Disruptor - In Service of What?

In previous blogs I have called for disruption as a necessary and required force for change. This has been particularly true for me given my long experience in healthcare.  We have a very expensive system that doesn't deliver on what it should given the resources expended, we have imbalances in how we spend our dollars in light of our changing population demographics (e.g., a need to continue a shift from cure to prevention, mental health, palliative and care of seniors), and there is a need to appropriately leverage technological advances (the right tool, at the right time, for the right reasons).  In those past blogs, I have suggested that healthcare needs some form of Uber-like development or something akin to how Apple disrupted how we communicate and interact with each other.

This is not, however, a post about disruption in that sense.  Rather, it will speak to a perspective of leaders as disruptors within their own companies or organizations.  By definition - or at least by my reasoning - leaders are not brought in or hold a pinnacle position to manage to the status quo.  They are uniquely positioned and tasked with scanning the environment for the organization, identifying both threats and opportunities, and required to position the business for future success.  Disruption can and often is the name of the game for a leader.  This is why there is a constant need on the part of the leader for continuous learning and development.  The strengths or knowledge that got you to a position of leadership must remain as evolving and dynamic as the organization's environment.

The same holds true for leaders at all levels of the organization, even if to a lessor extent.  Even at a front-line supervisory level, the leader must be in a constant state of learning, evolution, and anticipation of what is before them.  They are required, at their level, to challenge their teams to grow and avoid stagnation and complacency.  Their teams must be made change ready and resilient if they are to maintain effectiveness and engagement.  

Let's be clear here as well that I am not talking about change for the sake of change.  There are just as many leaders - in both the private and public sector - who go for the appearance of disruption without actually changing anything of substance.  Nor do they intend to or are they capable of leading real change in these circumstances. The most common forms of this in my estimation are things like mergers and acquisitions and organizational restructuring.  

Turning back to healthcare for the moment, how many restructuring efforts have our systems been through in the past decade or two?  Can we say that the benefits of such have outstripped the cost of the disruption that was caused?  I am in the cynical group that would say we have put on the modern day equivalent of Roman bread and circuses without addressing core fundamentals.  Similarly, I have worked with several organizations that are in a constant state of acquisitions, driven to enhance (short-term) shareholder value or image, but oblivious to or uncaring of the systems and cultural integration work required in such endeavors.  There is much bluff and bluster built on shaky foundations.

This is where the question of Disruptor - In Service of What? comes into play.  And it applies no less at a front-line level as it does for a CEO.  In fact, just recently, I had a newly-minted leader recount how he had been questioned and even goaded by a subordinate to be more disruptive, to challenge the culture of the organization, to take on senior leaders all in order to make a leadership mark.  In the view of this subordinate, disruption was required in order to make one's mark as a leader.  The further implication was that failure to be disruptive was tantamount to mediocrity and career stagnation. What I believe I heard in this was that disruption was seen as a means to advance a personal agenda. Disruption and challenging behavior were seen as necessary for career advancement, to get noticed and to otherwise standout.  The reality was the organization is saddled with a challenging employee who scorns the use of influence versus power in leadership, engages lightly, if at all with others, and is not an icon of collaboration.  At this point, disruption is most often destructive, conflict-ridden, and a sport for one.  There is much promise accompanied by little hope that this potential can be harnessed.

It's at this point that I am reminded of Jim Collins's concept of Level 5 Leadership.  Whereas our examples above seem motivated by personal gain and short-term thinking, Collins notes the success and longevity of other leaders who are as equally ambitious, disruptive and creative with a focus on team and organizational success.  The difference between the hard-driving individual in the little vignette above, and the executives in restructuring and acquisitions noted earlier, is one of motivation.  Disruption that acts only to challenge and destroy, or change for change's sake, are all too often about personal ambition and glory.  They don't necessarily create something new and better, and even if they do create something, these edifices are built on shaky foundations that inevitably fall in the next strong wind.  They get changed and disrupted by the next "great" leader. 

So by all means, disrupt, challenge, seek out, and generate change.  That's what a leader is supposed to do.  But if you really want a legacy and to build something of lasting impact, do it for the purpose of creating something bigger than yourself, of building up the capacity of those you lead, and to realizing a potential for yourself and your organization that you never dreamed of when you started.  I further suggest that being the lone wolf, railing against all around you, calling out the failings of others, may feel vindicating and cathartic.  However, in order to be truly called a leader, you have to have more than a few people follow you down a new path of change.  Leaders need willing and committed followers.

In my view, disruption is necessary, inevitable, and should be used to create rather than simply tear down.  Be a disruptor.  Be a creator.  Be a leader. 

______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

What Leadership Isn't

We live in interesting and challenging times.  The pressures, frustrations, anxieties and everything else you might want to use to describe 2020 and the first weeks of 2021 are there in spades.  People are trying to cope with extraordinary events and circumstances unlike anything they have ever experienced.  As a consequence, our personal reserves are being tapped, stretched and even shattered like never before.  The consequence of this is we may have found ourselves wanting, perhaps not quite up to the challenges, and acting in ways, that in better times, we would never imagine.  I say this in part as a hope that some of what we have seen of late can be chalked up to stress reactions.  

That being said, a phrase that comes to mind in times like these: adversity does not so much build character as it reveals it.

So what does it say about us as individuals and collectives that in these times "we" have rushed the Capitol in Washington, vilified and threatened each other in online forums, made death threats against public health officials throughout Canada and the U.S. (and perhaps more) and, as of January 23, saw fit to rally in the front yard of Saskatchewan's Chief Medical Officer of Health.  There are, it seems, no bounds to what we believe is acceptable behavior or discourse, nor do we see anything wrong in attacking - perhaps even killing - those who have given themselves over to serving the public.

What does this have to do with leadership?  

This type of behavior doesn't exist in a vacuum.  Too many of us and most often, and disturbingly, our political leaders have been creating the environment that not only permits but encourages this type of behavior.  And the seeds of this reality were not just sown in the past year nor with the advent of someone like Donald J. Trump in the U.S. four years ago.  Too many politicians have determined that their path to power is abetted by attacks on our public servants.  And the collective "we" have become accustomed to attacking government waste and inefficiency, turning the word bureaucrat into a bad name, and even suggesting our public sector is this nefarious deep state intent on subverting the will of elected officials.  We have turned expertise, experience, and education into qualities to be questioned and dismissed, recommendations coming from such quarters to be held under suspicion and thrown away if they don't accord with what some leaders wish to believe.  Shoot the messenger for suggesting that the emperor has no clothes, their draft policies have no legs, and that plans are not grounded in reality. 

We have normalized a narrative that sees public servants as the other, as alien, and not worthy of the same respect we would demand for ourselves. 

As noted, this is not a new phenomenon.  I have personally experienced several examples of this perspective dating back decades.  As an administrator, vice-president, and CEO in Canada's public health care system, I have been subject to more than my fair share of eye-popping attacks.  

Example 1, individual members of my own Board of Directors deciding that their best course of action in voicing their displeasure with a Board-approved operational/budget initiative was to attack my credentials and my motivations in our local media.  Let's be clear - those attacks came from a couple of  my bosses, roasting their own employee, likely to protect themselves from potential community backlash.  It was convenient, easy and wrong. 

Example 2, straight out of the "I pay your salary through my taxes, you work for me" category (e.g., this is my desk Nancy Pelosi), getting calls literally at all hours of the day or night - and mostly night, at my house.  I was rapidly disabused of the notion that I could have my name and number in a phone book.  When I suggested that I would be more than willing to debate the finer merits of the issue during working hours, it was made clear that my public position meant my open for business sign was on all night.  While I might have signed on for some of those realities, my family clearly had not.  Number became unlisted after that. 

Example 3, after having made the effort to meet with a few community members whose community was about to be impacted by a provincially mandated decision, it was suggested that I ran the risk of being shot between the eyes.  The implication was that I needed to back away from the decision.  No discussion about other alternatives we could have worked through together.  Assassination seemed to be in order.  And this particular insight was not offered by any random member of the community.  It was provided by a manager of a financial institution in that community.

What does this have to do with leadership?  In light of some of the more newsworthy public events of late (e.g., Capitol riot, protest in Saskatchewan), we see political leaders stepping out to express their dismay at such events, to offer condemnation of the perpetrators, and support for public servants.  Too often those words ring hollow or hypocritical when these very same "leaders" have set the stage with their words in actions in the years prior to where we now find ourselves. 

I leave you with the following statement, which has a distinctly healthcare flavor to it, but which I believe should act as a call to do better in relation to how we should be treating all of our public sector employees; i.e., doctors, nurses, teachers, police, fire, civil servants.  

"Since the beginning of COVID-19, this worrying phenomenon has escalated. What began as online harassment has evolved into threats and in-person intimidation. We have seen protests at the private residences of #Saskatchewan’s chief medical officer of health and #Quebec’s National Public Health Officer.

We must speak out against such #intimidation, whether online or in-person, and urge those responsible for overseeing social media platforms and law enforcement bodies to put an end to this highly alarming conduct. Peaceful protests are an important feature of our democracy, but these recent demonstrations have crossed a crucial line between free speech and willful intimidation.

Public health officials and #HealthCareWorkers in Canada have been working tirelessly — under stressful and very challenging conditions — since the beginning of the pandemic to keep Canadians healthy and safe. They deserve nothing short of our full appreciation and respect.

These disquieting acts of aggression must not be tolerated."

Dr. Ann Collins, CMA President

Actions matter. Words matter. Do better. It's About Leadership!

______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Leadership Lost...and Complicity

January 20, 2020 marked the end of the Trump presidency, if not the end of Trump, MAGA, and associated realities.  The assessment/evaluation of his term will continue for decades to come.  The full impact and story will NOT be told or understood until that kind of time has passed.  Here in Alberta, the passing of this chapter in the US is being received to mixed reviews.  In some quarters, positively, anticipating a return to less vitriolic and chaotic times, a commitment to healing and inclusion, and for environmental protection.  In other quarters, dreading the consequences of cancelled energy projects and viewing such changes with anger and dismay.  

Politically, for our conservative government in Alberta, the year 2020 and the commencement of 2021 is a time that seems like it can't pass fast enough.  Receiving the news of another blow to Alberta's energy economy, on top of mixed reviews on COVID/healthcare management and Aloha-gate, has led to a sharp rise in unpopularity of our Premier and a similar plunge in trust in his leadership.

In my previous two blogs I have focused on the theme of Leadership Lost. What was not addressed in those two previous posts, however, is the reality that leadership has never been anything but a team sport.  Donald Trump, Jason Kenney, and any other leader have never achieved anything alone - good or bad.  By its very definition, the term leader entails and requires that there are people to be led, that there be followers, and that there be supporters to help achieve and even sometimes help to develop or massage a vision to be pursued. 

Particularly in the US at the present time, we have heard many terms that describe how Donald Trump both came to power and was allowed to ignore, shatter, and blow past so many long-held protocols and norms of Presidential behaviour - incite, collude, collaborate, connive.  Complicity is a word that I choose to use in describing the reality of his leadership.  Usually complicity or being complicit implies, or is taken to mean, negative intent.  It need not necessarily be so.  Positive results could also, conceivably, be supported by positive actions; e.g., I could be complicit in supporting a colleague's success.  But I will be focusing on the more commonly held negative connotation this word invokes.

Complicity, I believe, can come in many forms and can be visualized as a continuum.  At one end there may be those of use who are unconsciously complicit or only want to make ourselves vaguely aware of nefarious things that are going on around us.  We might consider ourselves smaller cogs in the machinery of an organization, business, or public sector entity.  We are content to work our 9-to-5 shift, get our pay cheque, and stay apart from other elements of an organization's life.  We'd rather not know and work on the premise that ignorance is bliss.  Others of us might be more aware of situations and circumstances based on our positions or connections to other individuals in an organization.  One example I can cite here is that of an accounting clerk - seeing expense claims of executives, knowing and perhaps even calling into question dubious submissions from those in positions of power, but ultimately bending to power (willingly or unwillingly).  The expenses claims are no longer questioned as it relates to policy but merely moved along.  

Others of us are more knowingly and intentionally collaborators in nefarious deeds.  Not surprisingly, although not a given, individuals like Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump were key supporters of their father through thick and thin.  Blood can be thicker than water.  Others in a leader's inner circle may also actually believe in fundamentally the same causes and similarly believe that ends pursued justify means used.  This may be accompanied by a further belief that all leaders are flawed in one way or another but that, again, the outcomes being pursued are grounds to support overlooking, forgiving, or even actively defending such character defects.  

As we dig deeper into the circle of collaborators, there are also those who are as self-centred and narcissistic as the leader themselves.  These are perhaps the most dangerous and culpable actors in the rise of a dangerous leader.  These individuals are more than competent, skilled, and experienced.  They have vision and foresight enough to understand how the leader can help them to advance their own ends so they become willing accomplices in the leader's actions and agenda.  In some cases, these collaborators become co-opted into the spiderweb they have helped create.  In my executive leadership experience, this has taken on the form of "right-thinking" people being given greater consideration for performance bonuses, increased or accelerated promotional opportunities, more frequent and attractive personal development opportunities, and so forth.  It has even meant beneficial (and mostly largely unscanctioned/hidden) changes to benefits plans and related compensation elements that would not pass moral, ethical, and even legal tests.  

Often, these collaborators, slowly but inevitably, get dragged to a point of no return.  They - we - delude themselves through a variety of mental gymnastics or self-defense mechanisms to come along with the leader, either voluntarily or involuntarily, as strong advocates or as the willfully blind.  Our future defense when consequences arrive - as in most circumstances they inevitably do - is to claim ignorance, no ill intent, or lack of power to alter the destructive path.  

Leadership lost through complicity often comes from a corruption of our personal values.  And as with so many other things, it happens gradually and then suddenly.  We find ourselves through a series of compromises, each of them seemingly small and inconsequential at a place we would never have imagined - an attack on the U.S. Capitol for one.

It's About Leadership.  But that leadership includes the team that supports the leader.  At a point we all have to be clear about or rediscover our personal values, be prepared to be judged by our own standards, and hold ourselves accountable to what we have actioned or not actioned.  Eleventh hour confessions and contrition are unlikely to save us from Leadership Lost and its consequences.  We reap what we have helped sow.

It's About Leadership.  What do you want to be remembered for?  How do you want your 15 minutes of fame (media attention, public spotlight) to look?  With whom do you want to be forever associated?

______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Leadership Lost...or Never There?

2021 continues to be an eventful year - and as of the writing of this blog, we are still only sitting on January 11!  At the time of my last post we we were experiencing Aloha-gate in Alberta and had not yet gotten to the vote certification process in the U.S. Presidential election.  What a difference a week has made in the reality we are facing today!  The (top!) highlights of the past week include: the second impeachment process has begun for Donald Trump following the Capitol debacle of January 6, coupled with ever-challenging COVID-19 case counts and deaths.  We see resignations from Trump's Cabinet (rather late in the day), some Republicans jumping ship, other allies looking to distance themselves from the carnage, Trump suspended from social media platforms, and Trump world losing corporate opportunities. 

At a more local level in Alberta, the latest political polls show the governing United Conservative Party (UCP) dropping precipitously as the choice of Albertans, now sitting with a 31% approval rating as compared to the NDP at 48%.  In April 2019, the UCP won a majority government with nearly 55% of the vote in their favor.  This appears to be a direct outcome of a variety of government missteps and anxieties primarily (though not exclusively) related to handling of COVID-19.  Much like what we now see in the US, there are starting to be some cracks in unity within the UCP/conservative ranks and certainly many calls for resignations, reassignment, and consequences for government leaders and staffers who are believed to have not shown the "right stuff" or even followed government policies and directives. 

When I last posted (Leadership Lost), I talked about the fundamental sense of betrayal that so many people seemed to feel here in Alberta when government leaders and staffers seemed to go against their own directives and guidelines on managing the COVID-19 response.  Those who had adhered to restrictions, experienced loss of income/job, had to home school, or otherwise had their lives impacted were incensed.  I identified several reasons for this sense of anger and betrayal, the consequences of which for the UCP are currently reflected in the political polling noted earlier.   

One element of that anger I glossed over quite significantly, however, was a sense of foolishness that we might be experiencing during these type of perceived leadership failures.  Let me explain.  Most of us assess our leaders against our own needs and values - ill-defined as they sometimes might be.  Whether this be in politics or work or other group settings, we gravitate towards leaders whom we believe "get us" and believe in the same things we do.  The key question here is how do we make such an assessment and determine fit?  For the vast majority of us - whether in politics or business - we have limited time, access, and ability to vigorously and authentically assess and evaluate our prospective leader's values and capabilities.  And in many cases, our leadership candidates purposefully look to keep their true persona and intentions vague.  In today's social media and sound bite-driven, world we are even more challenged to go past the surface to what might be real versus staged.

We are also confounded by our unconscious filters and biases.  Contrary to what this first statement implies, filters in our minds actually serve a great purpose.  They allow us to deal with the literally thousands of pieces of data our senses take in every hour and every day.  If we had to pause for any length of time to consciously process, evaluate, and make sense of this data, we could literally be frozen into place.  An example?  I suspect very few of us who drive have to place a lot of thought into what to do when we get to an intersection or have to respond to a traffic signal.  We automatically press the brake when we see a red light, maintain or increase speed when coming to a green light, and perhaps press even harder on the gas when we see yellow.  At the same time this is happening, you are listening to the radio, a fellow passenger, or might be processing other to-do's and issues in your brain.

What does this concept of filters and unconscious bias have to do with how we pick and evaluate our leaders?  Whether we realize it or not, and whether we want to own that reality or not, we unconsciously look for qualities, characteristics, and statements that support what we already want to believe.  This is called confirmation bias. Moreover, any contrary information is not only often dismissed, it might not even register on one's radar!  We don't even see the facts when they are staring us in the face.  We see what we want to see, we dismiss what we don't, and we get highly emotional and even more entrenched when our strongly held views are challenged. 

Equating this to gambling, when presented with a losing hand (e.g., our leaders are not what we expected they would be), we often double down.  We become more committed to a cause, a leader, a direction that isn't supported by the facts or reality.  But at some point, in leadership as in gambling, we run out of chips to stay in our particular world.  "Winning", or coming back from the point of no return, is no longer possible.  The result is at least despondency if not outright anger.  If the latter, we blame everyone but ourselves for defeat.  

In reality, however, our sense of anger reflects that we are primarily angry at ourselves.  The leadership we have lost was likely never there in the first place.  It was a mirage of our own making.  We eventually realize that the leaders we came to place our faith in have not changed since we first cast our vote for them.  They are who they have always been, possessed of the same values when first elected or selected, guided by the same ambitions as they once were, and committed to the same objectives as always.  

Our anger is not so much that they fooled us into believing they understood us and cared for the same things we did, or even cared about us.  

Our anger might just be based on the fact that we fooled ourselves into seeing what wasn't there to begin with.  We have seen the enemy and it was us.

It's About Leadership.  The challenge just might be to own what we imagined and created. ______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

Leadership Lost

This post comes as the world continues to navigate the scourge of COVID-19 and all of its associated impacts - economic dislocation, social isolation, fear and anxiety, uncertainty about the future, and literally a reset of almost all of what we took for granted just months ago.  What we have also come to experience is there is no common answer to the challenges we have been facing and how to get to the other side of this current reality.  Governments and leaders around the world have opted for everything from extreme lockdowns, to calls for personal responsibility, to abject denial of the significance of COVID.

This past weekend, in the transition from 2020 to 2021, Albertans came to understand a different kind of reality when it became known that multiple elected leaders and political officials ignored their own government's words, advice, and "suggestions", and were found to have travelled not just outside of their own city/town but out-of-province and out-of-country.  In some instances, these actions were further compounded by what seemed to be active attempts to deceive the electorate through social media posts. These same officials were wanting us to believe they were sending Christmas and New Year's greetings from Alberta while in reality what we were viewing were pre-recorded greetings, posted at appropriate times, while vacations continued in places like Hawaii, Mexico, and Arizona.  

Judging from my social media feed and news reports, it is clear that much of Alberta feels betrayed - in some cases profoundly so - by its leaders.  While the answer to the question why, might seem self-evident, it's important to dissect this outrage.  From my point of view, this outrage comes down to a number of factors that perhaps we all take for granted or is unsaid about what we collectively believe constitutes good leadership.  

Taking a page from Kouzes & Posner (Credibility, The Leadership Challenge), a consistent quality of leadership that followers look for is honesty.  Leadership is not (truly) achieved through simply having a position of authority or power.  It is achieved by followers being willing to follow a leader, through an evaluation that the leader(s) is someone worthy of their trust, and who shares their values and goals.  Followers must know they can trust their leaders.  A failure of honesty poisons the environment and the relationship between leader and followers.  Honesty, trust and integrity.  By failing to Model the Way (Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership), by failing to set the example and holding themselves accountable to their professed values and standards, Alberta leaders have significantly betrayed the trust of their constituents, have damaged their leadership credibility, and have diminished their legitimacy to lead through the current health and economic challenges facing this province.  

This government has only made a bad situation worse through failing to take personal and collective responsibility for actions, providing reasons why their actions were acceptable under current (unclear?) guidelines, and making half-hearted and belated apologies for their actions.  

The majority of Albertans believe they have been making significant voluntary and involuntary sacrifices for the past year.  They have lost income or entire jobs/careers, put educational/career plans on hold, become teachers for their young children, socially isolated from family and friends, cancelled vacation plans, and in many other ways put their lives on hold.  Their outrage suggests  they were operating on the belief that these sacrifices were shared by their leaders, only now to have those beliefs proven false, their faith and trust misplaced.  They not only feel betrayed, they feel they have been taken as fools for believing in the common cause.  

This is where I believe the heart of this matter lies.  What I believe accounts for the profound and widespread outrage at the moment is not just the immediate act of ignoring public health recommendations.  We feel not just betrayed but duped.  What the actions of our provincial leadership seem to demonstrate is a distinct lack of respect for their followers, for the electorate, and for fellow citizens.  We now believe we foolishly held the same values and commitments as our leaders.  By the actions of our leaders, this facade has been shattered.  The rules were only ever for us, not leadership or the inner circle.  We are not worthy.  Let us eat cake.

Where to from here?  Can trust and credibility be restored?  Will Albertans forgive and forget?  Only time will tell and, at some level, I'm sure political calculations suggest a two-year window until the next election is an eternity providing ample opportunity for resurrection.

It's About Leadership!  It always has been.  For me and I believe for most Albertans, leadership - exemplary leadership - is defined by integrity, honesty, credibility, shared pain, and shared sacrifice.  So far our provincial leadership has failed the test.  

______________________________

Greg Hadubiak, MHSA, FACHE, CEC, PCC

President & Founder - BreakPoint Solutions

gregh@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2543

Helping leaders realize their strengths and enabling organizations to achieve their potential through the application of my leadership experience and coaching skills. I act as a point of leverage for my clients. I AM their Force Multiplier.

 

Enabler or Gatekeeper?

When you think of HR, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Compliance officer? Gatekeeper? Controller? Or is it trusted advisor? Enabler? Business partner?

The HR profession has transformed from being a highly administrative function to being a strategic voice in business. Traditionally, HR has been perceived as a gatekeeper. Instead of managers being able to move forward with their ideas or challenges, HR was a roadblock where necessary action stopped.  There was an us vs. them mentality that pushed leaders away and forced them to circumvent processes to still get their job done.   

Gatekeeper: a  person  or  organization  that  controls

 whether  people  can have or use a  particular  service.

(www.dictionary.cambridge.org) 

When I started my career, I knew one thing for sure: my mandate was to connect with people, develop meaningful relationships, elevate the employee experience, and make things happen for the business. And through my lived experiences, I learned that a command-and-control approach with people and processes (i.e., being a gatekeeper) did not produce results. I also knew that from an HR perspective, well designed guidelines that fit the culture and values of the organization were necessary and added value to the employee experience. So, the trick was to figure out how to produce results, animate the culture and values of the organization, and nurture the employee experience by empowering them in their roles and their decision-making. 

 

The choice for me was always simple on how I would show up and perform.  To be an enabler, I had to pave the way to make things happen, influence people’s decisions with knowledge and data, and help leaders bring their ideas to life through collaboration.   

Enabler: a person or thing that makes something possible.

(www.lexico.com)

One of my greatest memories in HR was working at a land development and housing company. Working alongside the Vice President of Housing and other members of the senior leadership team, we clicked and made significant progress on the employee experience. My commitment to being an enabler was an important piece to my success in moving the business forward, as described here by the VP of Housing: 

 

“Rita is the first HR person I have worked with that gets the relationship between operations and HR. She is an enabler of people where others are gatekeepers. Rita consistently earned and built trust on the senior team through outstanding credibility, objectivity, and professionalism. She challenged experienced managers in our construction and sales culture to modernize and be open minded to the benefits of cultural change and modern people policies.” 

 

My goal was to create an open and collaborative space for leaders to feel safe, to be vulnerable, to proactively raise people issues, to evaluate options to solve problems, and to create solutions that fit the situation.   

 

My role as enabler looked like this: 

 

• Trusted advisor: earning trust, respect and credibility by being present, walking the talk, listening well, asking the right questions, and challenging thinking by bringing forward different perspectives. 
• Business knowledge: leveraging human resources knowledge and investing time to understand the business, the people, and the drivers for success. 
• Open door philosophy: having an open door for employees and leaders to discuss issues, to clarify understandings, and to be a sounding board.  My door was always open. 
• Delivering candid feedback: being comfortable with the uncomfortable, having difficult conversations, and offering honest feedback with empathy, courage, and respect. 
• Being proactive: anticipating what the business required and bringing forward valuable ideas and insight to make informed decisions about people. 
• Collaboration: great things happen when people work together.  Collaboration is one of my values and it is how I partner with the business to improve people decisions. 

 

How can leaders support HR to be an enabler to the business?    

 

• Be accountable to themselves, their teams and the organization. 
• Communicate often. Leaders are a pathway to raise awareness, share knowledge and keep employees informed.   
• Leverage human resources. HR is on your team and they want you to succeed!   
• Be open, transparent and honest. Share information often and speak up if you cannot meet a company deadline.  
• When in doubt, ask for HR’s help before a small people problem becomes a big people problem.   
• Put employees first. HR is supportive when they know leaders have done everything in their power to work with their employees and position them to succeed.   
• Get social and take a break with your HR partner.  We are human too! Go for coffee. Create space for HR to get to know you, your pain points, what keeps you up at night.  Developing trusting relationships is hard work but well worth it when you want to accomplish great things together.  Trust me, this is a cool thing to do! 

 

HR is no longer an administrative function, but an enabling voice to organizations. And as the future of work evolves, HR will continue to be a center of influence and a strategic voice to organizations. 

 

HR is in a unique position to influence business and people decisions and offer valuable insight. It can connect the dots between people, data, and business, giving organizations a competitive advantage.  Organizations that enable HR will improve business performance. 

As human beings, we are wired for social connection. This is a year where that wiring has been tested in every aspect of our lives. As I write this blog, it is the last month of 2020, and a time to reflect on what this year has taught us about where we show up as gatekeepers and where we show up as enablers. How have those occurrences impacted your ability and capacity to experience connection? 

 

I believe it is in each one of us to be an enabler.  Human beings have the ability to be open minded, to collaborate, to be vulnerable, to empower others, to be empathetic, to communicate often, to be active listeners, to show up with no judgement, and to accept different perspectives.  Imagine the possibilities if the enabler lens was expanded from the HR function in a business and applied to a vision for humanity and the world.  Just imagine! 

Driven by connection,

Rita Filice

______________________________

Rita Filice, BCOMM, CPHR

Partner, BreakPoint Solutions

ritaf@breakpoint.solutions 

www.breakpoint.solutions 

780-250-2544

Rita thrives on connecting people, leveraging human resources and delivering performance.  She is a collaborative and accomplished HR leader who values authentic connection, meaningful conversation, and her positive energy and outlook make anything possible.