Jason's Blog

I am fortunate to be presenting a session at the SHRM 2011 Strategy Conference being held in Chicago on October 5-7.  The conference theme this year is "Think Different" so I suspect I will fit right in.  If you are still interested in attending this great...

I originally wrote this post as a guest post for the Human Capital Institute in February 2010.  I was recently reminded of it and as I read it again, I liked the message.  So, I thought it was worth sharing again here. What is Talent?Over the past decade, it...

How often have you returned from a conference or training seminar with a notebook full of ideas, intentions, and new contacts only to immediately get sucked back into the work vortex at the expense of everything in the notebook?It happens to everyone, all the time....

On June 20, I announced to the world through this blog, email and wherever else people would listen that I was in the process of transition out of corporate HR.  My goal wasn’t to leave the work of Human Resources, but to better align my work with what I do...

I'm fortunate to be speaking or facilitating at some cool recruitment conferences this fall.  I'll be leading a couple of tracks at TruLondon 4 in London on September 1-2.  I'm also going to be presenting a keynote at The Recruiting Conference in Chicago on...

I am  not a collector.  Just don't have the wiring for it.  But, as with everything, there is always an exception.  The closest I come to being a collector is that I have historically saved quotes.  These little sound bites matter to me....

Next week, I have the privilege to be speaking as a part of the Illinois state SHRM Conference lineup.  They have put together a pretty interesting and compelling program.  The Illinois HR community is in for quite an experience.  Talent Anarchy (Joe...

By nature of having a 3 year old daughter at home, I hear the word "why" about 3,000 times a day.  Even at hear young age, she's discovered the power of this tiny word.  It provokes thought.  It provokes conversation.  It provokes discovery....

There's a lot of misunderstandings about what it means to be strategic in Human Resources.  Having a plan doesn't necessarily make you strategic.  Talking about the future doesn't make you strategic.  Being proactive doesn't even make your strategic....

One of the hardest things to do as a leader is to know when to pull the trigger on firing someone.  I've heard so many leaders talk about how much trouble they have with making the decision to fire even when the person is under performing or worse a...

A couple of weeks ago, the always outspoken John Sumser published a post at HRexaminer titled "Pummeling Equine Cadavers."  You probably missed it if for no other reason than the title doesn't even hint at the really interesting points John makes in the piece....

Last week, I spent a couple of days with eighty leaders from across my state working on defining our collective vision for the future of the state.  As a part of this process, we were asked to break into groups to define what makes something "great." This may...

Something has been bothering me but I couldn't lay my finger on why until this week.  It has become increasingly popular for HR pundits and bloggers to skewer anyone in HR who talks about or writes about having a "seat at the table."  The argument seems to...

Two of my wise friends, Jason Seiden and Roger Fransecky, have both taught me to think of life as a story that is written in chapters as we live it.  Today, I begin writing a new chapter in my life as I leave one job and begin the process of finding my way to...

I find myself in awe of my 21 month old son, Colton, almost daily as I watch him growing and learning to navigate the world around him.  Each moment, it seems, he's finding something new to try, to learn. The thing that strikes me most about Colt are the things...

Earlier this week, I read a post by Charlie Judy on his always thought provoking blog, HR Fishbowl, titled "Stop Playing Nice if it Doesn't Advance the Ball."  The post overall is about how we have come to be crippled in business by the desire for majority rule...

For years, I've been told not to assume. Assuming, it seems, is assumed to always have negative consequences. I think that assuming has gotten a bad rap. While assuming the negative is a bad practice and often leads to bad things. Positive assumptions can be an...

When you are on the elliptical machine, gutting out a workout, and sweating like a mad man when something on the TV makes you laugh out loud, it must be good.  This happened to me on Sunday morning. What got me laughing?  It was story on SportsCenter about...

"Can you believe what they did to me?""Why do they always have to be difficult?""Why are they attacking me?"It seems to be a common human characteristic to assume that the world revolves around us (at least I hope it's not just me).  We assume that when something...

I had the privilege this weekend to attend HRevolution 3 and to spend a day and a half with 130 great people from around the globe who are incredibly passionate about the work and future of Human Resources.  The experience was filled with robust conversations...

Lately, it seems like a theme that keeps coming up in my conversations with people is our collectively declining attention span and focus.  In our hyper-connected world; emails, calendars and social media tools travel with us everywhere we go. As a result of our...

Since I have the pleasure of facilitating a session at HRevolution 2011 with Steve Browne, it seemed like a good idea to start the dialogue on our blogs before getting to Atlanta in hopes that we'll be able to add more depth to our discussion there.  The...

Since I have the pleasure of facilitating a session at HRevolution 2011 with Steve Browne, it seemed like a good idea to start the dialogue on our blogs before getting to Atlanta in hopes that we'll be able to add more depth to our discussion there.  The title of...

HRevolution 2011 is about a month away.  For those of you who have been keeping tabs on me for longer than a year now, you know that I attended the last HRevolution and was blown away by the experience.  When the announcement for this year's event landed in...

During the course of a panel interview for my current job, I was asked a question about dress code by one of the interviewers.  The question sounded something like this, "Many departments throughout the organization enforce different dress codes.  Do you...