Data or Instinct for Talent Decision-Making? You need both.

I was reading Seth Godin’s latest post (here) about how too much data can cloud people’s judgement, limiting their ability to use faith in decision-making.  This got me thinking about all the time I spend daydreaming about how we can help HR leaders leverage more data about people so that their faith or instinct isn’t the primary (or in some cases only) decision criteria.

From where I sit, the bottom line is this:  learning how to trust your instinct is a critical behavior (and arguably one that should be measured!), but data can be a great tool to confirm or deny what instinct tells you about people.  Talent managers that can balance the two with skill will deliver breakthrough business outcomes to operational leadership.

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Filed under Lawson, performance management, talent management

On the HR Technology Shootout…

With many of my waking moments being occupied by the near-manic pursuit of a college short list for not one but two daughters in their senior year, my blogging has fallen off the cliff.  Add to the mix the insanity of preparing to do the HR tech shootout, and overstimulation reigns.

But I’ve got the shootout behind me, and the entire Lawson team was beaming with pride and enthusiasm over our performance….in spite of 2nd place.  For me, it’s primarily about showing off the work of our amazing employees and giving them a dose of adrenaline for the continued work of building, fixing, supporting, selling and implementing these great products.  Plus lots of customers get to see a perspective on our stuff they probably wouldn’t see otherwise.  It’s all good.

The HR capitalist did a good job of summarizing the highlights, so I won’t bother.  Look here for a recap.

This one takes a village, and as the post notes, the entire population was sitting behind Dave while he ran the computer.  But I couldn’t have done it without all of them — my sincere thanks to the entire Lawson team.  It was a great experience, and I also appreciate all of the audience support for our products and the way we presented them.  And seriously — reading from a script?  I couldn’t imagine doing it.  Ever.

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Filed under Lawson, SHCM launch

Where Talent Management and IMPACT Intersect!

I have been working closely with two K-12 school district customers that are in contention for a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  The category?  Improving teacher performance.  In a nutshell, it’s about working with some progressive, large school districts to implement new programs for recruiting, retaining and rewarding teachers.  The grant money will be used to fund the creation and operation of the programs for a few years.  The objectives are to materially improve teacher performance and make (hopefully) breakthrough discoveries that can be replicated nationally.

The genesis of some of these ideas are traced back to a speech Bill Gates made last November.  You can see a transcript of it here.  Bottom line:  these organizations will have an exceptional opportunity to rethink the way a critical talent pool (teachers) is deployed in the organization.  There are a myriad of challenges here, one of which hits at the heart of what I care about — the infrastructure to manage, administer and analyze the programs.  The grant proposal is very clear — districts receiving this funding must demonstrate how they will protect the sustainability of these programs after the grant funding runs out.  That’s where integrated talent management technology comes in.  If you are going to rethink the way you pay teachers for measurable performance outcomes (like student test scores), drive behavioral change in alignment with what exceptional teachers demonstrate and more flexibly deploy great teachers to the schools that most need them, spreadsheets just won’t cut it.

As always, these initiatives are about people, process and technology.  And if I have my way, a few of us will get a special opportunity to show how enabling technology in talent management can really have an impact on something that truly matters:  the education of our children.  As a software guy, those days are few and far between — so I look forward to embracing this one with gusto.  Stay tuned.

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Filed under K-12, Lawson, talent management, teacher performance

Talent Management Systems: Build them ‘Integrally’

Ok, so I don’t have much credibility in the world of linguistics, but my product strategist, Cecile Alper-Leroux used the word ‘integrally’ to describe our talent management system.  What does it mean?  Building integrally means to create an integrated solution with integrity.  I kinda like it — provided that I can figure out how to use it in a way that is gramatically correct — an obsession of mine.  We’ll see.

But I wanted to write about it because of what Josh Bersin said in his recent blog post about his assessment of the state of the economy as it relates to talent management technology.  He made an astute observation:  that “integration” is more important than “functionality.”  It got me thinking about what Cecile said, and I liked the connection.

The integrity part is about delivering the technology that can enable the rapidly evolving talent management business process — and the integration part speaks for itself.

I’m not sure I love it so much that I’m willing to try to coin a new term (the narcissist in me likes the idea), but I thought I’d put it out there — what do you think?

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Filed under Lawson, SHCM launch, talent management

Join Me Tomorrow for a WebMingle (what is that, anyway?)

Please join me tomorrow at 1pm CST when I will be the guest on the next HRchitect WebMingle event. If you need details, you can find it here.

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To Tweet or to Blog or to Facebook?

I’ve already vented here on the broader issues of the many social networking sites out there. And I had to laugh out loud when someone tweeted this week about how to solve the problem. In seriousness, the individual suggested you have two facebook pages (one personal, one professional), two twitter accounts, and who knows how many other plaxo or linked in sites.

I’ve also noticed that folks who’s blog I’ve followed of late are tweeting more frequently and blogging less. And I have to admit I’ve become one of them.

Blog posts take a lot of time and often are about formulating the background associated with one idea or concept. And when you HAVE to articulate it in 140 characters, you get good at summarizing and obviously you don’t worry much about eloquence (or do you do it even more?).

Bottom line — I’m finding myself tweeting all the best ideas/thoughts/discoveries in this pea brain of mine and lose all of my interest in writing a blog post.

I’m not finished, but I am going to let myself off the hook for the weekly posts I’ve committed to over the past couple of years (and anyone paying attention knows I’ve done a lousy job in the past few months anyway).

So join me on twitter (@larrydunivan) for regular stuff, and when something worthy of an in-depth discussion comes along, I’ll write about it here.

And of course, that’s all predicated on actually having something interesting to say — and in the world of social networking that is not trivial!

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Filed under collaboration, social networking, web 2.0

Report from CUE: Sunday

Sunday is always an interesting day at CUE — it’s a great opportunity to talk to our customers about new products under non-disclosure.  They learn about what we have in development, and we get a valuable opportunity to collaborate with groups of customers in a venue that’s hard to match.

Check out this video clip of Lori Simpson from Geisinger Health, talking about their talent management implementation.  This is a success story in-the-making for complex, integrated talent management.  These guys get it, and are willing to jump in with both feet for a big bang implementation across 4 of our 7 talent management modules.

And for me, it’s off to walk along the beautiful Pacific Ocean to start CUE Monday!

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Filed under collaboration, compensation, Lawson, talent management