Exploring the HR Leader Development Triangle: When?

This week, I continue to explore the key knowledge, capabilities, skills, and relationships required to be a high functioning, impactful HR organization, the What? Who? and When? of HR leadership development. I like to think of What? Who? and When? as different sides of a triangle, each representing a balancing act between three critical dimensions of development.

With the current year ending and a new one about to begin, now is a good time to step back and assess you and your HR team’s development efforts. In this article, let’s turn our attention to “When?”

“WHEN” Factors

In addition to paying attention to what you need to know and with whom you are spending your time, the third dimension of effective HR leader development involves knowing WHEN you are experiencing critical developmental inflection points and how well you take advantage of what you are learning, especially in the moment. These moments can include any one of the following:

• Start-Up
• Turn-Around/Fix-It
• High Growth
• MA&D
• Cross Business/Function/Industry/Geography
• Reorganization
• Global
• New Boss
• New Leadership Role

The Power of “WHEN”

When I am with groups of HR leaders, I am fond of asking them three questions and seeing how many people raise their hands in response:

• “How many of you have a new job in the last three years or less?” (Generally, 70 to 80% of people raise their hands.)
• “How many of you have a new boss in the last three years or less?” (Even more hands go up.)
• “How many of you wish you had a new boss in the last . . .?” (I usually don’t even finish the question because people are laughing and everyone is playfully raising their hands.)

Learning to deal with a new boss is only one vivid example of the power of “WHEN.” We have all had the challenging, mind‐stretching, and sometimes painful experience of working for someone new—someone who does things differently, or asks tough questions, or challenges the status quo, or doesn’t respect the past, or isn’t worried about who he/she irritates or insults, or may be a giant breath of fresh air compared to the loser we worked for previously. In any case, dealing with a new boss is a huge developmental experience.

Similarly, there is power in any number of other moments.

Have you ever been part of a start‐up business, operating unit, or new company? What about working in an organization that was in trouble and needed to be turned around and fixed? Have you ever experienced a high‐growth environment where everything was happening too fast without enough resources? What about being part of a merger, acquisition, or divestiture—as either the conqueror or the conquered?

When was the last time you experienced the pain of moving across businesses, functions, industries, or geographies? Have you been part of a big reorganization and lived to tell about it? Have you ever had a global role that caused you to live or work outside your country of origin or to work with others from different cultures who speak a different native language?

When was the last time you were put in a new leadership role that was so challenging that your head hurt and you lay awake at night staring at the ceiling and wondering, “Can I do this job, and did I really ever want it in the first place?”

Applying “WHEN” to Your Own Development

As HR people, we are often intimately involved in creating, designing, and executing these kinds of developmental experiences for others. But what about us? What about YOU?

Someone once said, “Variety is the spice of life,” but it is also the secret sauce that drives development. New and different experiences make all the difference. Research shows that 70% of development comes from new experiences and assignments, and especially challenging experiences and assignments. Why should HR leaders be developed any differently from others?

There are not many HR executives who have experienced all the developmental inflection points summarized above. And you may have experienced others that are not on this list. But have you experienced any? How many? When was the last time? Did they just randomly happen to you or were they part of some grander plan? What did they prepare you for next? Most importantly, did you stop what you were doing just long enough to pay attention to what you were learning, what your strengths and development needs were, and whether you were addressing any of those via the experiences you were having? If not, take some time to reflect and make note of how your development experiences at critical inflection points may have served you well or not so well.

Learn More

If you found this information valuable, for more on these and other ideas, check out my book, THREE: The Human Resources Emerging Executive, available now. Learn more and preview THREE at www.exexgroup.com/publications/three-book.

Be sure also to check out the FREE eBook Black Holes and White Spaces: Reimagining the Future of Work and HR with the CHREATE Project, published through the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and now available for download on Amazon where it remains a best seller in the Business Leadership and the Human Resources categories The eBook contains 26 essays and is the result of contributions of expertise, time, and passion from more than 70 exemplary chief HR officers and CHREATE Project volunteers.