The Soft Side of HR

In an extract from his book ‘Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking’, Malcolm Gladwell touches on the topic of malpractice suits with the mistakes a doctor makes. 


There are highly skilled doctors who get sued a lot; and doctors who make lots of mistakes and never get sued.  The truth is malpractice lawsuits have little to do with how many mistakes a doctor makes. Patients don’t file lawsuits because they’ve been harmed by shoddy medical care. Patients file lawsuits because they’ve been harmed by shoddy medical care and something else happens to them.

What is that something else? It’s how they were treated, on a personal level, by their doctor. 


Consider this the same for people working in HR departments. HR personnel represent the doctors; while skilled sometimes have a tendency to overlook their clients. What happens is that even minor mistakes tend to become glaring errors and cause for dissatisfaction and a bad reputation.


Each human resource professional should have a presentable and approachable image, be able to draw his customers close to him and learn his needs. Without this, we are only people with knowledge but no place to practice it.

Mindsets - Will they Make you or Break you?

Mindsets

View more presentations from siddiqif.

Creating Rapport

Having a good working relationship is important for everyone, whether it be of a personal nature or for those involved in people management on a daily basis.

How can we build this connection and rapport? A few basic tips can take you a long way.

1. Active Listening. Be attentive and reflect back whatever the person in front of you is saying.
   
2. Match the tone of your audience. If they are speaking slowly and softly, a loud fast pitch may annoy them
   
3. Use similar language patterns. Some people talk in metaphors, others focus on future goals and yet others talk about how they feel.
   
4. Be careful about the choice of words, especially when disagreeing with others. Use of the word ‘BUT’ in a  sentence creates a negative vibe, making the other person WRONG and you RIGHT. Not a good way to make friends, correct? Instead, use words such as AND, ALSO etc
   
5. When trying to make a point, appeal to all the senses. Paint a vivid picture, use a harmonious tone / pitch, share the same energy levels and so on.
6. Look through the lens of your audience. If you are rigid in your beliefs, you will fail to understand what makes the other person tick.

Great Communicators Part 1

Communication is the most natural thing in the world, but good communication.....that's a goal to aspire to.


In my search for communication styles, I have stumbled across many great resources and wanted to share them with you.


The first of my tributes goes to Garr Reynolds .


Garr Reynolds is the author of Presentation Design and Presentation Design Zen. His designs are about mindfulness, a minimalistic approach and pack quite a punch. You can view his presentations on YouTube, check out his slides at Slideshare or read his Presentation Zen blog .

Scott Berkun's talk on Innovation

Scott Berkun, author of "Making things happen" and "The Myths of Innovation" gave an interesting talk on the process of innovation. You can check it out here .

Disconnect and Conquer

Many times we feel overwhelmed by what is going on around us; too many things to do and just not enough hours in the day!


How do we then create that separation & balance? Should we 'focus' on one activity first and then another? The answer is: 'No, we shouldn't FOCUS!'


Focus is perhaps the wrong word to use. Instead, we choose to disconnect from everything except the activity at hand. 


Focus reminds us there are distractions, which in turn leads us down the path of each distraction at inappropriate times. 


Disconnect implies that only one thing exists in front of you. Imagine if you will, a black hole enveloping everything else.The less complex the environment, the easier it is to think of nothing else.


According to Tony Robbins, the words we use to describe our experience become our experience. Hence, Focus on transforms to disconnect from.



You can disconnect yourself from people, emotions, electronic devices etc. You'll work better, achieve more even if it's only for a few minutes at a time.

Book Review

Made to Stick 

       Chip & Dan Heath            

Made to Stick, by the Heath brothers, Chip and Dan Heath, is a remarkable book that does exactly what the title says.

Characters of this story
Arch Enemy:                                       Curse of Knowledge
Enemy Sidekicks:                                Decision Paralysis, Burying the Lead
Hero:                                                 Sticky ideas


Setting

Present day; workplace, meetings, presentations, parties, friends & families, documents, stories, movies and so on.

Mission

Defeat the enemy and save the world

Plot

Reduce conflict between our hero and his arch enemy, by using the secret weapon; 

the SUCCESs principles.

S =  Simple

      Find the core of the message

      E.g., determine what is the single most important thing you would like your 
      audience to walk away with. For any additional points you add, ask yourself 
      'Does this really support my core idea?' If not, throw it out.

U = Unexpected
      Capture (and keep) the attention of your audience.E.g., Break patterns, do 
      something counterintuitive


C = Concrete
     Create meaning & tangibility for your message to be understood and
     remembered. E.g., Build your case around a metaphor or image. 'Sour Grapes'
     implies bitterness


C = Credible
      Provide a reliable source to ensure agreement and acceptance of what you 
      have to say. E.g., backed by Govt. statistics, famous shows, doctors


E = Emotional
      Make others care


S = Story
      Create a rich picture that provides source of inspiration and allows audience
      to act upon. E.g., Chicken Soup books provide personal accounts of tragedy 
      and love etc.


For further details on how to use these SUCCESs principles and live examples, I highly recommend you read this book.