“Complexity-conscious HR leaders?” Gimme a friggin’ break, guys.

Since the start of COVID, there have been probably 29,181 articles written about what “HR leaders” are doing to help their employees around virus concerns, parenting vs. work, safety, virtual onboarding, etc. Now, I happen to know a lot of HR people (some of them even leaders), and there are people who are doing this and doing it well and even challenging and pushing back on their core executive teams (CEO, CFO, CTO, CIO, COO). Most? No. Most HR people roll over for the big-money executives, check their boxes and do their compliance, get ignored for big meetings/concerns, and get brushed aside for legal on important compliance matters. What I just said is the reality of most places; the only question is how willing you are to admit it.

Well, now we have Article 29,182 about HR leaders and COVID, right here. It’s about adapting to uncertain times, which is a huge bucket of “thought leadership” as is. Also kinda worth remembering how silent thought leaders have been on racial discord, largely because they are terrified of losing clients since they already lost speaking fees.

OK, so back to this article above. Let’s walk through a paragraph together.

Here would be that paragraph

Complexity conscious HR leaders view company performance as the result of open and clear communication, positive assumptions, and self-management. Instead of taking a matrix approach, aligning infraction with corresponding punishment, communicate with your teams about the specific problem and the impact. An approach that uses emotional intelligence will lead to increased productivity and higher engagement levels.

In practice, this means that when a team or employee comes to you with a problem, probe for the underlying cause instead of jumping to a rulebook solution. Ask open-ended questions such as “What is holding you back?” or “How would you handle this?” Throughout, assume that the vast majority of employees are good people who will want to solve a problem once it’s brought to their attention. Now you’re free to facilitate a lasting solution rather than dispensing discipline.

OK, let’s break it up, NFL TV analyst style.

• “Complexity-conscious HR leaders:” This should probably have a hyphen, first of all. Second of all, that doesn’t typically exist. HR leaders are often tasked with box-checking and compliance, not complex business ideas and issues. They very infrequently even know the core issues of a business aside from “The bosses don’t like Danny, so we need to get him out.”
• “Open and clear communications, positive assumptions, and self-management:” Have you ever dealt with a HR team that thought this way? I don’t think I ever have. They’re usually very negative or overly rah-rah so that people distrust them. Self-management? We have no proof that can be taken to scale.
• “Emotional intelligence:” While that approach will yield better results, yes, the sheer fact is that HR teams don’t often come at you with EI or EQ. It’s often not a very human approach at all, frankly.
• “Probe for the underlying cause instead of jumping to a rulebook solution:” Have you ever been called to a termination meeting or a PIP meeting? Literally there are rulebook forms lying on the table because that is the only way HR knows how to approach those things. A specific manager can maybe probe for underlying cause with a direct report, but let’s be honest — by the time a direct report is on a PIP, that manager just wants him/her out. That’s how the PIP game is played.
• “The vast majority of employees are good people:” In my brain, this is true. I do not see HR as approaching people in this way, though. They are usually the enforcer because your manager is too big a p*ssy and the executives can’t be bothered to deal with people issues. And by “enforcer,” I mean “they lay out rulebook forms.”
• “Free to facilitate a lasting solution:” A lot of people issues in a business can last years, cost millions, and never really be resolved because Gary can’t be fired despite his sexist and racist actions because, well, Gary sells product and ships. That’s just the reality of companies as they scale and get big.

So what’s happening in this article, then, is…

… it’s being written at HR people to make them feel important and relevant and like they are powerful, when in reality a lot of COOs walk past Carla the CHRO for three years and call her “Denise.” These people are not often “complexity-conscious” or “facilitating lasting solutions.” They roll over and play dead for execs on big issues, they force people out the door, they check compliance boxes (but legal gets the big ones), and they’re largely automated to the hilt as a department.

Now, am I too hard on HR? Very potentially. And over the years I’ve written some good takes on it and how to improve it — in short, let it “own” people data so that execs realize that people issues are a cost. I think the problem tends to be that a lot of those who enter HR are not analytical in nature, and a lot of HR becomes about “woke-chasing” whereby you’re creating pronouns-in-the-signature programs or “belonging” webinars. The people with real authority in white-collar don’t care about any of that. Can you argue they should? Absolutely. But they don’t. It’s not “biz stuff” to them. So they let HR have it, because mostly they’re planning to ignore HR anyway.

Therein lies the “seat at the table” argument. Not sure if that means you’re a “complexity-conscious” department.

Takes?