Innovation: Begins With An Ending
Take a step back and look at your life, your work, yourself. Do you see excess? Is there too much emphasis on one area of your life? Are you running a rat race that can’t be won? If I were a betting person, I wouldn’t hesitate placing a decent wager on these things. You see, all too often, in our personal lives, we consume to make us happy. The same goes in our professional worlds were we often buy into the idea that we “need” the newest technology, the new shiny toy.
Don’t Fall Victim
As a marketing professional, I know how to carefully craft a message, whether it’s words on paper, an emotional evoking design or a carefully positioned call to action. When these things are successfully intertwined, people respond (AKA buy what I’m selling). I’m also someone who has ten plus years in the talent acquisition space that has been responsible for vetting out what tools were needed and sifting through the crap. Even with this combination of professional experience, on occasion, I’ve found myself overwhelmed and buying into the “grass is greener” mentality. (side note: it often isn’t)
Know Thyself and Know They Needs
Before walking the floors of any given HR conference, spend a little time with your team, your data and your goals. If you don’t have a concrete understanding of what you need and what you could live without you’ll end up with your head spinning from information overload and buying into the smoke and mirrors.
GO CAUTIOUSLY. It’s way to easy to get sucked in by vendor swag and buzz words that amount to nothing if spoken by someone who has no true understanding of their meaning. Make note of what tools require lengthy implementation periods (potential time warp) and which ones require process change. And of course, if the technology happens to be having problems during your demo, there is a 99% chance you and your team will have problems with it also.
Eliminate and Innovate
You’ve combed over your numbers and your process. You’ve spent countless hours on demo after demo. You now know what you need to do – make some changes. If it isn’t working, causing more headaches than good, proving to be a waste of resources or simply doing the job that another tool could do…throw it to the curb. Spring clean everything. It might be difficult in the beginning as there will possibly be push back and you’ll have to cut back on conversations with that HRTech vendor who has become more of a friend than the gal down the hall. However, innovation starts at the beginning of an ending.
