The Change-Culture Connection – Where to Start?
The study of organizational culture is nothing new, but it is finally getting more consideration in the practice of Change Management—and this raises a lot of questions. What are the connections between culture, business leadership, and transitions? How can this information be used in strategies? What approaches should be applied when culture is x, y, or z? It’s often hard to know where to start to understand a client’s complex culture, so I thought I’d share my favorite change-culture resources. Read more
It might be hard to believe, but at one point in time, watching a favorite classic movie once a year was a real treat. Growing up in a little Ohio town in Midwest USA, not only did we walk to school uphill both ways in a snowstorm, but we also had a distinct lack of streaming videos. In the dark days of broadcast TV, one of my favorite annual events was watching Judy Garland in “The Wizard of Oz.” And yes, I understand that today there is a great deal of meaning placed on that movie for what it did and did not do well in handling sensitive political and social issues of the time—nonetheless, it also made a big impression on me.
The women in my family have faithfully passed down a very special skill from generation to generation. While other families pass down amazing cooking skills or timeless gardening capabilities, my family passes down bargain hunting. The polite terms are “frugal” and “thrifty,” but to each successive generation, the women of my family teach their bargain-hunting shopping skills—the art of tirelessly tracking down the best quality products at the lowest prices no matter the miles walked. I bring this up to share that shopping for my family is truly a sport. 
The passage of time is relative to the topic. When we think about our families, children, and partners, they grow and change so much in what seems like the blink of an eye, the years that pass by so quickly are expected. On the other hand, when looking back on our days at work, we are utterly shocked when we realize that we can begin to share work-related experiences in terms of decades. So, it is with some chagrin that I can honestly say that it has been more than a decade and a half since I was educated on the importance of the Workforce Management Application to an organization’s operation. Up till then, I had seen the direct value of Payroll applications, core HR data, learning solutions, and even early Talent solutions—but as a member of HR, it wasn’t until I was asked to work with the operations team for a large retail organization that I came to understand how central the Workforce Management applications were to all other areas of HR. 
Every year those “in the know” spend time gazing into the future (or their navel, depending on their creative process) with the hopes of picking out those pearls of wisdom that will enlighten and prepare their audience for the coming year. Every industry has its pundits, wise ones, and data collectors, each of them looking at the challenge from a different perspective; the HR community is certainly no different.