After some deliberation, these are the lessons I think have shaped me the most as an HR professional and leader.
I don’t know what I don’t know, and that’s ok
Starting out in your career your opportunities to influence come from knowledge. In my case this was employment law knowledge. As I have taken on more senior roles, influence has actually come from being a trusted business partner and that requires real humility. Listening and learning are the activities with the greatest return on time investment. Understand your business. For everything else, there is Google.
People are not like me
This is a basic lesson I learned long before my time in HR, but essential for managing others and learning to delegate. We all have different motivators and styles. You can’t be an effective manager or leader without understanding that. As a young manager I could never understand why I was the only one with no objection to working late, starting early or working weekends. Then it dawned on me that I was the only one living at home with no kids, spouse or mortgage to consider.
The safe route is often perceived to be to recruit people like you and train them to work in the way you do. Safe routes don’t often bring long-term success. Trusting and empowering people with skills and attributes different to your own is critical.
The ‘how’ is as important as the ‘what’
If you are in it for the long term, the ‘how’ and the ‘what’ have equal value.
If you have people delivering results but not displaying behaviours that demonstrate your values, deal with it quickly. Equally, those that live and breathe your values but fail to deliver results need to be managed. One does not make up for the other.
Your values are defined by what you tolerate and celebrate, not what the poster on the wall says. There are plenty of businesses that spend their time and effort on the poster. Values do not need to be complicated or designed by committee. They are simply commitments to doing the right thing.
Appreciation changes everything
I don’t believe in the power of appreciation just because I work at OC Tanner. Anyone that knows me will confirm that I work at OC Tanner precisely because I believe in the power of appreciation.
I am not too proud to say that I used to suck at this stuff. I was great at spotting people doing things wrong. To a certain extent this was down to the fact that back then HR was often about compliance and policing the business.
When you show appreciation those behaviours get repeated. In my last role we saw a massive leap in performance (culminating in winning a national award for service excellence) and really all we did was shift our culture to one that sought to appreciate and highlight great work as a way to develop our people and ensure ongoing focus on our values.
The thing about lessons is that they just keep coming. Today’s top four will no doubt be trumped by tomorrow’s discoveries. Lesson five for me – reflect more often!
Robert Ordever is European people and operations director at OC Tanner
