Another “PaulCast” is up and ready for your listening pleasure (or not). know Trump is upset about not earning an Emmy and so am I. The whole podcasting industry is rigged I tell ya. Rigged! But seriously folks. Today’s podcast features Alina Tubman … Alina has managed campus recruiting programs in both the private and public sector in financial services. Most recently she was the Head of Campus Recruiting Strategy and Operations at the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. Prior to that she was a Vice President at J.P. That simple. On to the show!

Close your eyes. Imagine you’re a manager and you have 10 employees that you’re responsible for. Notice I didn’t say “10 employees who work for you”. That was on purpose. As a manager your REAL job regardless of what you think or what your manager thinks, isn’t to get the most out of people listed “under you” on the org chart. Your REAL job is to help those on your team get what THEY need WHILE achieving company objectives. Read that about 10 times before continuing. If you’re in the camp of having people work FOR you – you probably shouldn’t be a manager. You need somebody!

We all want to predict the future. want to know which company will be the next AOL, or the next Apple. want to know where to tell my kids to put their money so they can take care of me in in my old age in the same lifestyle they have grown accustomed to under my roof. Trust me. They’ve lived better than I did at their age – and probably better than I do at my current state. When I complain to them about it they just turn up the volume on their 42” 1080p TV in their room and keep texting on their $500 smart phones. Le sigh. But seriously. It would be great. It would be yuge. Impossible.

We are a one-trick pony society now. We have abandoned our ability to see our world as a complex set of iterations, interactions and interrelationships. We think the economy is ONLY a function of Fed interest policy. We think the election is ONLY a function of media. We think our weight is ONLY a function of McDonalds (or 96 oz. sugary drinks – but not both.). We live in a world where we are loath to clutter up our brains with more than one causal fact because we’re too worried it might crowd out the upcoming schedule for Chyna and Rob. Now THAT stuff is complex! Motivation isn’t About Money.

SEO link bait aside, the headline still stands. I’m in Chicago this week for HRTech. I’m one of the designated “bloggers” for the event which means I get a pass to the event and … well… that’s about it. I say that up front just to be clear there is not pay to play or other exchange. Transparency achieved. The conference continues to get bigger. Every year there are more companies on the floor exhibit. Every year the organizers create new things to capture the attention of HR professionals. From my perspective the things I think are interesting are: The Startup Pavilion. love this idea.

If you work in corporate America you worry about employee engagement. If you work in corporate “World” you worry about employee engagement. And if you pay attention to employee engagement data you know it really hasn’t changed much in 10 years or so. Hovering around 30%, employee engagement is the Groundhog’s Day of HR issues. The true definition of insanity – same thing different day – same solutions – same results. But what the heck. Let’s do it all over again tomorrow. K? K. And this is one of them. And still is to a degree. Spreading the word.

This is one of those “apology” posts. You’ve seen them before. blogger takes a break or doesn’t post as much as they have in the past, so they do a post to apologize for not posting and promising to never let that happen again. might have done one of those before. But now, when I see those posts I think how much hubris is in that apology. Apologizing is what you do when your behavior harmed someone or affected someone’s life in some way. Apologizing for not posting seems pretty small. think they either borrow or steal from their real life, or pull it from their work life. And it is great!

Rayanne Thorn joins the “Paul”Cast to chat about doing something different with your life and your career. Normally we talk about leveraging your strengths and focusing on what you do well while outsourcing the stuff you suck at. Rayanne is the Vice President of Marketing at  Dovetail Software , ( [link] ) a case management and help desk solutions for HR and also Clarify Solutions. She is also an editor at  intrepidNOW  ( [link] ), an online radio show where she covers the  IntrepidHR channel. She is also an online radio host for  HR Latte  and  TradeShow.media. But fun!

Culture – the tapestry of who and what your company is and stands for. Woven from many different behaviors – large and small. Culture isn’t what is written on posters outside the offices of your senior leadership team. Culture is what happens in the conference rooms and on the phones of your employees. Culture is the space between words and actions. Culture is in the pens and fancy leather portfolios (logo-identified or not.). You think I’m kidding right? But I’m not. What we see and experience in our workplace has impact. And it may have a bigger impact than you can imagine. More fun?

Normally I start these “Paul”Casts with the tag line “what I wished I had been told…” but my interview partner in this discussion is fresh out of school and really hasn’t had the opportunity to experience a ton of life yet and be burdened by the weight of “woulda, shoulda, coulda.” ” But even without years of hindsight to reflect on Micole Kaye from Ultimate Software was a wonderful and fun guest to have on the call. She and I talked about her experience as a political intern and a business intern. Another hint – a lot of things!

Are you taking responsibility for your own engagement at work? Are you the craftsperson of your own happiness? It seems from what we read today that companies own employee engagement and employee happiness. But not so fast says Monica Fochtman, Ph.D., adjunct professor and career coach and mentor. Monica joins me on the “Paul”Cast to talk about how you can control engagement at work. YOU are the key! Money idea from the conversation… “Not being in charge of your engagement is only a disservice to yourself your employer.”. Listen to a great “Paul”Cast with Monica embedded below.

Incentive programs are sometimes more art than science. think that is due to a variety of studies that contradict each other and gurus who do the same. That tension creates “gray” areas and they get filled with the “art” part of the design. The contradiction starts with the “incentives destroy intrinsic motivation” camp – which can happen if you focus on rewarding already intrinsically motivated behaviors (why would you do that anyway?). Think Alfie Kohn. But, as I’ve said over and over and over again, like any tool – it is only as good as the craftsman. You Make the Call ? Case in point.

As I got ready to upload this podcast I noticed just how long it has been since my last post. I am embarrassed! Chaulk it up to being busy – which also equates to better business. I can attest – there is an uptick in the economy. And speaking of making money. Today’s podcast is a special one. I got the chance to talk to Ray Zinn. The past CEO of a silicon valley company called Micrel. Ray is (was?) the longest-tenured CEO in Silicon Valley – 37 years! THAT is really a different kinda tech CEO. One question he asks – “How did you like your last job.”

There are no shortages of people telling you how to get things done at work. I’m one of them. There is, however,  a shortage of people who will HONESTLY tell you how to get things done at work. Too often advice on the internet is buried deep inside a sales pitch designed simply to sell you – not support you. When I’m engaged to help design an initiative to influence behavior in a company – either for employees or for channel partners I don’t simply sell. solve. Here’s a long – but accurate example of how to design a program that will influence behavior but not “sell” a point of view. Cancel it?

I love my FOT tribe… we get to talk about weird and wonderful stuff associated with HR. And we get to talk to interesting people when we do webinars and videos. Heads up – another great FOT webinar is coming your way… Jobvite , Kris Dunn and Dawn Burke are logging in and talking recruiting with the newest hit FOT webinar:  Instagramming HR: 5 Filters HR Pros Can Use To Transform Into Better Recruiters  on June 29th at 2pm EST!! Webinar Description. You know it’s true—you’re a great HR Pro, but you don’t really like to recruit. Insta-recruiter. REGISTER TODAY! CLICK THIS LINK!

Back behind the microphone with Drew Hawkins. Drew is someone I met about 8 years ago as I was just firing up a single practitioner consulting service and we was working in Chicago at a semi-competitor. We were both banging the social media drum for our respective companies and believe it or not in 2008 there weren’t a tone of voices in our industry so it was pretty natural we’d connect. Drew moved on to bigger and better things. Got married. Moved to ATL and got a legitimate job. Drew’s profile on LinkedIn is here and you can see his blog “Brainwads” ” here.

If I had a nickel for every time someone asked me “what incentive should I run to help me grow my business?” I’d have enough nickels to buy something really expensive. If I had a dollar for every time I’d been asked that I’d be on the beach not answering this question anymore. But the question is common. think it’s common because people think there is a specific type of program or a specific program structure that is used over and over again regardless of the business situation. While that would make my life a lot easier – it just isn’t true. It is much more complicated than that. There ya go!

I keep a file of all the articles I find about how to drive performance in organizations. Some are good. Some are horrible. Most are about 50% correct. Even this one will fall short of 100% because at the core what we all are addressing are human beings – who – by their very nature – are 100% inscrutable and unreliable. Just ask my wife. Any discussion of human behavior has to start with the caveat – “Your mileage may vary. Wildly.”. I was skimming through my file of articles and ran into a discussion on LinkedIn by John Sumser who owns the HRExaminer site. Things can be overdone. know HERESY!

Except for a few classes in high school and college, I’m betting you haven’t used the word entropy in a long while. If you have, you’re traveling in better circles than me. In my group the most common words we use are “does it hurt when I do this” and “do these look like bed bug bites?”. But seriously. Entropy isn’t a word that gets a lot of play in the general discussion of business and in any discussion of employee engagement. But I’m thinking it should. Stick with me here…. Without ongoing tweaks and updates the “system” that is your business will deteriorate. Just like your business.

I was going to post this yesterday but then I remembered it was Memorial Day and there is only one thing that needs to be said on Memorial Day. Thanks. There is no need to clutter up the web with my bit of smallness when we’re taking the time to deeply thank those who paid the ultimate price to ensure I can continue to write these lines and make these career changes. remember. thank you. Now my new story. The Book is Never Really Done. believe life is a story. beginning. An end. A lot of stuff happening in the middle. Those experiences shape us and inform our future choices. They would.

Filed under: Blog Posts Tagged: Featured , Memorial Day 2016. Blog Posts Featured Memorial Day 2016

Engagement. Everything is about engagement these days. If you’re in marketing you’re worried about consumer engagement. If you’re in HR you’re all about employee engagement. If you’re a B2B sales person you’re all about company engagement with your company. Engagement. Engagement. Engagement. (be honest – you said that like Jan Brady said Marcia. Marcia. Marcia. Didn’t you?). I get it. We get it. Everybody gets it. And we are always looking for the newest thing to drive engagement. And that thing is now SnapChat. Chatty Chatty Bang Bang. But because I don’t use SnapChat I’m being shamed. Plaxo.

Six years ago I wrote a post on Fistful of Talent called “Just Throw Strikes.”. The gist of the post was that too often what we think is helpful advice is rarely that. At best it is just a restatement of obvious facts or at worst, a group of words strung together with no meaning whatsoever. In the post I recounted my experience as a cringing father of a high school baseball kid pitching in a high stakes game. The crowd screaming at my kid “Just throw strikes!”. Yeah – no one thinks of that right? What does being transparent even mean? Calling Claude Rains! Until now of course! RIGHT!

Sometimes I surprise myself. I’ve been writing about employee engagement – and engagement in general – for almost 10 years. First on my own blog for and then in tandem on Fistful of Talent for almost as long. I’ve also been connected with HRExaminer for about 5 or 6 years – and now back here on my own blog again. I’m rebuilding my audience now after a bad business decision a few years back. Semper discentes. Neither here nor there. But here’s the thing that surprises me. There are so many things in other disciplines and industries can be repurposed as part of an engagement piece.

Pop culture. Gotta love it! Game of Thrones. REALLY gotta love it. If you’re a fan of the HBO series stop reading and just click here to register for a Fistful of Talent webinar (you know FOT webinars go to 11) “RAISING DRAGONS: What Game of Thrones Teaches Us About Performance Coaching and Building Teams.” ” For those that need more convincing I’ll simply leave this here: #Pro-tip: Never make Peter Baelish mad… go register…. Or read on…. Winter is Coming.” “You Win or You Die.” “You Know Nothing, Jon Snow.”. The team at Fistful of Talent? Have a favorite character who’s dead?

Another day another dollar and another “Paul”Cast. This time, it is Josh Flagner (@railbirdj). Josh is a seasoned podcaster (I hope I pass his critique… finger’s crossed.) Josh writes, posts, whatever at JoshFlagner.com and hosts the podcast called “RailBirds Nest.” ” And no – I never asked him why it is called that. guess you’ll have to go to his site and listen to his stuff to find out why. Josh and I connected at the 2016 Cleveland DisruptHR event back in February. We were both presenters. One way was more open and direct. Thanks, Josh!

About 6 years ago I wrote a post for Fistful Of Talent entitled: HR Plays Too Much Defense”. The gist of the post was that HR sees their job as “protecting the company.” That HR is in the “prevention of problems game.” ” Unfortunately, the way you win that game is to not lose. And the way you “not lose” is to make sure you don’t have problems.  Your goal is to “fix” what is wrong. You look for things that aren’t working – or potentially may not work – and you fix them. think that post is still on point. HR still plays defense. Stay with me here…. Better food!

Today’s “Paul”Cast is all about taking the bull by the horns and reaching out to your  network and owning that task. And we’re lucky enough to have Lois Melbourne to thank for that advice. I’ve known Lois for a few years. think we met over a podcast – HRHappyHour. She was running a company called Aquire (formerly known as TimeVision.) Lois and her husband worked for almost 20 years building that company and then sold Aquire to PeopleFluent. ( #Protip – always listen to advice from people who build and sell companies!).

The more I write about engagement and motivation for business, the more convinced I become that there are a finite number of rules in the world and those rules are simply repurposed for whatever context we humans play (or work) in. The rules that govern how we should act at home are pretty much the same as the rules we should follow at work. Remember the book – “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” ? We have few rules – but we have many ways those rules can be applied. So here’s my riff on the 12 Laws of Karma – and employee engagement.  . The Law of Creation. The Law of Growth.

Are you afraid? Are you intimidated? Was there a time in your career where you didn’t say something or didn’t do something because you were intimidated? Either by title, gender, tenure? Was your career stalled or at least slowed down because you were too intimidated by someone at work? That’s what Kristen Harcourt brings to the “Paul”Cast in this episode. Kristen is a senior consultant with the McQuaig Institute. Listen in as we riff on the idea of overcoming the intimidation factor and hear the one thing that 100% of all successful people do. Listen for it.

Remember the mean girls or guys in school? Well Sybil reminds us that they don’t disappear after we get out of school. Sybil Stershic joins me on the podcast where we explore working with jerks. Sybil has some interesting points of view when it comes to working with the jerks you thought you’d left behind. I met Sybil a few years back at a conference and began following her and her blog and have found her advice and counsel to be spot on. Her professional focus is on helping companies undestand the impact of quality service on their business and helping with the basics of marketing.

Can you believe there was a time in medical history when medical practitioners didn’t wash their hands? When cleanliness wasn’t a “best practice?” True story. Washing hands wasn’t a routine issue back in the mid-1800s. The idea of washing hands came about because of the studies of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis. I’m sure many of you have heard the story but for those who haven’t…. Dr. Semmelweis worked at a maternity clinic in Vienna. He was interested in why things happened – medically speaking of course. The Doctor assisted births had 5 times the death rate than those by midwives. Sounds simple, right?

Back on the air with another “Paul”Cast. This time we welcome Jim Hacking – an immigration and citizenship attorney in St. Louis. (I know who I’m gonna call if I get lit up in St. Louis!). Jim joins me to talk about “time.” More ” More specifically – the amount of time things really take to accomplish vs. what you think they should take. And as a bonus track – we’ll also talk about how no matter how detailed your to-do list is – there will always be things that need to be added. The truth is you never think of everything.

Show of hands… how many of you like being compared to domesticated farm animals? Or even non-domesticated animals for that matter? Except for honey badgers and wolverines – those are some bad-ass animals. I’m cool if someone said I was like a honey badger or wolverine. But what about cows? Do you like being compared to a cow? Don’t we all? Why else would people write about treating employees like cows? You’ve seen it. You know the mantra: contented cows give more milk. Contented cows give more milk ergo contented employees give more work. This is what we are sharing, tweeting, blogging about.

On March 23, 2016, Microsoft unleashed on the internet an artificial intelligence (AI) attached to a twitter account. It was called a chatbot and it went by the name of “Tay.”. Tay” was an experiment in AI to learn how this nonhuman software robot would interact with the twittersphere and converse with “real” people on twitter. The AI was written in a way to mimic what it “heard” on twitter, and learn as it went along, theoretically getting smarter and more humanlike with each subsequent interaction. Turing test anyone?). Have they not heard of the Lawnmower Man or Transcendence ? Almost.

Continuing my podcast series addressing advice you wished someone had given you early in your career we talk with Chad Atwell. Chad is the Director, Product Strategy – Human Capital Management at Oracle leading the strategy for Oracle’s Compensation Cloud working with clients and prospects to help create future product functionality. He is also a Faculty member at WorldatWork teaching C4 Base Pay Administration, C12 Variable Pay and C17 Market Pricing and has also worked with Aon, Qwest Communications, Chipotle Grill. Someone with that pedigree SHOULD be giving advice.

It’s been something in the back of mind, wound tight, ready to spring with the right trigger – the feeling this whole mad, headlong rush into big data and predictive analytics for HR isn’t right. Isn’t human. haven’t liked the conversation since I first started seeing it a few years back. I’ve always felt there was something untoward about taking the data HR has about employees and using it solely to better the firm. Sure, in a few (very, very few) instances you might find a passing nod to bettering the employee. But with HR, it seemed different. You do know that, right?”.

Seems I’m doing more podcasts than writing lately. think it’s because I’ve been writing for almost 10 years about engagement, rewards, incentives, recognition and just about anything connected to influencing behavior in an organization. It gets tough to continue to find new things to say. It’s almost as tough as seeing someone write a doppelganger post on a subject you wrote 5 years ago that gets high praise and all it really does is confirm no one read your post. And it is going extremely well. And the conversations have been enlightening and fun. Talk soon!

Another podcast in the can! Fast and furious they are coming now said my inner Yoda. Wowsers. It was just last week when Trish McFarlane and I talked about how she wished someone had told her “creating” a job was a thing. Today we’re lucky enough to talk with Michael Nagorski, a Senior Consultant at MHI Global , a TwentyEighty Company. but the goal is to connect with other professionals and talk about what they wished they had been told early in their careers that might have made big difference in their career path. Michael volunteered to talk.

You are in for a treat this time. On the podcast this time around is Trish McFarlane – friend and great HR professional and HR consultant at H3 Advisors. Trish and I spent about 25 minutes the other day chatting about what she wish someone had told her early in her career. It’s not what you would expect so I won’t spoil the surprise – you’ll just have to listen in. First – a bit of a Trish introduction. (I hope I have enough room on the post for all she’s doing.). She blogs at HR Ringleader and can be followed on Twitter @TrishMcFarlane.

Click Here for Larger Version of Incentive Decision Tree. Most people think they know. My experience is that most people are wrong. But here I am to save the day. Below are the most important questions you need to answer before deciding whether to run an incentive program and deciding how to structure it. Use this EVERY time you think you need an incentive program. The image on the right is a more detailed decision process for those who like the detail). Make sure you go through ALL  the steps…. Identify your goal, end results, success metric (how you will know it worked.). program design

Seems HR gets more than their fair share of abuse. From HBR running their ongoing series on why HR sucks or how HR needs to change to why everyone hates HR. What exactly did HR do to Harvard Business Review? Please apologize so we can get some good press going for HR. HR is the department (and the people in some cases) we all love to hate. For too many, HR people are like politicians. Necessary but not wanted. The blame for every problem – and yet the source of every solution. HR has to be friends with the CEO while still buddying up to the rank and file. Today it’s 15. Who knows.

Continuing the ongoing podcast series exploring the tips, tricks, and advice you wish someone had provided when you were first starting out in life. In the post that introduced this podcast idea I provided my advice: Don’t assume a title means intelligence. Michael Moon came on the show and talked about understanding cultural fit. And now Karen Schulman Dupuis hops on to talk about mentors, mentoring and having a future “you” to guide your early career decisions. think those two descriptors is a great way to start your introduction to Karen. She is on twitter at @keransd.

Hello… my name is Paul. I’m a social media and industry news addict. Truth. actually have an app installed that won’t let me open Facebook during certain hours. I can’t disable it. I can’t reboot the computer and start over. It stops me from accessing Facebook during certain hours of the day – like say – 8:00am – Noon and then from 1:00pm – 5:00pm. The app I have allows me to set it to any site but Facebook is my social media drug of choice. work in the reward industry and the HR space and there are 100s of posts, tweets, emails, updates every.single.day. YOU.MUST.READ.THEM. Cut it Out. Right?

Scotch. Expensive Cigars. Caviar. The book Dune…. Recruiting Animal. What do these things have in common? For a start, a ton of people hate them. And an equal number of people find them awesome and their reason for living. Me – I’m sorta in the second camp. Most of you have heard of the things on the list… but one is probably a mystery to most of you. Before I tell you what/who a Recruiting Animal is let me set the stage…. Tim Sackett Day. The first recipient was Tim Sackett (hence Tim Sackett Day).  In the following years, myself, Kelly Dingee , and Victorio Milian have been recognized.

( Steve Boese posted today on how Netflix sees their real time data and the HR spin. It reminded me of the following slightly edited post I wrote back in February 2015 on a different blog. Enjoy this blast from the past.). Big data is all the rage. It has been seen on all the fashion runways related to tech and HR. If you aren’t wearing big data, you are soooo behind the times. Big data provides the promise and the fantasy of being able to make infallible decisions based on the Everest-sized piles of data. Cuz we all know that more data is better. Right? And big data in HR has a place.

This post is a redo of a post from a few years back (about 4 or 5 to be not-exact.) I decided to remix/repost based on a twitter conversation I had with @TrishMcFarlane and @AKABruno (aka Matt Stollack.). Trish said: “Interesting. Recognition makes me uncomfortable (personally) but validation is important to me. Wonder why?”. Today the idea of recognition is huge! Much bigger than when I first wrote about this. Companies have placed an unprecedented focus on recognition as THE way to drive employee engagement. Yet engagement numbers still lag. think recognition is only part of the answer.

I hear a lot of people say that those of us that buy Powerball tickets are stupid. They say we are throwing away our money. They say we have no chance of winning. Well… not exactly… we have a chance. But it is a really, really, really, really small one. Click here to see all the things you have a better chance of – being killed by a vending machine is one of them.) To those that give us Powerball players the side-eye and mock us with your rock-solid logic and in-our-face-rationality we say…. Bugger off! You, my friend, are missing the point. The lottery isn’t about winning. Me #winning. Three….

During conversations over Christmas break with my 22 year-old and my 24 year-old children they were surprised to learn that all this parenting stuff they had to suffer through growing up (and continue to for at least a little while longer) … their mom and I were making up as we went along. Like EVERYONE else, we didn’t know what we were doing. Sometimes you guess right and you repeat it. Sometimes you do it wrong and you don’t. Adulting and parenting isn’t something you know how to do. You just keep doing it and hope you get it right more often than you get it wrong. TRUTH. It is a win – win.

Is it just me or have we seen a huge uptick in pithy sayings set top of beautifully photographed scenes? Like you, I read them and nod my head in agreement. In the past these visual soundbites (or do we call them site bites?) were quotes from famous people or people who had earned some level of accomplishment and notoriety. People who had earned Nobel awards, Pulitzer prizes, fourth-grade spelling bee runners-up. You get the idea. But lately I’ve been seeing these short, pithy quotes from people quoting themselves (which is probably the height of hubris.) The answer in most cases is… no.

Looks like I’m going to try and channel my inner Steve Boese or my inner Kris Dunn and try to draw some connection between what’s going on in sports and what’s going on in the business world. First some backstory (not that you need it…). One of the things I’ve been working on for 2016 (all five days of it) is to try to have a more structured schedule, and that means taking time for breakfast and not spending that time in front of the computer. Today was no different. One of the stories in  USA Today was about the St. Louis Rams. The headline read, “Rams bash St. Louis fan base. Louis Rams!

I don’t do the normal prediction post or look-back post mostly because they are pretty easy and common. But I’m not above some self-promotion so I’m leaving 2015 with this podcast I did with friend Rayanne Thorn. We did a similar one last year and she swears it is the most listened to podcast for the year (don’t know what that says – maybe it is true people love a good trainwreck!). Either way – she “twisted” my arm to do another one this year and it is up on her broadcast site – IntrepidNow – in the HR section. link]. Happy New Year!