Perhaps somewhat off topic, I thought I would point out an interesting show that’s been airing on the Sundance channel. Called “House of Boateng,” it follows the zany misadventures of Ozwald Boateng (seen left), a London-based fashion designer, in his attempts to penetrate the US market. Along the way, he meets wild and wacky investors, throws tempter tantrums and alienates employees in his attempt to make it big across the pond. (He also does this strange dance when he feels uncomfortable, or is in the spotlight, and that alone makes the show worth watching.)

Now, ordinarily, you wouldn’t find me watching much reality television – especially on the Sundance Channel – but in all fairness to myself, this is the summer season and good TV is hard to find. In any case, the reason I mention it here is that Mr. Boateng is like a lot of small business owners. While exceptionally talented at what he does, and very successful to boot, Boateng’s domineering style and penchant for micro-management results in all sorts of fun-to-watch chaos as the business leaps and lurches it’s way to growth.

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I stole the title for this post from this Fortune Small Business article which recaps a survey of over 300 small businesses. The survey concluded that HR can be the deciding factor between an “explosive” business and a “sluggish” one (and they have some really cool cartoons that highlight the points, like the one to the left).

There are some very good supporting points, but my favorite is this one: Companies with controlling bosses lagged companies that give employees more autonomy. By a lot. Those with more autonomy had faster revenue growth (14.6% to 3.2%), profit growth (8.7% to 4.8%) and lower turnover (8.5% to 23.6%). (Wowza!)

I’m starting to think that this goal of HR being strategic is too tame. When we can show that HR means more money, everyone should pay attention.

A Note: this post was written by a guest writer, and does not necessarily represent my opinion. That said, I think it’s important to host a variety of thoughts and perspectives on the blog and thus, I give you the following article written by Jake Adger of SuccessFactors. It is in response to an earlier guest post entitled “From Our Research: Teamwork is a good thing. Sometimes” As always, please feel free to comment, we want to know what you think.

A book I read over my recent vacation brought up an interesting idea – task specific competency requirements.  This is a very intuitive idea but one that doesn’t seem to be embraced by the job competency models that are often implemented by HR.  A recent post by our own Erik Berggren on the SuccessFactors blog pointed out that teamwork is a competency that is more important in some tasks than others.

Discussion of the complexity of successful M&As in Winning by Jack Welch focuses mainly on the relative importance of teamwork in M&A situations.  He says basically that a merger of equals is impossible because forming such a team of equals leads to paralysis in merger integration.  In merger integration situations there is always a balance between heavy handedness by the acquirer and consultation with the acquired company.  Too much heavy handedness can kill the culture and decimate the talent pool of the acquired company.  Too much consultation can lead to indecision and wasted time.

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Really, truly an invigorating little article from a couple of days ago in the UK’s Telegraph. In it, Jack and wife Suzy embark on a spirited defense of the importance of HR. I wish I had something to add to the article beyond a straightforward “see, I told you so” but I don’t. So in place of the usual musings, I give you a few of my favorite bits:

Bit #1:
“Look, HR should be every company’s “killer app”. What could possibly be more important than who gets hired, developed, promoted or moved out the door?”

Bit #2:
“If you owned Real Madrid, for instance, would you hang around with the team accountant or the director of player personnel?  Sure, the accountant can tell you the financials. But the director of player personnel knows what it takes to win: how good each player is and where to find strong recruits to fill talent gaps.”

Bit #3:
“Leaders need to put their money where their mouths are and let HR do its real job: elevating people management to the same level of professionalism and integrity as financial management.”

Yes, indeed.

Read the whole article. You’ll be better off for it.

According to this survey, more than 66% of workers describe their jobs as a source of “personal fulfilment.”

Wow, that’s fairly remarkable.

But just when you think you’re getting somewhere on this whole engagement thing, they hit you with: “the survey also confirmed that work remains simply a way of making a living for many people. Half (51%) said their work was ‘a means to an end’.”

And……we’re back where we started.

So while work can be fulfilling, most people would also rather be doing something else. I guess that rings pretty true. What do you think?

A Note: this post was written by a guest writer, and does not necessarily represent my opinion. That said, I think it’s important to host a variety of thoughts and perspectives on the blog and thus, I give you the following article written by Lars Dalgaard, the CEO of SuccessFactors. As always, please feel free to comment.

As an outsider that moved into the software industry five years ago, I’ve been amazed to watch the wild mood swings that take place due to over-hyped and over-marketed technology trends – which every vendor seems to chase loudly in pursuit of “the next big thing.”

Of course, customers in the real world are more focused on “what’s now” rather than “what’s next.” And yet they have to wade through reams of white papers, data sheets and web site content to figure out whose software actually does what – and then hope the promised features actually migrated from the press release commentary into the real product code.

The same type of real-world sanity check can tell you whether a technology trend is here to stay or hyped to decay. A good litmus test is whether it’s vendor-driven or customer-driven.

It’s exactly this test that I believe can sort through the hot topic du jour: software-as-a-service. Admittedly the topic has been heavily hyped by Silicon Valley types looking to drive big multiples. And now that some of those high-profile players have experienced some hiccups, the naysayers are working overtime to call the whole idea into question. Scare tactics and “what if” scenarios abound to push people back into their comfort zones.

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