Improving HR | HR Change Reluctance

THE BIG IDEA

For HR change agents, whether leading from within or CHRO, there is one question that can quickly diagnose the change reluctance we often meet within the function.

Before we get to it, though, let's look at how HR has become what it is: pretty much the most risk averse function you can find in the corporate landscape.

Surface level causes are easy to find: too busy, seeking permission, lack of capability, and on, and on...

But there's something more fundamental at play here.

You see, regardless of how good we are at it, HR deals with the most intangible of subject matter: PEOPLE, TEAMS, ORGANIZATION & CULTURE

(the four factors, BTW, that are the only sources of competitive advantage)

and our work is, by nature, messy, imprecise and truly chaotic

(despite our very best efforts to insist that everything can be process-flowed and policy-procedured)

Add to this the long-standing - and possibly pathological - need for organizations, executives and employees to use HR as the punching bag of choice, and it's easy to see how HR has become systematically reluctant to rock the boat unless it's absolutely necessary.

Said simply, we've learned that survival is a matter of minimizing risk.

And so we feed the status quo and, even though we may talk a good game of transformation, we just don't quite get around to it.

TRY THIS

As we've discussed above, our survival strategy is all about risk aversion and, while this leads to a minimal stance of change reluctance, more often than not it leads to passive-aggressive self-sabotage within HR

(and, I'll say it because I can and I care, particularly within HR leadership teams)

More often than we openly admit, members of HR actively DEFEND the business against changes to HR processes, even when those process changes have been AGREED and ENDORSED by the business.

On the flip side, members of HR actively over-complicate HR processes and services in order to maintain their power position viz-a-viz the business.

Either way, best intent is mis-applied.

Our aim should always be to improve PEOPLE, TEAMS, ORGANIZATION and CULTURE...

Yet one side is focused on stopping that from happening...

While the other is focused on making it more difficult to do...

All for the short-term gain of not rocking the boat.

Here's what we do know, though - substantive and transformational change ONLY comes when we rock the boat. Period.

The short-term feel-good

(or maybe that should be feel-less-fearful)

is counter-productive for the long-term.

And so we get to our question - one of my favorites to ask when facilitating HR strategic planning offsite or meeting, but also in coaching CHROs to identify the thorny sticking points they're facing.

USE THIS

WHO DOES THIS PERSON CONSIDER TO BE THEIR HOME TEAM?

For an HR business partner, it may be their business client leaders.

For an HR Center of Expertise specialist, it may be the process itself.

For a member of the HR leadership team, it may be their own silo, power-base and/or career ambitions.

And yes, for the CHRO, it may be the CEO who isn't prepared to lead.

Whoever the person, and whatever the home team, the critical thing to know is that, even if this person is verbally committed to the change under discussion

(from the most banal process improvement, to broad-sweeping restructuring)

they're constantly weighing up the pros and, more importantly, cons of how it will impact their home team.

Their internal dialogue is something like this: "Who will this piss off? How much so? What fallout will I have to deal with? Will I get blamed?"

In other words, in our risk averse world-view, the assumption is that any change will fail and will hurt our home team.

And, in that assumption is the hidden sticking point for HR to really improve its value-add - because an assumption of failure and fall-out is never destined to drive meaningful positive change.

By asking WHO DOES THIS PERSON CONSIDER TO BE THEIR HOME TEAM? we're looking for that underlying assumption - only then can we call the behavior and do the hard work of finding common ground that moves everyone forward as an active advocate for positive transformation.

If you're looking to improve HR, whether from within or as the CHRO, when it comes to HR change reluctance, this question should form the bedrock of your influencing strategy.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

"To successfully influence someone, you have to know what is already influencing them..." ~Anthony Robbins