When I think about winners in the ill-defined “war on talent”, a few attributes come to mind. First, you’re not apologetic about who you are and what makes your organization tick, so aspirational employee branding efforts are counter-culture and somewhat abhorrent. Second, you use research, data and analytics to study the real actions and resulting outcomes of your candidates and employees. Numbers aren’t scary but instead empower your thinking, decision making or overarching strategic plans. Finally, you are fully transparent about your goals and aspirations. You are running a business and can concisely convey your objectives and how each employee’s cog fits into your wheel of commerce.

A few weeks ago Bill Kutik and several other industry representatives (including yours truly) were invited out to Philadelphia to attend a fairly standard analyst briefing with Kenexa’s leadership team. My expectations for these events are fairly straight forward – you meet with the executive staff, hear their predictions for the coming year and gather information on product releases, feature specifications, client successes, revenues, etc. It’s a fairly prescribed event and some leave more cynical, others more enlightened, and yet others indifferent to what they saw or heard.

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Like you, my weekdays typically consist of an endless series of conference calls and meetings. I run from place to place and call to call with barely time to breathe, clear my head and shift focus to the matter at hand. Days turn into weeks and before you know it a month has passed. You end up feeling like a shark — if you’re not moving you’re dead.

I’ve come to realize that due to this phrenetic activity, workers are becoming increasingly frenzied and highly inefficient. And while we stay in constant motion for different reasons, most suffer from what I call  ”the shiny object problem”.

Are we becoming raccoons…

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With HRevolution right around the corner, I have been asked by several presenters to comment on the “unconference” setting.

The easiest way to explain what’s different is that every session is intended to be a facilitated conversation. But what if you’re not comfortable or proficient in engaging an audience that is largely used to a traditional conference setting? Here are five tips that should help both facilitators and attendees get the most out of their sessions:

Tip #1 – Silence is Golden

I will tell you that I still struggle with this one (since I’m a big talker) but a key to good facilitation is developing a healthy respect for silence. The silence can feel unbearably long and your mind starts racing with doubt – “Did they understand my question? Is anyone interested in this topic?” To cover, we often try rephrasing the question or asking a different (hopefully, more interesting!) question altogether. Meanwhile, the audience was still thinking about your first question… now they’re totally confused. Which question do you want them to answer?

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Showtime’s popular program The United States of Tara tracks a seemingly normal American mom who suffers from multiple personality disorder. In the show, her alternate personalities (or “alters”) take complete control of Tara and she often transitions without warning, living in her fully altered state until a final return to normalcy. The alters each have amazingly distinct points of view and awareness of each other, yet sometimes find themselves in conflict.

This is the best analogy I can attribute to this week’s annual HR West conference in South San Francisco. We are experiencing a very interesting time in our profession and unfortunately for you, all the HR alters show up at different times. Join me on a quick review and let me know which sounds most like you or your HR team. (Given HR’s current state, it may be all of them.)

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When I plan to cover a show, I try to go in with an open mind to ensure my prior bias doesn’t taint the coverage for those who are unable to attend. This one was particularly difficult for me as the sheer act of walking into the New York Hilton lobby floods me with memories of so much wasted time, money and space. You see this show used to be known as “HRO World”, the armpit of the trade show circuit that was sold to publication and conference juggernaut LRP in 2006. To say LRP was sold an empty promise is an understatement, but I have to hand it to them this year – they finally changed the format and content into a show I’d actually want to attend.

And although LRP is sun-setting New York HR Week, they themselves embody the spirit and theme of this year’s event. Despite my inability to attend all sessions, one resounding theme dominated the halls of the exposition, the clink of the evening receptions, the hushed whispers of session chatter and the demonstrative voices of the panelists and moderators – it’s a new world order so focus on what matters.

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I’ve been pretty quiet on the whole healthcare debate up until now. It’s a mess. It’s more than a mess, it’s a crazed storm of clucking and feather rustling, posturing and lobbying, advertising and cajoling, misinforming and undereducating. But while all this is going on in my former hometown of Washington, DC, people are dying.

Yes, I said people are dying, and I’m not saying it to be dramatic. It’s happening about once every fifteen seconds every single day in every way imaginable. (Yep, someone just died as you read that stat.)

Is this my employer’s fault? Is it even their responsibility to be in the middle of this mess in the first place? I say it is not. But of course I’ve already completed my homework assignments.

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Until the fall of 1989, I was on my way to becoming an astronaut. I was in the best shape of my life, had been accepted into a top ten university for aerospace engineering, easily completed advanced placement tests in physics and calculus (among others) and had an innate curiosity for the unknown. This was going to be my chosen profession, and even if I never made it through training, my fallback position was certainly working for NASA or another large contractor. It was all straight lines and sure-footed planning.

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I have a hypothesis that I’d like to share with you. It’s not a new idea and frankly not terribly inventive, yet in my opinion we must embrace this concept holistically for our industry to evolve. Here it is:

You have all the answers.

I told you this was simple.

The premise is that any issue human resources faces has been thoughtfully considered and solved by someone in our peer group. This is the foundation of what research organizations like the Corporate Executive Board (CEB) have been studying for years. In their model, CEB assembles hundreds of C-level executives in their member-based forums and surveys the population to prioritize topics of interest. They then interview select members to identify success stories than can be deconstructed and root-caused into teachable moments for all. It’s a brilliant business model that I would like to see us apply to our professional lives. And guess what? It’s already happening, albeit on a very small scale.

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The one common theme that we face in modern business is the necessity for change. It’s painful. It’s emotional. It sucks. The reality of a situation we no longer can control often leads us to do foolish things in a desperate attempt to clutch to the status quo. We revolt, we resist, and we pay dearly for doing so.

My friend and fellow HR blogger Trish McFarlane recently pointed out that I’m a storyteller. I’ve found that it’s the best way to convey even the simplest concepts. And since I’ve had such a bizarre life (wrestling a luggage thief to the ground this past week, for example), I have an endless supply of tales from my own misadventures. This is one such story.

As a child growing up in suburban Wisconsin, I was a barely tamed animal of sinew, dirt and boundless energy. It was not unusual to spot my beanpole frame loping around the neighborhood with a goofy grin and magnetic attraction to trouble.  Shocking, I know.

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I’ve been pretty quiet on the whole healthcare debate up until now. It’s a mess. It’s more than a mess, it’s a crazed storm of clucking and feather rustling, posturing and lobbying, advertising and cajoling, misinforming and undereducating. But while all this is going on in my former hometown of Washington, DC, people are dying.

Yes, I said people are dying, and I’m not saying it to be dramatic. It’s happening about once every fifteen seconds every single day in every way imaginable. (Yep, someone just died as you read that stat.)

Is this my employer’s fault? Is it even their responsibility to be in the middle of this mess in the first place? I say it is not. But of course I’ve already completed my homework assignments.

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About ten years ago I was on a conference call in negotiations with a very important business partner. We were all getting frustrated and exhausted from the three hour verbal tennis match. I was attempting to rationalize a point of contention when I heard, “Blah, blah, blah, blah. ‘Ooooo…I’m so smart and love the sound of my own voice!’….”, followed by hysterical laughter. Then suddenly it hit them and the world went quiet.

Yes, they had a broken mute button.

“Oh crap”, said the mocking executive on the other side of the speakerphone. “Mark… umm… well… sorry…” was the half-apology as he quickly tried to backpedal. Everyone on my side was a bit stunned and then I started to smile. My response?

I pretended our mute button was broken too and said in a false whisper, “C’mon people. These guys really did their homework. How did they know I love the sound of my own voice???”

This broke the tension, we all had a good laugh and successfully wrapped the call ten minutes later.

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Like most detox programs, this one was not initially my choice. No, I was not dragged away from my laptop by white-clad brutes who strong armed me into a secure but nondescript van. Nor was I happily driven out to the country, realizing (only too late) that this wasn’t the park or the zoo, but instead a hospital with barred windows and no wifi. There was no intervention. Tears were not shed. It was much simpler and in many ways symbolic of why this issue is so important.

My family needed me. I had to be present both physically and mentally. Everything else could wait.

Although I am a vocal proponent of the wonderful benefits that social media can afford, I must emphatically suggest that each of us consider a dose of detoxification. Here’s why:

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Moving is often cited as one of the most stressful events you’ll face (just behind death and divorce). It can be messy, is often driven by the actions of only one family member and is a very costly endeavor.

Having just completed the fifteenth (and longest) move of my adult life, I decided to take a markedly different approach. These are the lessons I learned along the way.

Lesson 1: Pick A Destination

This takes time, focus and a willingness to look at the realities of your situation through untainted glasses. Make lists. Do research. Talk with those who have already “arrived”. Be honest and allow the emotions to flow. After all, you’re about to change your life.

Lesson 2: Take Stock Of What You Have

Inventory everything. Dust off those items/issues/passions that you haven’t pulled out of the closet for years. You might be surprised to find things that you either thought you had lost or perhaps forgot you ever had. Take a hard look and decide what’s worth keeping.

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Although I’m a cynic at times, I try to find irony and humor in a lot these days and it doesn’t take much to make me smile. If you’ve met me (and many of you have), I probably drink more than you’d expect, stay up later than I should and am a huge fan of self-deprecating humor and stories. In other words, I try not to take myself too seriously. So when others take me seriously I have a hard time reconciling their theory with my own reality.

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