Goodbye, DisruptHR Chicago!

Earlier this year, I made the hard decision to hand over the leadership of the DisruptHR Chicago organization which I co-founded four years ago and have served as President since.

It took me nine months to birth this decision... after all, why leave an organization that’s super successful? 

My personal leadership philosophy is to transition a team when it’s at its best. And I am convinced DisruptHR Chicago is at its best. I couldn’t be more excited and proud of what we have accomplished.

I founded the organization all these years ago, partially caused by frustration about the lack of innovation in the HR event space, and partially inspired by Chicago who was emerging as an innovation ecosystem. I wanted to infuse that same spirit into HR.

Initially, the term “disruption” in HR was met with confusion, even skepticism. That reaction prompted me to define the concept and my vision in this HR Gazette article.

Inspired by TED talk founder Richard Wurman, I found myself reflecting on the types of speakers that I wanted to listen to. I was not that interest in the polished professional speaker but more the HR professional who had designed a really cool new program but was too busy to think about public speaking. It became a DisruptHR Chicago core value to surface voices that weren’t commonly heard [Read more about this philosophy here].

I am incredibly proud of the unprecedented diversity of DisruptHR Chicago speakers whom we gave a stage to share their stories.

Over the years, there were three speaker themes that evolved more or less organically, each building on the other.

Courage

One of my favorite Brené Brown quotes is “Courage starts with showing up and letting ourselves be seen.” What does it mean to exhibit courage in HR? I think it is about speaking up and challenging the status quo when it means we can do better by all our stakeholders (especially our employees). These are some of my favorite Disrupt talks that exhibit this brand of courage:

• Amy Bastuga “How A No BS HR Approach to Working With Your Executives Can Lead to Greater Influence”
• Melonie Boone “How Corporate America Squashes Entrepreneurship in the Workplace”
• Ericka Carmona Vega & Miguel Vega: “We’re Here, We’re Diverse, This is How We Look!”
• Heather Corallo “You Can’t Solve Bad Leadership With An App”

Impact

We spend a lot of time at work. As HR professionals, we have the awesome job to make this time count and create an experience where our employees can thrive. I think we have the best job in the world. How can we maximize this impact? These Disrupt speakers were on to something here:

• Steph Ryter & Gary Hallgren “How to Collaborate with The CEO to Build A Rockin’ Culture”
• Allison Robinson “Why We Are Failing Mothers in the Workplace”
• Ellen Steele Kapoor “Radical Inclusion: Theory and Practice”
• Dorie Blesoff “People Analytics: From Fear to Fun”
• Betsy McCann “How to Talk to Your Trans Employees”

Power

The topic of power came up as part of a meeting with our advisory council. We thought there was real power in having a themed event around the topic. It was only fitting that it was our last event. These speakers reflected on the theme from defining power to empowering others, to standing in one’s own power:

• Renetta McCann “Power and Privilege”
• Lisa Cockrell “The Power of Black Women”
• Amy Bastuga & John Higginson “Unleashing the Power Within”
• Eddie Bocanegra “The Power to Change”

Powerful is also the impact we’ve had as an organization.

I am humbled by the fact that DisruptHR Chicago has emerged as a benchmark when it comes to innovation in HR community building and event management, even receiving a Chicago Innovation Award nomination.

We’ve built a passionate and engaged community of more than 2,000 HR disruptors, learned from 77 rock star speakers, partnered with 30 sponsoring organizations, and donated $47,500 to Chicago-area non-profits that are addressing systemic workplace issues such as i.c.stars and United Women in Business.

What moves me even more are the incredible stories of personal growth, collaboration, and connection that I was privileged to witness. These are just a few that will stick with me:

• Elena Valentine was one of the very first people I introduced the idea of bringing this “crazy, TED-talk style” HR event format to Chicago. She was immediately hooked and has supported the community by producing our speaker videos since. Thank you for your loyal support and friendship!
• Eric Doctors attended our very first event. He provided thoughtful feedback and even offered up his email address for follow-up discussion. He subsequently became a speaker, volunteer, and sponsor. For his commitment to the community, we honored him with our very first DisruptHR Chicago superhero award. Keep disrupting, Eric!
• One of our goals in 2018 was to contribute to the development of the next generation of HR disruptors. Sarah Beckmann was our intern and partnered with interns from other community organization to work on a research study resulting in a video about the future of work. We are so excited that Sarah chose to pursue a career in HR as a result of her internship with us and she just landed her first job. Yay, Sarah!
• It was incredibly moving to witness the power of role model leadership play out on the Disrupt stage at our last event: Amy Bastuga presented about how leaders can empower others. But not only did she talk about it as a theoretical concept, she also recommended her mentee Lisa Cockrell as a Disrupt speaker and lifted her up as she shone on stage. Goosebumps!

I am full of gratitude for the many advisors, countless volunteers, supportive sponsors, and incredible speakers who have been on this journey with us. I really should list them all here but that would make for an endless blog post. So, here is a hearty cheers to all of you! Just know that you significantly contributed to the impact I described earlier in this post.

Nothing would have been possible without my fellow DisruptHR Chicago Board members Nancy Harris and Kelly Burlage who stuck with me and the organization for the past four years and who gave their time, passion, and energy to this labor of love. You guys rock!

What’s next for DisruptHR Chicago?

Once Nancy, Kelly, and I decided that it would be time to pass on the torch and that this would be our last term leading the organization, Board succession planning became top of mind. If you have built a community such as DisruptHR Chicago you want to make sure she lands in the hands of people who are at least as passionate about her as you are.

I believe the new leadership team we selected checks the boxes: all of the incoming Board members are former Disrupt speakers and community volunteers and are excited about taking DisruptHR Chicago into the future. I can’t wait for you all to meet them in January!

What’s next for me?

I plan to take some time to reflect and explore where I can make an impact next. I will take a page from my own playbook and apply a design thinking approach to this process. I’d love to chat with anyone who might have thoughts or ideas that you think I should explore or people I should talk to.

I will also focus on scaling the hr.hackathon alliance. I initially created this design thinking inspired event for the DisruptHR Chicago community. It was such an impactful experience for more than 300 HR professionals in Chicago that I decided to bring the format to even more HR professionals. We are currently in five cities (Atlanta, Chicago, Denver, Detroit, Los Angeles) and I am looking forward to growing the community in 2020 and beyond.

Message me if you want to bring this innovative event format to your city or would like to become a sponsor of this growing community.

And behind the scenes at talent.imperative…

This year has seen us work with truly inspiring clients who came to us with questions like “How might we transform our HR function into an employee experience organization?”, “How can we make our Talent Review process more human-centered?”, “What might a flexible, contemporary career development program look like?”, “How might we use design thinking ideation methods for employee engagement action planning co-creation?”

What a shift in how we view our function and our role as HR professionals!

I am so grateful that talent.imperative continues to be invited to lead the charge when it comes to pioneering design thinking in HR and employee experience.

Learn more about how to partner with talent.imperative here.

Jane Goodall once said: “What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

My biggest hope is that we have made a difference – in the Chicago HR community and in individual HR professionals’ personal and professional lives.

How will you make a difference?