let’s call our last speaker today last
but not least he’s a successful
entrepreneur on a mission to help 1
million entrepreneurs just that right
here’s the offer of this absolutely
great book find your one word and is a
rock star on YouTube with more than
700,000 subscribers ladies and gentlemen
please give a warm welcome to Evan
Carmichael
[Applause]
[Music]
hello Paris oh nice I like it I love
being in a room full of leaders I love
being in a room full of people who want
to be inspired who come to learn who
want to improve themselves who want to
take the knowledge that they took here
and apply it to their business and most
importantly I love being with people who
want to take action because that’s what
we do as leaders because we’re not here
just to learn things and not do anything
with it we’re here to take action and so
I want to start by just recognizing you
guys for coming out for invested in
yourselves and for being leaders who
will take action after going home give
yourselves a round of applause and while
we’re doing that actually I want
everybody to stand up everybody stand up
just quickly quick exercise everybody
send-up get the house lights up a little
bit I didn’t I didn’t prep these guys
for everybody stand up I want you to put
your hands up like this I’m gonna put
your hands up like this there we go all
right when I count to three what we’re
going to do is we’re going to turn to
the person next to us we’re going to
give them a high ten I’m going to say
you’re a leader baby so love I’m serious
okay you’re a leader baby one two three
your leader baby other side other side
you’re a leader baby I love it all right
okay sit down thank you thank you for
humoring me that was great
I love leaders I love leaders so my name
is Evan Carmichael I’m not from a big
corporation
I’m from the entrepreneurial world and
from the social media world and I was
asked to come and give you guys a little
bit of a different perspective see what
I see in the world and maybe you can
apply it to your organization’s when you
go back home I want to start by just
quickly redefining the least the public
perception around human resources
because I think a lot of people not in
this room because we’re leaders but a
lot of people see human resources is
just an administrative function and I
don’t believe HR just administrative I
don’t believe that we are in the
business of just keeping track of how
many sick days somebody has left and
pushing paperwork out there
I believe and I hope you guys agree I
believe that human resources is the
single most important function in any
business there we go okay now when I was
when I was practicing in my hotel room I
imagined a much bigger response to that
so I’m gonna try it again I’m going to
visualize I’m going to say it and in my
head you guys are going to freak out and
clap and cheer and go nuts when I say
that again and we’ll see what happens I
believe that human resources is the
single most important division in any
business yeah I love it and I I don’t
say that just because I’m talking to a
bunch of people from human resources
I believe it because you can have a
business without finance startup
entrepreneurs do that all the time you
can have the business without
manufacturing you can have a business
without technology but you can’t have a
business without people this doesn’t
happen
not until the robots take over the world
but you can have a business that people
and so I see human resources as not just
being administrators but we are in the
business of human potential we are in
the business of taking people who come
to our organizations at this level and
we see them being able to come up here
and our job as leaders and as people in
HR is to help close that gap even if
they don’t believe in themselves to give
them the skills the mindset the
confidence to help them become the best
version of ourselves and themselves
that’s what I believe HR and leadership
is really about and I’ve got a few ideas
for you that may be scary there may be
different may push some boundaries but
we’re leaders here so that’s what we do
we embrace different ideas when we take
action but before I get some ideas I
want to share a quick story so this will
be Pierre the rabbit and Pierre is a
happy rabbit and when he was growing up
he went to animal school like all the
other young animals do and he learned
all the skills that you need to learn to
be a successful
animal and after the first year there
was a problem with Pierre you see he got
eight plus on his report card for
hopping right for hopping he’d personal
day
my French isn’t that great but no try to
throw a little bit in there but he
failed at climbing he couldn’t climb a
tree and so his parents really
disappointed at him his family he’s gone
mad his teachers his friends were really
disappointed in parents at Pierre you’re
failing don’t worry so much for the next
year about the hopping because you’re
good at that we got to work on the
climbing we got to teacher the skills on
how to climb and so for the next year
that’s what he did you went to extra
classes and you got special climbing
teachers and every day after school
Pierre would go and learn the climb and
something happened over that next year
you spend so much time practicing how to
climb a tree that he forgot how to hop
and that’s for climbing trees have you
ever seen a rabbit climb a tree the
point of the story is you need to focus
on your strengths the point of the story
is if you’re a rabbit you hop you don’t
climb trees both for yourself and for
the people in your organization if our
role as human resources is to help
people reach their potential you need to
help the rabbits hop if you have a
business full of rabbits that are
hopping high like Pierre is there you’re
having success if you have a business
full of rabbits that are trying to climb
trees it’s not going to work out that
well and so how do we start how do we
start helping our rabbits hop in our
organizations well I can start with
policies we’ve talked a lot about
different policies and rules and
regulations when I first started my
business I have two companies I have 70
people on my team between the two
businesses and when I first started I
had this dream I want to have this
office and we’re all going to show up at
the office every day and work and we’re
all going to show up at the same time
I show up we’re all going to leave at
the same time I leave and it’s just
going to be perfect and then I started
hiring people and I realized that not
everybody’s like me everybody has
different schedules and routines and
desires some people loved coming to the
office every single day some people
wanted to work from home some people
wanted to work remotely some people
wanted to work remotely but come in for
meeting since in collaborations some
people wanted to come in early and leave
early some people want to come in late
and leave late some people wanted to
come in early and leave late I love
those people as an entrepreneur I love
those people but I had a tough choice to
make
do I let these people go who are really
talented but they don’t fit into the box
that I had created do I force somebody
to do something they don’t want to do do
I take that guy who wants to work from
home and wants to work at night and
force him to come to the office every
day and work early
that’d be the equivalent of taking the
rabbit and make him try to climb a tree
or do I change my policies and I
realized that the vision I had of
everybody coming to the same office work
in the same hours every day wasn’t
really realistic and so we change the
policy and so it strongly encouraged you
guys and we’ve heard a lot of speakers
already talk about it today too but look
at the policies in your company and
think are they helping the bunnies hop
right are we helping our team hop or we
forcing them to climb trees we force it
in them to do the things that they don’t
want to do and if we redefine human
resources as helping people reach their
potential as opposed to just
administration then it becomes the new
filter through which we see our role and
we can look at every policy we have and
say is this going to help our bunnies
hop right
this is going to help people reach their
potential or is it just getting in their
way and I would strongly encourage you
to look at those policies you have and
see what might need to be eliminated or
changed to help your rabbit hop but
that’s just administration right we’re
not in the administration game
right that’s old HR we’re about human
potential the challenge then becomes not
every person is the same my potential is
different than your potential what I
like what I want what I want to go is
different from other people hopping is
different for everybody in the company
and so if you want to get people from
here to here you have this you have to
understand for each person what their
passions are what their goals are what
their objectives are what the desires
are what their needs are what they want
to do and we have a lot of those tools
already built into traditional human
resources you know we have our annual
meetings with them do have our
performance reviews we’ve got a lot of
things kind of already baked in and we
try to create a culture of openness and
understanding and fairness and you can
tell me anything but no matter how great
a culture you have there will still be
things that the people on your team will
not tell you and it may not even be
because they’re trying to hide it from
you they just may be embarrassed they
may not think it’s relevant to their job
they may not see how it fits into their
growth path they will just be things
that they won’t tell you that you won’t
know you won’t have the information they
may tell their friends they may tell
their family they may post it on social
media but they won’t tell you and that
becomes a problem if we’re in the
business of helping people realize their
growth we need to have the information
to help them get there and so I would
tell you that if they are out there
posting things about themselves their
lives their passion or interest on
social media then you need to be there –
I need to be there following them I
would suggest that you follow everybody
on your team on every social media
channel but they’re a part of if they’re
on Twitter you follow them on Twitter if
they have a YouTube channel you
subscribe to their YouTube channel you
follow them on Facebook on medium on
snapchat on Instagram everywhere they
are you want to be now some people say
well that’s an invasion of privacy
they’re posting on Twitter it’s public
everything is
totally out in the open it’s hard to get
more public than Twitter some people say
well what if I discover something bad
you know if somebody goes out to a party
and gets drunk and then shows up to a
meeting with a customer the next day how
do I handle that well how do you handle
any difficult situation as a leader use
your heart and use your head to make the
right decision
but the answer isn’t to just ignore it
there’s as wealth of information out
here that the people on your team are
sharing about themselves or interest or
passion desires and you just don’t know
about it you only have a small section
of the information and you can’t make
the best decisions without the best
information and so I follow the people
on my team on social media I’ll give you
a couple examples of how it’s worked out
I had one guy who asked some time off I
need hey I mean I need a week time off
personal reasons great no problem he
posted on social media that he’s going
back to his mother’s hometown to stay
with her for a week because she’s really
sick he’s got to look after her and I
reached out to him and said hey if I can
I heard about your mom I didn’t say I
found it on social media that you posted
about your mom she said I heard about
your mom it’s really sad to hear if I
can be of any help any resource let me
know if you need more time off let me
know if you want to work from your mom
city for the next little bit let me know
we’ll figure it out because your mom was
important she’s important to you and
therefore she’s important to me and he
didn’t go into the details with me
because maybe he felt embarrassed he
felt it wasn’t relevant but when I found
out about it it made it easier to help
him and then he is so grateful but the
company cares enough about him in his
situation to do the best we can to help
him out second example a guy on my team
post on social media that he’s so
grateful that he’s able to improve his
English recently I didn’t know he wanted
to improve his English and again these
are people that I meet all the time
right it’s not like I’m meeting them
once a year and we have no context in
between
I’m constantly meeting with the people
on my team but there’s still information
that they just won’t bring up because he
just leaned out think is relevant to his
job function or his potential path and
so I found out that he was grateful for
be able to practice his English said
this is great see for him English is
hopping right he wants to get better at
English in my company were English
speaking only every piece of content we
create is in English all of my YouTube
videos are in English the books are in
English and so if he is able to improve
his English it doesn’t just help him on
his path that helps my company as well
and because I found out on social media
I was able to help him do you want an
accountability partner do you want to
match up with somebody in the company
and have regular conversations are there
courses or classes or books or DVDs that
I can buy for you to help you improve
your English and one is really
appreciative of the tactics of like
here’s a plan for you to get better but
even more important is he understands
that I have his back that I care about
his path that I care about where he
wants to go and I found out through
social where otherwise he would never
tell me one last example a woman on my
team posted social media that she was
looking for opportunities to be a public
speaker she wants to improve her
speaking skills she’s nervous to speak
again she never told me it’s not part of
her job right now what she’s doing at my
company speaking so it makes sense that
she wouldn’t tell me in our performance
reviews and any meetings but finding
that out at social media allows me to
create a path for her because for her
speaking is hopping right I need her to
hop I could try to force somebody to be
a speaker they’re not going to have fun
right it’s going to be climbing a tree
for them but for her that’s what she
wants to do I have the information I can
make a great decision so I have a
YouTube channel how about you join me on
my youtube channel and she did five to
six videos with me I’m speaking at an
event in September in my hometown of
Toronto Canada and I convinced the
organizers to allow her to have her own
little section of it now she’s not the
keynote and she’s
getting paid either but she’s scared and
she’s nervous and she’s excited she gets
to do the thing that she wants to grow
and learn and it helps my company to
having somebody who can deliver a speech
who can communicate better helps my
business out as well even though it
wasn’t originally on her career path and
so it encourage all of you to pay
attention to what your team is talking
about on social media a lot of its going
to be irrelevant but the more you get to
know what your team cares about the more
data points that you have the better
decisions you can make and we need the
right information to help people go from
here to here now this is coming right
now it’s not common in the HR business
to do this but it’s coming this will be
standard practice I’m old enough to
still remember the days where people
didn’t have email addresses where
companies didn’t have websites so not
everybody’s doing this yet but it’s
going to happen social media is not
going anywhere and people are only going
to share more and more and more and more
and so are you the kind of organization
that’s going to pay attention and listen
and get the information to help your
team out as best as possible or you’re
going to pretend like that information
doesn’t exist and then be blind what
other organizations pass you the last
point I want to touch on is I want to
talk about you guys a little bit because
everything that we’ve talked about so
far the conference has been about the
employee journey all the people that you
care for and are underneath you but I
want to talk about your journey as well
because you’re important and the work
that you do is important and your
journey needs to continue forward as
well I want to talk about CEOs quickly I
love CEOs but there’s one thing that
CEOs say that bothers me
CEOs will always say our most valuable
resource is our people right our most
valuable resources our people well that
means you guys manage the most valuable
resource in every company so why are you
not getting more respect why do more
CEOs not come from human resources
in North America at least I don’t know
the European data but in North America
the number one path to being a CEO is
through finance here in finance that’s
your best shot at being CEO number two
is operations number three is sales and
marketing number four is outside the
business and then way down on that list
is HR we shouldn’t be laughing we should
be upset if the CEO of your company left
your business your company is more
likely to hire somebody from outside the
company than from HR and you manage the
most valuable resource in the business
to me that’s crazy and so instead of
complaining because leaders don’t
complain
we don’t complain we make changes
Mahatma Gandhi said be the change you
want to see in the world so that’s what
we do we make the change and if you want
people to take you more seriously then
you start by taking yourself more
seriously to really feel that you manage
the most important resource in the
company to fight for the resources that
you need to be successful and to
implement the programs that you have how
many of you guys learn something at some
point in this conference that you’re
going to take home to your company put
your hand you learn something and one of
the events you’re going to take home to
your company great and how many of you
even before you came here had other
ideas that you want to put into your
company that you haven’t implemented yet
but you have an ideas you have a vision
for what you want your team to look like
at your company great so pretty much
everybody you guys are all thought
leaders you’re not just a cog in the
machine and so I would encourage you to
share that to not just share it with you
know keep it in your head or just share
it with your team but to share it
publicly openly because I want to see
more CEOs come from human resources and
so I want to encourage you not just to
follow your team on social media but for
you to be active yourself on social
media
want you to find a platform that best
fits you if you like being in front of a
camera like I do you go YouTube if you
like writing you can go LinkedIn find
the platform the best suits you because
until HR professionals start standing up
for themselves and letting their voices
be heard
they’re not going to get the respect so
we can’t complain about it we got to
make a change I want to see more CEOs
come from HR I want to see more HR
professionals be keynote speakers at
events we’ve heard from some great ones
today
but this is a HR conference is what you
expect I want to see HR professionals
keynoting sales and marketing events
because sales and marketing has to care
about the people I want to see HR
professionals keynoting finance events
because the business isn’t just about
the numbers it’s about the people I look
out here we all did the you’re a leader
baby I see a bunch of leaders I see the
future keynote presenters across all
different industries
I see future CEOs sitting before me if
you guys are willing to take the action
and so as much as we focus on our team
and helping them hop all the slides come
helping them hop I still see Pierre here
in front of me let’s put Pierre back up
as much as we want to see our team hop
there he is I want you to also focus on
your journey and understand that you’ve
already come so far right you start at
the bottom you’re here now but you still
have a long way to go and I want you to
find your feet
believe in yourself a little bit more
and start the hop a little bit higher
thank you guys for your time
[Applause]
but not least he’s a successful
entrepreneur on a mission to help 1
million entrepreneurs just that right
here’s the offer of this absolutely
great book find your one word and is a
rock star on YouTube with more than
700,000 subscribers ladies and gentlemen
please give a warm welcome to Evan
Carmichael
[Applause]
[Music]
hello Paris oh nice I like it I love
being in a room full of leaders I love
being in a room full of people who want
to be inspired who come to learn who
want to improve themselves who want to
take the knowledge that they took here
and apply it to their business and most
importantly I love being with people who
want to take action because that’s what
we do as leaders because we’re not here
just to learn things and not do anything
with it we’re here to take action and so
I want to start by just recognizing you
guys for coming out for invested in
yourselves and for being leaders who
will take action after going home give
yourselves a round of applause and while
we’re doing that actually I want
everybody to stand up everybody stand up
just quickly quick exercise everybody
send-up get the house lights up a little
bit I didn’t I didn’t prep these guys
for everybody stand up I want you to put
your hands up like this I’m gonna put
your hands up like this there we go all
right when I count to three what we’re
going to do is we’re going to turn to
the person next to us we’re going to
give them a high ten I’m going to say
you’re a leader baby so love I’m serious
okay you’re a leader baby one two three
your leader baby other side other side
you’re a leader baby I love it all right
okay sit down thank you thank you for
humoring me that was great
I love leaders I love leaders so my name
is Evan Carmichael I’m not from a big
corporation
I’m from the entrepreneurial world and
from the social media world and I was
asked to come and give you guys a little
bit of a different perspective see what
I see in the world and maybe you can
apply it to your organization’s when you
go back home I want to start by just
quickly redefining the least the public
perception around human resources
because I think a lot of people not in
this room because we’re leaders but a
lot of people see human resources is
just an administrative function and I
don’t believe HR just administrative I
don’t believe that we are in the
business of just keeping track of how
many sick days somebody has left and
pushing paperwork out there
I believe and I hope you guys agree I
believe that human resources is the
single most important function in any
business there we go okay now when I was
when I was practicing in my hotel room I
imagined a much bigger response to that
so I’m gonna try it again I’m going to
visualize I’m going to say it and in my
head you guys are going to freak out and
clap and cheer and go nuts when I say
that again and we’ll see what happens I
believe that human resources is the
single most important division in any
business yeah I love it and I I don’t
say that just because I’m talking to a
bunch of people from human resources
I believe it because you can have a
business without finance startup
entrepreneurs do that all the time you
can have the business without
manufacturing you can have a business
without technology but you can’t have a
business without people this doesn’t
happen
not until the robots take over the world
but you can have a business that people
and so I see human resources as not just
being administrators but we are in the
business of human potential we are in
the business of taking people who come
to our organizations at this level and
we see them being able to come up here
and our job as leaders and as people in
HR is to help close that gap even if
they don’t believe in themselves to give
them the skills the mindset the
confidence to help them become the best
version of ourselves and themselves
that’s what I believe HR and leadership
is really about and I’ve got a few ideas
for you that may be scary there may be
different may push some boundaries but
we’re leaders here so that’s what we do
we embrace different ideas when we take
action but before I get some ideas I
want to share a quick story so this will
be Pierre the rabbit and Pierre is a
happy rabbit and when he was growing up
he went to animal school like all the
other young animals do and he learned
all the skills that you need to learn to
be a successful
animal and after the first year there
was a problem with Pierre you see he got
eight plus on his report card for
hopping right for hopping he’d personal
day
my French isn’t that great but no try to
throw a little bit in there but he
failed at climbing he couldn’t climb a
tree and so his parents really
disappointed at him his family he’s gone
mad his teachers his friends were really
disappointed in parents at Pierre you’re
failing don’t worry so much for the next
year about the hopping because you’re
good at that we got to work on the
climbing we got to teacher the skills on
how to climb and so for the next year
that’s what he did you went to extra
classes and you got special climbing
teachers and every day after school
Pierre would go and learn the climb and
something happened over that next year
you spend so much time practicing how to
climb a tree that he forgot how to hop
and that’s for climbing trees have you
ever seen a rabbit climb a tree the
point of the story is you need to focus
on your strengths the point of the story
is if you’re a rabbit you hop you don’t
climb trees both for yourself and for
the people in your organization if our
role as human resources is to help
people reach their potential you need to
help the rabbits hop if you have a
business full of rabbits that are
hopping high like Pierre is there you’re
having success if you have a business
full of rabbits that are trying to climb
trees it’s not going to work out that
well and so how do we start how do we
start helping our rabbits hop in our
organizations well I can start with
policies we’ve talked a lot about
different policies and rules and
regulations when I first started my
business I have two companies I have 70
people on my team between the two
businesses and when I first started I
had this dream I want to have this
office and we’re all going to show up at
the office every day and work and we’re
all going to show up at the same time
I show up we’re all going to leave at
the same time I leave and it’s just
going to be perfect and then I started
hiring people and I realized that not
everybody’s like me everybody has
different schedules and routines and
desires some people loved coming to the
office every single day some people
wanted to work from home some people
wanted to work remotely some people
wanted to work remotely but come in for
meeting since in collaborations some
people wanted to come in early and leave
early some people want to come in late
and leave late some people wanted to
come in early and leave late I love
those people as an entrepreneur I love
those people but I had a tough choice to
make
do I let these people go who are really
talented but they don’t fit into the box
that I had created do I force somebody
to do something they don’t want to do do
I take that guy who wants to work from
home and wants to work at night and
force him to come to the office every
day and work early
that’d be the equivalent of taking the
rabbit and make him try to climb a tree
or do I change my policies and I
realized that the vision I had of
everybody coming to the same office work
in the same hours every day wasn’t
really realistic and so we change the
policy and so it strongly encouraged you
guys and we’ve heard a lot of speakers
already talk about it today too but look
at the policies in your company and
think are they helping the bunnies hop
right are we helping our team hop or we
forcing them to climb trees we force it
in them to do the things that they don’t
want to do and if we redefine human
resources as helping people reach their
potential as opposed to just
administration then it becomes the new
filter through which we see our role and
we can look at every policy we have and
say is this going to help our bunnies
hop right
this is going to help people reach their
potential or is it just getting in their
way and I would strongly encourage you
to look at those policies you have and
see what might need to be eliminated or
changed to help your rabbit hop but
that’s just administration right we’re
not in the administration game
right that’s old HR we’re about human
potential the challenge then becomes not
every person is the same my potential is
different than your potential what I
like what I want what I want to go is
different from other people hopping is
different for everybody in the company
and so if you want to get people from
here to here you have this you have to
understand for each person what their
passions are what their goals are what
their objectives are what the desires
are what their needs are what they want
to do and we have a lot of those tools
already built into traditional human
resources you know we have our annual
meetings with them do have our
performance reviews we’ve got a lot of
things kind of already baked in and we
try to create a culture of openness and
understanding and fairness and you can
tell me anything but no matter how great
a culture you have there will still be
things that the people on your team will
not tell you and it may not even be
because they’re trying to hide it from
you they just may be embarrassed they
may not think it’s relevant to their job
they may not see how it fits into their
growth path they will just be things
that they won’t tell you that you won’t
know you won’t have the information they
may tell their friends they may tell
their family they may post it on social
media but they won’t tell you and that
becomes a problem if we’re in the
business of helping people realize their
growth we need to have the information
to help them get there and so I would
tell you that if they are out there
posting things about themselves their
lives their passion or interest on
social media then you need to be there –
I need to be there following them I
would suggest that you follow everybody
on your team on every social media
channel but they’re a part of if they’re
on Twitter you follow them on Twitter if
they have a YouTube channel you
subscribe to their YouTube channel you
follow them on Facebook on medium on
snapchat on Instagram everywhere they
are you want to be now some people say
well that’s an invasion of privacy
they’re posting on Twitter it’s public
everything is
totally out in the open it’s hard to get
more public than Twitter some people say
well what if I discover something bad
you know if somebody goes out to a party
and gets drunk and then shows up to a
meeting with a customer the next day how
do I handle that well how do you handle
any difficult situation as a leader use
your heart and use your head to make the
right decision
but the answer isn’t to just ignore it
there’s as wealth of information out
here that the people on your team are
sharing about themselves or interest or
passion desires and you just don’t know
about it you only have a small section
of the information and you can’t make
the best decisions without the best
information and so I follow the people
on my team on social media I’ll give you
a couple examples of how it’s worked out
I had one guy who asked some time off I
need hey I mean I need a week time off
personal reasons great no problem he
posted on social media that he’s going
back to his mother’s hometown to stay
with her for a week because she’s really
sick he’s got to look after her and I
reached out to him and said hey if I can
I heard about your mom I didn’t say I
found it on social media that you posted
about your mom she said I heard about
your mom it’s really sad to hear if I
can be of any help any resource let me
know if you need more time off let me
know if you want to work from your mom
city for the next little bit let me know
we’ll figure it out because your mom was
important she’s important to you and
therefore she’s important to me and he
didn’t go into the details with me
because maybe he felt embarrassed he
felt it wasn’t relevant but when I found
out about it it made it easier to help
him and then he is so grateful but the
company cares enough about him in his
situation to do the best we can to help
him out second example a guy on my team
post on social media that he’s so
grateful that he’s able to improve his
English recently I didn’t know he wanted
to improve his English and again these
are people that I meet all the time
right it’s not like I’m meeting them
once a year and we have no context in
between
I’m constantly meeting with the people
on my team but there’s still information
that they just won’t bring up because he
just leaned out think is relevant to his
job function or his potential path and
so I found out that he was grateful for
be able to practice his English said
this is great see for him English is
hopping right he wants to get better at
English in my company were English
speaking only every piece of content we
create is in English all of my YouTube
videos are in English the books are in
English and so if he is able to improve
his English it doesn’t just help him on
his path that helps my company as well
and because I found out on social media
I was able to help him do you want an
accountability partner do you want to
match up with somebody in the company
and have regular conversations are there
courses or classes or books or DVDs that
I can buy for you to help you improve
your English and one is really
appreciative of the tactics of like
here’s a plan for you to get better but
even more important is he understands
that I have his back that I care about
his path that I care about where he
wants to go and I found out through
social where otherwise he would never
tell me one last example a woman on my
team posted social media that she was
looking for opportunities to be a public
speaker she wants to improve her
speaking skills she’s nervous to speak
again she never told me it’s not part of
her job right now what she’s doing at my
company speaking so it makes sense that
she wouldn’t tell me in our performance
reviews and any meetings but finding
that out at social media allows me to
create a path for her because for her
speaking is hopping right I need her to
hop I could try to force somebody to be
a speaker they’re not going to have fun
right it’s going to be climbing a tree
for them but for her that’s what she
wants to do I have the information I can
make a great decision so I have a
YouTube channel how about you join me on
my youtube channel and she did five to
six videos with me I’m speaking at an
event in September in my hometown of
Toronto Canada and I convinced the
organizers to allow her to have her own
little section of it now she’s not the
keynote and she’s
getting paid either but she’s scared and
she’s nervous and she’s excited she gets
to do the thing that she wants to grow
and learn and it helps my company to
having somebody who can deliver a speech
who can communicate better helps my
business out as well even though it
wasn’t originally on her career path and
so it encourage all of you to pay
attention to what your team is talking
about on social media a lot of its going
to be irrelevant but the more you get to
know what your team cares about the more
data points that you have the better
decisions you can make and we need the
right information to help people go from
here to here now this is coming right
now it’s not common in the HR business
to do this but it’s coming this will be
standard practice I’m old enough to
still remember the days where people
didn’t have email addresses where
companies didn’t have websites so not
everybody’s doing this yet but it’s
going to happen social media is not
going anywhere and people are only going
to share more and more and more and more
and so are you the kind of organization
that’s going to pay attention and listen
and get the information to help your
team out as best as possible or you’re
going to pretend like that information
doesn’t exist and then be blind what
other organizations pass you the last
point I want to touch on is I want to
talk about you guys a little bit because
everything that we’ve talked about so
far the conference has been about the
employee journey all the people that you
care for and are underneath you but I
want to talk about your journey as well
because you’re important and the work
that you do is important and your
journey needs to continue forward as
well I want to talk about CEOs quickly I
love CEOs but there’s one thing that
CEOs say that bothers me
CEOs will always say our most valuable
resource is our people right our most
valuable resources our people well that
means you guys manage the most valuable
resource in every company so why are you
not getting more respect why do more
CEOs not come from human resources
in North America at least I don’t know
the European data but in North America
the number one path to being a CEO is
through finance here in finance that’s
your best shot at being CEO number two
is operations number three is sales and
marketing number four is outside the
business and then way down on that list
is HR we shouldn’t be laughing we should
be upset if the CEO of your company left
your business your company is more
likely to hire somebody from outside the
company than from HR and you manage the
most valuable resource in the business
to me that’s crazy and so instead of
complaining because leaders don’t
complain
we don’t complain we make changes
Mahatma Gandhi said be the change you
want to see in the world so that’s what
we do we make the change and if you want
people to take you more seriously then
you start by taking yourself more
seriously to really feel that you manage
the most important resource in the
company to fight for the resources that
you need to be successful and to
implement the programs that you have how
many of you guys learn something at some
point in this conference that you’re
going to take home to your company put
your hand you learn something and one of
the events you’re going to take home to
your company great and how many of you
even before you came here had other
ideas that you want to put into your
company that you haven’t implemented yet
but you have an ideas you have a vision
for what you want your team to look like
at your company great so pretty much
everybody you guys are all thought
leaders you’re not just a cog in the
machine and so I would encourage you to
share that to not just share it with you
know keep it in your head or just share
it with your team but to share it
publicly openly because I want to see
more CEOs come from human resources and
so I want to encourage you not just to
follow your team on social media but for
you to be active yourself on social
media
want you to find a platform that best
fits you if you like being in front of a
camera like I do you go YouTube if you
like writing you can go LinkedIn find
the platform the best suits you because
until HR professionals start standing up
for themselves and letting their voices
be heard
they’re not going to get the respect so
we can’t complain about it we got to
make a change I want to see more CEOs
come from HR I want to see more HR
professionals be keynote speakers at
events we’ve heard from some great ones
today
but this is a HR conference is what you
expect I want to see HR professionals
keynoting sales and marketing events
because sales and marketing has to care
about the people I want to see HR
professionals keynoting finance events
because the business isn’t just about
the numbers it’s about the people I look
out here we all did the you’re a leader
baby I see a bunch of leaders I see the
future keynote presenters across all
different industries
I see future CEOs sitting before me if
you guys are willing to take the action
and so as much as we focus on our team
and helping them hop all the slides come
helping them hop I still see Pierre here
in front of me let’s put Pierre back up
as much as we want to see our team hop
there he is I want you to also focus on
your journey and understand that you’ve
already come so far right you start at
the bottom you’re here now but you still
have a long way to go and I want you to
find your feet
believe in yourself a little bit more
and start the hop a little bit higher
thank you guys for your time
[Applause]
Please follow and like us: