The World of Human Capital

Lovely Charts offers a free web-based flow chart builder.  This looks very easy to use and even allows you to save your chart for future editing. You can also export it as a picture file toshare with others.

This is a good article covering ways in which you can improve your communication skills:

1. Be receptive to what others say
   While it’s good to enter the communication with a clear objective of what you want, don’t be so focused on it that you tune out on important messages the person is trying to communicate. Don’t expect the answers to come in a certain manner and certain style. Have a focus and at the same time keep your mind open.

   Even if the people come across as critical, learn to deal with critical people and be open to criticism. Many people are quick to shut out criticisms but in the process they lose out on a lot of valuable advice and feedback. Don’t take criticisms personally. Look for the message in the criticisms instead. Ask yourself: “What made the person say this? What lessons can I take away from this? How does this relate to my situation?” With an open mind, you can have more answers to what you seek.

2. Look out for the subtext
   Subtext is the underlying message of the communication. It’s more well-known as “reading between the lines”. Many misunderstandings between people (especially between females and males) occur because they take each other too literally, vis-a-vis responding to the subtexts. To sieve out subtexts accurately, you have to listen actively to what’s communicated and be observant. Watch out for hand gestures, body language, speed of voice and tonality of voice. The most important points of the communication are usually not openly articulated. Knowing how to read the subtext will take you a long way in building great relationships.
3. Be positive
   By being positive, it means to be generous with your emotions, such as love and kindness. Have you ever communicated with emotionally stingy people? These people are critical all the time. They keep harping on a small mistake and pinpointing every “issue” they can find. It feels suffocating and draining to be around them.

   On the other hand, being an emotionally generous person makes you more endearing to be around. Focus more on the positive areas and not the negative ones. Show genuine care and concern for the person’s well-being. Give praise where it’s deserved. People will look forward to interacting with you because they feel happier and uplifted doing so.

4. Respect the person
   Any successful communication can only take place with mutual respect. If you don’t respect the person first and foremost, it’ll show itself during the conversation.

   Acknowledge the person’s background, expertise and capabilities. Acknowledge the person’s position as the owner of his/her life. Even if it’s a colleague you dislike, respect him/her for what he/she has done. How do you feel if the people who speak to you don’t respect you? That’s going to be how the other party feels. Not only that, you can’t expect others to respect you if you don’t first respect them, can you?

5. Maintain eye contact
   Looking at the speaker in the eye is a reassuring way of letting the person know you are there and listening. You don’t have to be staring 100% of the time. Just maintain the gaze long enough whenever he/she looks over, and give a reaffirming nod every once in a while. You don’t want him/her thinking you are zoning out when you are really listening.
6. Don’t interrupt the person (unless there is good reason)
   Don’t cut in unnecessarily. Even if the person is long-winded, at the very least give him/her a few chances to fully express himself/herself before jumping in. Sometimes, you may think you know what the person is going to say next, but you may actually be wrong. There have been times when the other party says something that’s completely different from what I thought he/she would say.

   I’ve been out with people who are extremely long-winded – they can literally go on-and-on for 30 minutes, talking and talking, without realizing the people around have switched off. When you face such people, let them finish talking for the first few times. If subsequent replies are as lengthy, then chances are the person is very fogged up in his/her thinking pattern. Help him/her zoom down to the answer through the right questions. (Tip #9)

7. When in doubt, ask
   It’s easy to assume, but as the old saying goes, when you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME. Everyone you talk to is a whole new person, so don’t think what applies to person X will automatically apply to person Y too. Erase all beliefs you formed of others and start off the communication on a whole new slate. When in doubt, ask for more details. Get all the facts before making any conclusion.

   A good habit is to ask a clarifying question every time the person finishes talking so you know you got the right message. This goes a long way in a good conversation (and relationship).

8. Mirror the person
   Mirroring is the behavior in which one person copies another person usually while in social interaction with them. It may include miming gestures, movements, body language, muscle tensions, expressions, tones, eye movements, breathing, tempo, accent, attitude, choice of words/metaphors and other aspects of communication. (Wikipedia)

   Mirroring is more of a strategy to facilitate communication, rather than the key to good communication. Avoid relying on it solely, and don’t overdo it too. Trying to mirror someone 100% will only make you look like an empty shell. That being said, mirroring does help you to ease into the right “state” for communication. The next time you speak to someone, try to mirror the key body movements. If the person is sitting in a slouched position, slouch and match your eye at the same level. If the person is smiling, smile along with him/her. This will encourage him/her to open up more.

9. To get the right answers, ask the right questions
   Every conversation is made up of questions and answers. Being a better communicator requires you to know what are the right questions to ask, so you can forward the conversation the right way. The direction of the conversation and the type of answers you get is dependent on the quality of your questions.

   There are several types of questions. The 1st is open questions. You ask these when you want the person to openly share about something. Example: “What happened?” or “How did the meeting go?”. The 2nd is probing questions. These are pin-pointed to uncover more about a particular topic. For example: “What made you think this way?”, “What are you unhappy about?” or “What did he do to you?”. The 3rd is close-ended questions. You ask these to get a quick yes/no answer on areas you already have specific thoughts on. These help to advance the conversation quickly. Using a combination of these questions help you create the best communication experience.

10. Connect with genuinity
    Ultimately, it’s all about genuine connection. As long as you are communicating with the best intentions, and a sincere desire to know the person better, nothing can go wrong. When I talk to others, I prefer to let my best intentions guide me, and leave other technicalities as secondary. I find that’s the most effective way to reach out. For example, even though I’ve never studied NLP on a professional level, I found that many things I intuitively do in communication are in line with what is taught in NLP (such as mirroring, matching). In the end, let your heart lead the way and the rest will follow.

A recent article in the Denver Business Journal summarized the findings by the Mountain States Employers Council survey of 631 companies in Colorado and Wyoming regarding health insurance.   Health insurance premiums have increased 7% since last year and employers on average are paying 85% of the premium for their employees.

The new Finance Chief of the SEC says one of his top priorities “will be to ensure strong internal controls”.  His other top priority will be to manage the growing budget of the SEC.

This was obtained from an exchange with CFO Magazine with can be found here.

I stumbled across an interesting article that discusses why HR should not be involved in the hiring process.  For the most part, I agree with what was stated, but some organizations have made a conscientious effort to bring in subject matter experts as recruiters to filter through the resumes.

Below is the full article by Lorraine Arams (or you can read the entire article here).

Why Human Resources Should Not Be Involved in Hiring

What a statement! Of course, most would say, HR is the logical department to receive resumes, review them and send the “best” candidate resumes on to the hiring manager for consideration. I say it is not.

First, the reliance on computers to do resume scanning is a poor idea. There is nothing like scanning resumes with the human eye. The human to human connection cannot be duplicated by a computer which is based on data, matching fields and precision.

The applicants may not have the exact phrasing or words to meet the parameters set by the HR department. We all know that there are thousands of words which mean the same thing especially in the English language where the nuances of any particular word or phrase can be at opposite ends of the spectrum.

It is said that you “beat the scan” by looking at the ad and populating your resume with the same words as utilized in the ad.

That’s disrespectful and dishonest. Why? Because it is only regurgitating what people want to hear – just like in university – your paper has a better chance of getting an A+ if the paper reflects and proves the ideas of the professor. Is that thinking? Of course not. Yet, it is said a person goes to university to learn to think.

Same principles apply to resumes. If you only tell people what they want to hear, then you, as a candidate are disrespecting yourself and your achievements. Yes, I realize, a person needs to get their foot in the door and “play the game”, as ridiculous as it is. When reviewing resumes, the person reading them must first understand the job, know the type of person being sought, and get the “feeling” of the person applying by reading their cover letters. HR cannot possibly understand all those factors – they are not the manager.

Second, HR generally has no idea what it takes to do the job, what characteristics would be ideal and what “out of the box” knowledge and experience would enhance the performance on the job. Again, it’s a human factor and, if the manager is involved with the people she/he supervises, the manager would understand those nuances. No amount of training can be a substitute for this human understanding.

Thirdly, there is no accounting for chemistry. What attracts people to other people? No one knows. In the centuries humans have existed, it is still a mystery how that magical force between two people can manifest itself. Often, a manager, by reading the cover letter, will get a message that simply cannot be transmitted in a resume, especially one designed for computer scanning and with which HR simply cannot connect.

If any company truly wants to hire the “best person for the job”, it would get rid of computers for scanning resumes. Computers simply cannot “understand” the nuances nor do proper matching mainly because no human can be that exact.

Next, only the manager should review any and all resumes. I can hear it now – there are a couple of hundred resumes coming in – how can the manager have the time to review them? They can. There have always been a lot of resumes received for job postings – it’s nothing new. The resumes don’t arrive all at once. Many of the resumes submitted and cover letters can be read very quickly. How do I know? Because I’ve done it – always – no one could possibly know or understand what I could while reading these documents.

Lastly, only the manager can pick up on the “chemistry” that matches her/his own. No one can do that for the manager. And since the manager should understand the jobs of the people she/he supervises, then they will also understand the “extra factors” which may enhance performance in the job.

So often I reviewed resumes to find skills and abilities I had not thought to include in the job description or ad but my instinct and understanding told me that, though the person’s experience was not precisely what we were looking for, there were many skills, abilities and experiences which could very well fit. Often, I found, in these situations, very good employees because I chose “outside the box”, outside the parameters first laid out. No one can ever dream up all the different combinations of knowledge, skills and experience which can easily transfer into an opening.

Hiring is an art, it’s not data driven. The sooner we understand that process, the sooner we will return to sane means of hiring, human ways of engaging the “right” people and get managers back “on the floor” of their department, understanding exactly what their people do and what it will take to replace them.

That’s why Human Resources should not be involved in the hiring process. No matter how skilled, experienced or knowledgeable they are in the HR Department, they simply cannot possess a duplicate what is in a manager’s mind and, therefore, understand what a manager will “see” that HR cannot.

My experience has been garnered within many types of industries. My forte as a consulting is in designing and implementing organization appropriate systems and procedures to effect positive changes in efficiency, effectiveness and productivity. Along with my consulting practice, I offer personal coaching and workshops.

Fortune released their annual list of the 500 largest companies in the USA.  The 10 largest companies in America are:

The latest jobs numbers are out and the unemployment rate remained at 9.7%.   Non-farm payroll increased 162,000 in March.  The total number of unemployed remains around 15 million.  Non-farm payroll lost 36K jobs.

Some other interesting stats in the report are:

Long term unemployed (>27 weeks) increased 414,000 in March to 6.5 million.  This is about 44% of the total unemployed population.

Read the full press release here – March 2010 Employment Situation

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (a department of the US Department of Commerce) released the results of State Personal Income for 2009.  For the nation, on average, personal income decreased 1.9% in 2009.  The worst states had a decline of 4.8% in personal income and a few states were on on the positive side with an increase of 2.1%.

Inflation for 2009 dropped to 0.2% from 3.3% in 2008.

Per capita income in Colorado decrease 3.9% from $43,021 in 2008 to $41,344 in 2009.

Full press release – State Personal Income 2009

Phonebooth Free is very similar to Google Voice, but seems to have a few additional features.  Like Google Voice, you get a virtual phone number.  Then you can set it up to have an automated attendant, find me follow me (it rings your mobile phone or home phone or both), and you get a voicemail box with transcribed voicemails sent your your email.  The free account does cap inbound call minutes at 200.  If you are planning to use more than that, they have a paid plan as well.  Last, but not lease, it comes with a ‘Contact Us’ widget for a website or blog.  This allows your readers or customers to click on the link and it will ring your phone.

UPDATE: They are currently out of invites, but you can give them your email address to be updated when more are available.