A week in the Bay Area…

China and India are in a race of very rapid development.

Europe is ripping at the seams trying to hold their EU together—the focus will be on survival of the EU. Greece, Spain….then?

Which brings me to the U.S. and my week in the San Francisco area. I attended a rather large “HR” conference. Note: I hate the term HR. Human Resource sounds like coal. “We need more humans in sector 8 to complete widget assembly.”

Anyway, here’s a convention of HR people. First of note, nothing worth pondering was said. Nothing. There was the usual yacking  about strategic initiatives and change and millennials. So what? No substance. “HR” will,as long it will allowed to be labeled “HR”, will remain at the bottom of the food chain. When business slows down, companies don’t sell off capital equipment, they get rid of surplus humans.

Anyway, what struck me as very comical was how damn similar each of the HRs looked. All the straight hair, underfed looking girls with all the exact same little square glasses. And I-Phones! Something is seriously wrong with your org skills if you can’t put your I-Phone away for a two hour seminar. I mean, HR! Don’t worry, the company will be there when “you” get back to HRing.

My rant? China and India are moving fast. Europe is dealing with internal squabbles. The U.S. is slow, dumb and lazy.

Focus on slow. The only trend we seem to get is what glasses are “hot”. What buzz words are necessary to exude competence. How often must you use your I-Phone.

We’d better get moving and moving fast.

It’s very scary to attend a convention of people responsible for TALENT within our organizations and not hear a single intelligent comment.

Yikes!  We’re in trouble.

Chris Reich of TeachU is damn tired of telling people what they want to hear because it’s time to tell them what they need to hear.