The Art of Human Resources: An Insider's Guide to Influencing Your Culture

Liza encourages HR professionals to monitor and pay attention to leadership styles and talent management practices that shape the current culture of their organization. By doing so, they can take a more active and meaningful role in moving cultural norms in a constructive direction that reflects and activates their organization’s vision, mission and values. Beyond informative, her book is developmental, motivating and action oriented.

— Robert A. Cooke,

Author of the Organizational Culture Inventory

CEO, Human Synergistics International, Associate Professor Emeritus, University of Illinois at Chicago

"Long overdue, Liza Sichon’s book The Art of HR: an Insider’s Guide to influencing Your Culture is both inspiration and guide for HR professionals who seek to maximize their professional contributions by earning ‘a seat at the table’ from which to influence organizational culture. Liza presents an easy, effective approach to maximizing HR professionals’ job-fit and effectiveness through enhanced self-awareness and customized developmental plans. A must read for HR professionals aspiring to leave a lasting impact on their organizations!"

— Davis H. Taylor

CEO, TAI Incorporated

Author, The Imperfect Leader

"Liza Sichon insightfully creates the HR Inside Out Model to help HR Professionals choose a specialty that keeps them authentic to their natural talents and skills. It compliments my book, Leading with Emotional Intelligence, where I highlight the very first step in leading is to have the courage to face oneself honestly, embracing our strengths and areas of development to master the moments. Only then can true leadership begin."

— Relly Nadler

True North Leadership

Author, Leading with Emotional Intelligence

Liza has given us an insightful and personal look at the HR profession. Her coaching experiences, tools and commentary are both illuminating and valuable.

— David C. Forman

President of Sage Learning Systems

Author, Fearless HR—Driving Business Results

Liza has done a great job in creating a must read for every human resource professional. If you follow her advice and steps outlined, you will increase your capability and value to your clients ten-fold.

— Linda Sharkey

Speaker and Executive Coach

Author, Transglobal Leadership, Optimizing Talent and the upcoming book, Futureproof Workplace

The Art of Human Resources

An Insider’s Guide to Influencing Your Culture

Liza Sichon

Copyright © 2017 by Liza Sichon. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author(s).

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional when appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author(s) shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, personal, or other damages.

The Art of Human Resources:

An Insider’s Guide to Influencing Your Culture

By Liza Sichon

1. BUS012000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Careers / General

2. BUS097000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Workplace Culture

3. BUS030000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Human Resources & Personnel Management

ISBN Paperback: 978-1-935953-76-0

ISBN Hardcover: 978-1-935953-75-3

Smashwords Edition

ISBN: 978-1-370984-64-0

Cover design by Lewis Agrell

Printed in the United States of America

Authority Publishing

11230 Gold Express Dr. #310-413

Gold River, CA 95670

800-877-1097

www.AuthorityPublishing.com

Dedication

To my dear family:

My husband Danny

Our children,

Carla and Josh, Paolo, Amanda

Our grandson,

Jake

Author’s Note

The illustrative case studies in this book are drawn from my personal experiences and those of my clients. In order to maintain confidentiality and privacy of coaching and consulting assignments, their names and identifying details were modified.

Friends, coaches, mentors, bosses and colleagues named in the book are people who have shaped my thinking and enriched my life and career.

I am deeply grateful for their presence in my life—they will forever have an inspiring influence in helping me grow personally and professionally.

Acknowledgments

This book would not be written if it weren’t for the encouragement and support of a vast network of dear friends and relatives:

My parents, Ting and Guding Santiago for instilling in us the value of education and hard work as a path towards success.

My long-time dear friend Pamela Janaro, who brainstormed and tirelessly bounced concepts and ideas with me while helping me formulate my words.

Louie Tenazas, my very first boss and mentor for life, who believed in me ever since and encouraged me every step of the way for over thirty years.

Ruby Newell-Ledger, who inspired me to write to an audience I was passionate about.

My editor Justin Spizman, who helped me through the enlightening journey of discovering my writing voice, which motivated me to look forward to writing every day until this book was completed.

My publisher Stephanie Chandler, Authority Publishing, who provided me with much needed advice and tremendous support in producing this book.

Davis Taylor of TAI Incorporated, owner of PRO Development™ Report, for permission and support to use the PRO Development™ report, concepts, language and tools.

Arnold Smyth of PRO-D LLC for the creation of the PRO-D for HR survey, technical support and expertise.

Robert Cooke and Cheryl Boglarsky of Human Synergistics International for collaboration in using the Organizational Culture Inventory® (OCI®) tools and concepts for the case study.

Contents

Foreword

Introduction: The Shoemaker’s Children Go Barefoot

Chapter 1: The True Value of Human Resources

Chapter 2: Inside Out: An HR Development Model

Chapter 3: Love Is Not Enough: Sustaining Your Career Through More Than Your Heart

Chapter 4: You Need an MRI: Motivations, Abilities, and Personality

Chapter 5: What Makes You Tick? The Nine People and Culture Profiles

Chapter 6: Turn On Your Automatic Sprinklers: Make Your Weakness a Habit

Chapter 7: From Me to We: No One Becomes a Success Alone

Chapter 8: Culture: It’s Not Touchy-Feely

Chapter 9: Culture Is the Strategy: Your New Game Plan

Appendices

Foreword

Liza’s excellent book brings back memories and shapes a future. My first book in 1990 with Dale Lake was called Organizational Capability; Competing from the Inside Out. Our recent book (with Jon Younger, Wayne Brockbank and Mike Ulrich) was called HR from the Outside In.

These two books frame a fascinating juxtaposition in the field of human resources. On the one hand human resources is about the human and how people fit into organizations. One of my mentors carved into my thinking, organizations don’t think, people do and make people safe from their organization. So organizations are a marvelous amalgamation of people who come together to solve difficult problems.

On the other hand, human resources today is not about human resources (which is the first line of our next book called Victory Through Organization). Human resources delivers value to the organization so that the organization wins with customers and investors. Without creating customer value, HR’s impact is limited: like knowing the time of day but having nowhere to go. Without creating investor value, HR will not be sustained because the economic markets ultimately determine viability.

So, Liza reminds us that these two perspectives, inside out and outside in, can form a virtuous circle. Starting with an outside-in perspective, we recognize the criteria for success as determined by customers and investors and then create these market-based outside-in outcomes by asking because of questions. Firms gain customer share or investor reputation because of talent, leadership, and cultures that give customers and investors confidence. Starting with an inside-out perspective starts with talent, leadership, and culture so that customer and investor outcomes follow.

When this virtuous circle of inside to outside and outside to inside works, business leaders, HR professionals, and employees make better decisions. A student I mentored called me recently to tell me he had two job offers, one at Amazon and one at Google. When he asked me what he should do, I jokingly said, Take one! But, to know which one to take, he had to think about his core, MRI (motivations, abilities, and personality), and what makes him tick (all Liza’s concepts, with excellent diagnostic tools). He needed to know where he would personally fit so that he could be effective as a new employee.

Liza’s contribution to this virtuous cycle is outstanding. Based on her internal organization work, client work as a consultant, and as a thoughtful observer, she offers a number of diagnostic tools that will give any employee insights into where they can use their gifts to help their organization succeed.

One of the most interesting insights from this inside-outside virtuous cycle is the navigation of paradox. In our recent research (Victory Through Organization), we found that HR professionals who could navigate paradox had the most impact on business performance. Navigating paradox means living with duality and tension. These dualities might include being top-down and bottom-up, short-term and long-term, focused on individuals and teams, and so forth. One of the most pressing paradoxes for HR professionals is to learn to be both inside out (focused on people) and outside in (focused on customers and investors). When HR navigates this tension, they