I believe in the power of words. I believe that if you don't know the right word for a situation, you should make it up. This is especially true for HR. HR professionals have the awesome responsibility to give a voice to the voiceless. They are the organizational gatekeepers. They are your first and often your last impression of any organization. For my HR friends out there, here are some words to consider:
Bureaucracide: Death by bureaucracy. Particularly prevalent in government. And HR. This is death by 10,000 paper cuts. A never-ending stream of seemingly unnecessary paperwork is an impediment to talent acquisition and development. It wears people down. Eliminate the bureaucracide. Make HR easy to work with. Figure out the one area where you have your most customer interactions and then streamline the heck out of that process. It's a start.
Elevangelist: People who can elevate and inspire the workforce. Think Joel Osteen on steroids minus the religion. Elevangelists know the people. These people are connectors. They have their ear to the ground. They help people find their passion. This is the heart of your talent. Love em.
Truthiness: Having the elements of truth. People who have "truthiness" are poison pills. "I swear what I'm saying is true." Mostly true. Parts of it are true. Not really much truth there...you get the idea. This the heart of your rumor mill. There is always smoke and no fire. So smoke em out. Then fire em.
Peter Parker Principle: Opposite of the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle is a well-known concept for promoting people to their level of incompetence. The Peter Parker principle is the opposite. These are the people who perform no matter what kind of environment you stick them in. They quietly and anonymously produce results. They are often unassuming, and they always deliver. Get em.
Permissaholics: People who constantly ask permission from their boss or others to cover their ass. They can’t take risk and they don’t trust their talent. They want a get out of jail free card for everything. They write huge CYA emails. These people want to be micromanaged. Skip em.
While some of these people are harder to identify than others, all of these great words help us define and think about talent, talent acquisition and its drain in different ways. Recently I saw a speaker who said that what we say doesn't matter because its all about the body language. Maybe this wouldn't be so true if what we said was more interesting. So what's your word for talent? What's your word to describe what you're looking for (or not)?
So find your word. Find your world. And take back the talent.