Business Advice - GO TO CONFERENCES!

This past week was full of new things that I learned and experienced that I feel that I should share with other aspiring professionals. I weaseled my way into attending two conferences with my company. Normally, they don’t like to send such young “inexperienced” people to represent their company and brand, but I got student level prices, so it was hard to argue against it. That’s the first thing I learned, push the issue if you really think that you attending a function can be beneficial for the company and for you as a professional. Now, I don’t mean stomp your feet and demand it. Create an argument that they simply cannot say no to.

So anyway, I was able to attend these conferences! One was HR Southwest (#HRSW) whose primary function is to highlight current and emerging trends and explain how they have changed in the past year. I learned a ton about many varied aspects of HR. As a vendor (I do mostly selection and development consulting), sometimes it is hard to see the struggles that internal HR professionals face and how my tools can help to alleviate some of those struggles. I will go over a few things I learned, just because I find them so cool!

The coolest thing I learned concerned flexible competency modeling. Typically, competency modeling is done while only examining the job itself and maybe bringing in some of the organizational culture. Flexible competency modeling also takes the overall business strategy into consideration for competency model development. While the culture hits on the strategy a bit, understanding the positioning of the business is integral to selecting individuals who can realize the vision. I digress a little bit, but I did learn at least one thing that is not only super cool, but can be applied to my company’s best practices to make them even more competitive. This brings me to my second piece of advice: make sure that if you do attend a function on behalf of your company that you can demonstrate that you learned something (s) that they can use in the future.

The other conference I attended was the People Report Best Practices Conference. People Report is an organization powered by Black Box Intelligence who offers various data trends to organizations that sign up as members. They typically focus on the restaurant/service industry, but the attendees varied across industries. I got to go to that conference for a few reasons. One, I helped the marketing director to come up with an awesome “theme” for our presence. Two, my company hosts a dinner at the closing of the conference and is known for dancing or putting on some type of show. Right up my alley, right?! 

I used my talents (haha) and outside work experience to head up teaching my coworkers a series of dances that tied into our overall “theme.” It was a huge success, and really fun for me to do, as I will always have a passion for dance, even if it is cutesy and fun. In addition, my sorority recruitment days helped me to work a booth, design buttons and T-Shirts, organize an event and keep an outward positive attitude. That is my last piece of advice: understand your talents and strengths and apply them to something that will not only help you succeed as an individual, but that will also benefit the business. 

I’d love to hear any other stories of anyone doing those three pieces of advice or simply some suggestions on conferences or events that are awesome! Have a great week!

Corporate Controversial

I was contemplating what topic I wanted to cover today with this entry and I went through a series of options. I tend to like writing about things that I wish I had done differently or something that was an unexpected obstacle so that others may avoid it. I always appreciated hearing those types of commentaries from others so that I can at least attempt to have a smoother time, whatever the situation is or was. This entry will be a little different though. It is something that I don’t struggle with, but that I get in trouble a lot for.

If you have ever met me in “real-life” you know that I am confrontational, have a voice and often controversial. While I don’t try to be this way, and I try to harness it as much as I physically can, it just is my personality. I don’t mind when people tend to not agree with me, and I don’t mind receiving feedback to “rein it in” (though the initial session is always tense…). While I think there is a balance to everything, and that my way is typically pretty abrupt, I think that losing this part of me can be detrimental to my identity, career, etc. And I think that losing your voice can be detrimental to everyone. 

I think in the United States, because of the way professionalism is defined, that people tend to fall in line to keep their jobs (why wouldn’t they?) which can result in a sense of groupthink when it comes to handling issues, planning for the future, or just maintaining the business. I think this is one reason that American businesses are struggling when compared to foreign businesses regarding things such as creativity, innovation and vision. There are multiple antecedents that can be to blame for these types of problems: traditional education, the economy, differences between generations, etc. I think one of the big reasons is simply that people are scared or not willing to speak up.  

This is especially true when we look at the norm for corporate professionalism.  The norm is that you highly respect your leadership, you dress a certain way, and you sugarcoat anything that may make your superiors “lose face.” While I understand that leadership deserves respect, I think that people’s definitions of respect can be problematic when attempting to run a business. Respect should never mean agreeing with everything they say. It should never mean that you can’t display an appropriate level of passion around your ideas. Respect also doesn’t mean that you should agree when your ideas are shot down. 

I’ve experienced all of these definitions of respect in various jobs and when questioned, no one ever wants to talk about it. They just want to believe that people (like me) are trying to hurt or undermine them. I just never understand why they don’t see it as people trying to HELP them. Attempting to do new and different things to set this business apart from others, even if they are unconventional are at least worth a dignified conversation rather than a blanket NO. 

I don’t believe that anyone in history made it to the books by being a complete follower. If we desire to be “thought leaders” of the world, then let people BECOME those people. If we continue this norm of falling into place and following explicit directions, then where will the next crop of leaders come from? Once they get to a leadership position, no new ideas will emerge, because that creativity and innovative spirit has never been cultivated. Those things are like muscles and need to be stretched, trained and strengthened. I believe that even though it may be difficult and frustrating most of the time that attempting innovation and attempting to reach a vision is necessary for an individual’s professional development.