view the HR department as ancillary to the business. Thus, unless you want to talk payroll and benefits with them—the obvious “bottom line” stuff—there’s not much to say about or to HR. How can this duplicitous view of HR exist alongside the belief that, in the work environment, people matter the most? It’s almost as if these organizations proclaim: “Our people matter immensely, but the ‘people people’ among them—not so much.”

In my old consulting days, I focused on helping HR departments do and be better. I had then, and still have now, a fervent commitment to HR “reform”—helping to resolve that discrepancy between what HR is and what it ought to be. Sometimes though, HR can be its own worst enemy. We may vacillate from being too people-focused—chummy, silly, or worse yet, corny and ineffective—to the other extreme, where HR teams are entirely too rule-oriented, too policy-focused, and too ready to say “no, it can’t be done.” We find ourselves recovering from self-inflicted wounds—gutted, if you will, by friendly fire. “The problem with HR is that HR doesn’t know it’s the problem,” as I was once told by an operational VP I supported. Ouch!

I firmly believe that our work as HR practitioners is perhaps the most critical and impactful role in any organization. HR is the only department, in any company, charged with building and sustaining the infrastructure that supports the company’s “most valuable asset.” No other department is similarly empowered or purposed. We can change conversations, illuminate people possibilities at work, set a new course for our company’s cultural ship, and reset the practice of HR—all incredibly powerful propositions. In so doing, we best position our organizations to connect with their precious people assets. We don’t have to fight to be relevant—we already are. Our challenge is to stop talking about sitting at somebody’s table and become potent and prolific practitioners from wherever we find ourselves sitting. We can’t bemoan our CEO’s belief that we are only marginally important if we fail to prove otherwise—if we lack a clear point of view on people matters and are, ourselves, profound examples of what work ought not to be. I’m just sayin’.

So it is HR where, for me, the transformational work begins. Our confidence, clarity, understanding of core HR practices, and ability to quickly translate our “people pain points” into actionable remedies are what matter most. We must be unequivocal about who we are to our organizations, about what we do each day that positively impacts the emotional and practical experiences of our employees. We have to be clear about why we matter so very much in reforming the way that work works, both in words and in actions. So let’s stop begging for seats at others’ tables and instead assure them that our work is so incredibly compelling—so game–changing and competitive-advantage-ensuring—that our peers, bosses, and colleagues will all clamor to sit at ours.

This is what I teach my students. This is what I hope will inform audacious HR in the future.