I had the privilege last night of having dinner with one of my mentors. I always leave these conversations with new perspectives and a lot to think about. Last night’s conversation was not different.
We spend a lot of time in HR yearning for credibility and relevance within our organization. Often, that leads us to over reach and sometimes to make things more complex than they need to be. In my experience, elevating HR within your organization is about knowing the answer to two questions for everything you do:
- What problem are you trying to solve?
- How does the way you are solving that problem add value to the business?
It’s as simple as answering two questions? Simple yes, easy no. These questions are important and you will be surprised by how many times you find that you don’t have the answer for much of what you do today. Getting to the answers to these questions is more challenging than what you expect. But it’s worth the effort.
Okay, I lied a little. It’s not just knowing the answer to these questions. There’s one more step. If you can’t come to an answer for the second question that the CEO would care about, you need to do something different to solve that particular problem. Alternatively, it could be that the problem you’ve identified isn’t worth solving.
Keep it simple.