Carnival of HR

It’s carnival time in HR-land and those fools – er, kindred souls in the Village have entrusted me with hosting it this time. Cue up the Calliope and summon the clowns.

And speaking of Clowns…. I’ve been following the continuing saga of Mr. Alex Rodriguez, and his now infamous demand of a $350 Million Dollar offer just to begin negotiations with the Yankees…. Who does he think he is, Robert Nardelli? How’s that for chutzpah??

Our friend over at Ask A Manager has some good advice that could have saved Home Depot and the Yankees a lot of trouble by managing the performance of people like these two “stars” upfront and properly.

And why is it that sports (and other) stars always put management in difficult positions by being the spoiled people that they are? Kris at the Human Capitalist has some pretty good insights on managing such stars without killing your business.

Maybe we could be better at influencing the behaviors and performance of our stars by having a results-tied compensation plan. Ann from Compensation Force may have the answers in her brilliant post on Incentive Principles.

It’s a pretty good bet that if the Yankees had a decent performance assessment process and a candid Talent Assessment plan they might have headed off the blow-up with A-Rod. Gautam Ghosh came up with a thought provoker about Assessing Potential – how it can be done well, and how we all tend to stumble through it usually.

Peggy at Career Encouragement raised a seemingly unrelated topic, till you look below the surface. She refers to a post on how employees feel about being referred to EAP. Now I’m not making any accusations here, but A-Rod demands $350 Million at the same time Peggy brings up an EAP article…. Coincidence! You decide!

Lisa at HR Thoughts raises a real value perception question that relates nicely as well. So you’ve got a Hero on the team and you reward him for his clinch hit in the bottom of the 9^th to win the game – but do you ever hold him accountable for striking out in the first 8 innings and getting the team into a clinch in the first place??

Maybe the problem isn’t all with A-Rod alone. Maybe a better leader could have inspired and engaged him to play well for less cash – at least that’s a theory that fits Anna’s post from the Engaging Brand. Besides – I cannot deal with the Image of Steinbrenner reading anybody’s palm – yech!

Wally over at Three Star Leadership has a great viewpoint on selecting and developing leaders that touches our theme here as well. Maybe George Steinbrenner should have read this last year??

This topic really had me steamed and I was starting to rail against these smug little sports brats. Wayne Turmel (the host of the Cranky Middle Manager show and President of Greatwebmeetings.com.) pointed out that maybe this generation of spoiled brats isn’t really so bad after all – maybe the kids are alright after all.

And finally (ironic, since she was the first to my door with her post – well done!) Carmen over at Race in the Workplace reminds us that as we move on post this drama and trauma and begin our search for a new bat-wielding hero to propel the Yankees back to the playoffs, we have to acknowledge that talent comes in all form, sizes and colors. We do ourselves and our team a grave injustice when we claim not to notice the color of our teammates.

Phew! – an entire carnival all tied (however loosely) to a topic that I don’t even really care about! Perhaps I have uncovered a hidden talent in myself – maybe I’m a free-style Rapper trapped in an HR geek’s body? NAH!!!