A New Tag Line

You may notice that this blog's tag line has changed. It used to be "Business, talent, technology and the American Way" (or something like that). The phrase certainly stated the topics I covered, but didn't give me any warm fuzzies about just why I was engaged in tilting at these particular windmills.

At the same time that I was thinking about this, I was working on the book about Brand Talent with Dave Lefkow. When you write a book you hope that editors and publishers will magically appear out of nowhere, swinging huge bags of cash around and begging you to publish with them. Then you figure out that the authors are the ones coughing up the cash and doing the begging, so you start to go out and pitch your idea. As part of that you go around and ask people whom you respect, and who used to respect you before you ask them to spend their time shilling for you, to write nice things about you and your idea.

It's an interesting exercise. I don't know about you, but asking people to put aside their busy lives so that they can talk about how great I am is right up there with public flatulence in quiet places for uncomfortable situations that call attention to yourself.

One of the people whom I asked replied with something that really struck home. This person asked me to keep their identity private because they work with a large organization that would have to review what they wrote if it was publicly attributed. Or maybe they just didn't want anyone to know we are friends. After the flatulence comment I can understand their point of view.

Their comment was:

Implementation is not most theorists' strong suit -they articulate great ideas, but they would be challenged to operate in the day-to-day reality of a real company. At the same time, many of the best practitioners can't articulate the larger intellectual frameworks within which they execute. Ground breaking progress usually comes from that increasingly rare combination of both - progressive thinkers involved in the day-to-day operationalization of best practices - leaders who can articulate innovative new thinking and the path to practical application.

That really struck a chord with me. There are those that talk a good game, but when confronted with actually putting it into practice are hard-pressed to turn theory into practice. And then there are those that keep their heads down every day and just plain practice, but who never try to elevate their work medium by describing new and more meaningful ways that the work could be done, or create a grander purpose for their daily toils.

So it lead me to change the tag phrase for the blog to something that really describes its purpose: turning some pretty out-there theory into practice in the areas of business, talent and technology. In case you cared...

Comments

[double dubs]

How true: Visionaries often can't implement. Implementors often don't have vision.

It's a rare competency that someone can understand the vision in all it's high level depth (only slightly oxymoronic) and for that same person to be able to translate that vision into all its gory detail. For this, a person must understand strategy as well as the transactional and processing tactical level. One of the reasons implementation can be so dysfunctional is the necessary layers within a PMO that allow all of the strategy synthesis to go on - one or two levels of implementation PM's simply won't have the competencies needed. Unfortunately, the more layers you put in, the more dilution you get with the strategy.

You're right - this is a serious problem, not just in HR technology, but also for any process, cultural objective, communication... you're trying to implement.

-Dubs

[Max Leibman]

Well, I care a little. It's always nice to see the thinking process that goes into these kinds of creative branding decisions.

You hit upon a key split. It reminds me of the entrepreneur/manager/technitian division that Gerber talks about in his E-MYTH books. The technitian is concerned with doing the work, and the manager is concerned with running the business, but the entrepreneur (or founder, or leader, or whoever) is concerned with working ON the business, on taking the wholistic, bird's-eye view, and seeing another way.

[Canadian Headhunter]

What's the matter with you? Your old tag phrase had the Superman structure that everyone knows and loves.

Maybe other people pick things up more quickly than I do (not) but, to me this one is way too complicated.

Also, people do want to be able to talk about how great you are. We always want to find something fantastic and tell everybody. Isn't that true?