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In a Downturn, Provoke Your Customers???

25 Mar

provoke

There’s a fascinating article in the Harvard Business Review Online with this “provocative” title. It suggests that selling in a more traditional way– find a point of pain and address it– may not work in the current B to B environment. The authors discuss being provocative, which includes the following elements:

To begin a provocation-based sale, you must do three things well: identify a problem that will resonate with a line executive in the target organization; develop a provocative point of view about that problem (one that links, naturally, to what your company has to offer); and lodge that provocation with a decision maker who can take the implied action.

The article discusses how to go about these steps, and offers examples of companies that have used the approach. I think HR executives could take a similar approach to “selling” the value of HR in these challenging times. Some leaders may be willing to abandon good human capital practices to “save money”, which is exactly the wrongdirection to go. For those of us committed to building great workplaces– because we know that is one key ingredient right now– let’s be provocative!

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Recession Opportunity– Underutilized Talent

4 Mar

opportunity

A report published in Business Week shows an opportunity waiting for business to seize right now– underutilized talent:

According to a winter 2008 Accenture (ACN) survey, which BusinessWeek has an exclusive first look at, 46% of women and 49% of men worldwide believe they are insufficiently challenged in their jobs.

“What this means for companies is that they have a huge opportunity with the talent they own to get more return [out of these] same people, if they just know how to ask them and how to engage them,” says Armelle Carminati, Managing Director of Human Capital and Diversity at Accenture. “Your employees are eager to do more. They are capable of doing more. They want to do more. This is a great competitive advantage for you as a company because you don’t have to hire new talent in a challenging environment—you have the talent in place.”

Consider:

  • How could you more effectively engage the talent of associates where you work?
  • By not doing so, do you risk losing them to a competitor who will?

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To RIF Or Not To RIF– Is That The Question?

20 Feb

recession

There’s a fine article in the Omaha World-Herald about the ongoing debate of whether to sever employees or institute salary freezes/ cutting back hours as options to reduce costs given the tough economic climate. A number viewpoints are offered about both approaches. The article also raises an important issue about management and how any effort should be approached– here’s David Sokol, chairman of Berkshire Hathaway-owned MidAmerican Holdings Company:

In such cases, though, businesses sometimes become shortsighted,  Sokol said. They don’t realize that if they’re not careful, they could lose an awful lot of their best talent.

“Step number one is to make sure that you’re communicating openly and honestly about what’s going on, so that they’re not just hearing rumors. Because, frankly, your employees tend to be lot smarter (than that) . . . they normally know well ahead of your telling them.

As I’ve started in previous posts, it’s probably beyond my pay grade to advise a company whether they should conduct a RIF or salary cutbacks. I do think it my charge to continue pointing out that the success of either tactic will depend heavily on how management goes about it, including communicating in the way Mr. Sokol advises.

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