How to host a virtual networking event. Not a career fair or interview, but a way to help others connect to more people. Be the brand/company that's clearly helping. Please.

HBR makes a solid case that the best way to keep your entry and younger talent is to focus on professional development and emotional intelligence. (That's pretty much what the data at Universum has been showing for a few years now).

I can usually count on the HBR to take the safe road in any given situation, so seeing an article that embraces some very contrarian ideas is always worth a note. But this article on the three things most people get wrong about organizational change was pretty great. Things like "Share Your Failures" rather that "Follow Best Practices" make my heart warm on many levels. Also note the example of "Kill Our Company" (also known as Red Team exercises) where people try to figure out how to destroy their own company in order to shore up their own strategic weaknesses.

In case you don't feel prepared, here's HBR's guide to Corporate Social Justice.

It’s time to move past “What are your greatest strengths and weaknesses?”The real value of emotional commitment is that it gives you (and everyone else) permission to re-write the "rules." You know those things you've always done because that's just the way it's always been done? Set that on fire and re-invent, not because it's what your boss says to do, or because that's what the magazines say is "cool," but because you actually care about outcomes. Example? Reinvent your hiring process. Now, HBR isn't exactly coming up with cold fusion here, but when the they are willing to say that the way we interview flat-out isn't working, you know it's time to reinvent. But don't reinvent around a fad. Thing about what you and your company really care about in an employee (and what you reward) and build round that. Writing, games, role-play, improv exercises, whatever it takes to tap into your (and their) emotional commitment.

Plenty of management books burn paper trying to build leadership structures that mitigate a lack of emotional commitment, throwing around works like "matrix" and "agile" because they haven't figured out that most companies still treat their people like cogs in a machine: easily replaceable and bought from the lowest cost vendor. As this turns into a mini-rant, Tom Peters says that if you care about what I care about, I'll care about what you care about. And it is only in light of the pandemic that we see which companies actually seem to care about their people (and which don't, suggesting where engagement scores might go to die). EB has a role to play, because if people really believe the EVP/pillars you turned into a poster, they are more likely to feel emotionally committed. And if they don't, that suggests you need to go back to the drawing board.

Speaking of remote work, I admit I started reading this article on building a long-term remote work plan to see how we EBers could influence the process, but I was struck by their process. They start with an ideal end in mind and think backwards on how to achieve it. Have any of you considered what your ideal EB situation would be and worked backwards from there? I might be trying this soon.

Sure, working from home, and the increasing likelihood that is it here to stay, might be great (for some of you). As many candidates want remote work, and remote work allows you to hire the best matching candidate from pretty much anyway, its a chance to really level-up your talent. But there’s a downside: management isn’t always comfortable with remote workers and are distrusting of their productivity. When one company proclaims its love of remote work, many people will see that as a red flag, an excuse to install spyware and implement “always on” expectations for remote. So how will you talk about your remote work brand when there isn’t always a lot of trust in the room?

Three ways leaders can adapt.

Oof. When HBR is arguing against “talent management optimization,” you gotta ask: why aren’t we treating each and every employee like an artist? How is it that Taylorism is still alive and well?

Two HBR articles in a row?! Goodness. But this one was so good, I had to share. Next time someone starts dropping metrics and KPIs on you to start to measure up to, pull this out and treat it like a checklist: Who else is involved in making this KPI go up or down? What really causes the number to go up and down (remember, correlation is not causation*), and how much control do YOU have other it? And metrics are a two-way street, a relationship between the organization and the market.

Long-time readers of this newsletter will know about my love/hate relationship I have with HBR. When they aren’t mis-representing what EB is, or clinging to a fairly outmoded sense of who is in charge of an individual’s career, they occasionally drop an article like this one around how “feel good” messages don’t always motivate your employees. Personally, I would have re-written around how not all employees respond to feel-good messages (or any one kind of message, frankly), but good for them to at least consider that employees aren’t interchangeable cogs…

Ask these questions at your next interview.

In fact, I think this HBR article is the other side of that coin when it says you should write down the unwritten rules of the company. Aside from pulling assumptions out from behind the curtain given them some sunlight, the exercise is a great way to reveal how you company really reacts to stimulus. I’d take it another step further and say that the unwritten rules of the company are more the culture of your company than what HR says it is, thus making it ripe fodder for employer branding architecture and narrative.

Five research-backed strategies to broaden your worldview — even when your world is shrinking.

So, if you entitle your article ’7 Ways HR Can Build a Fairer, Data-Informed Culture,’ you are really asking for hurt. You know how I know? Because I have a brother and growing up, we each had a vastly difference sense of what 'fair’ meant. I have to imagine in your average 1,000-person company, you’ll be seeing dozens if not hundreds of definitions of same. It’s a tarpit, one which the article seems to acknowledge before skipping past it.

A state-by-state analysis of where companies should recruit — now that employees can work from anywhere.

Employer branding is the act of getting everyone at your company who doesn't have to listen to you to change how they think about their employer. Yay! So anything that helps arm you to create change in an org is useful to know.

Three ways to make sure that job aligns with your values.