HR: are you bringing RESULTS or managing PROCESSES?

“He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And when you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you”. F. Nietzsche

“He who fights with processes should look to it that he himself does not become a process. And when you gaze long into a process the process also gazes into you”. High Impact HR

Once I interviewed an HR professional, came highly recommended, loads of experience in several (HR) areas and in banking. I asked her what did she do. She described to me all the processes she used to be responsible. Then I asked: do you know what an investment bank is? Of course I know, I work in one, she said. Great – could you explain to me the difference between an investment bank and a retail bank, in terms of how they generate revenues?

“Difference in revenues from IB and retail banking… No clue… ” she said

“But don’t you work at an Investment Bank”, I asked

“Sure! But I work in HR”

Sometimes I question if we (HR professionals) are not looking to the abyss  of processes too long, therefore becoming process managers. Should our goal be to cause high impact on business? To bring more results?

Things got even more complex when you ask what do you do: “I am responsible for this process”, sometimes is the answer we can get.

Aren’t process there to serve us? Because sometimes I think that HR ends up serving those processes created by ourselves, rather than questioning what makes sense to bring results.

Got in touch recently with a three-fold approach to processes:

1. BE CYNICAL ABOUT PROCESS! – question the creation of any new process. Never believe that any (new or existing) process will solve any problem (find this one quite interesting, counter intuitive but can have high impact)
2. QUESTIONQUESTIONQUESTION! – give people a hard time if the processes they run should really exist (the fundamentals for this aspect is that people that hides behind processes get desperate when you want to take away their processes – the idea behind it is that processes gives us a predictable frame, so people tend to hide behind it)
3. SIMPLE IS B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L! (I am very obsessed with that nowadays): Why writing a mail if telling someone will do; why call a meeting if calling someone will do; why calling for a 4hr meeting if a 30min one will do, and… why setting a process is a meeting will do ?

This put, every process that HR is responsible must be flawless! We should be the best, in anything that we are doing, shouldn’t we