True Influencers

Every time HRExaminer by John Sumser publishes another list there seems to be a mixed opinion about its validity and usefulness. Once upon a time, I enjoyed reading these lists to insure that I was following key opinion leaders in various areas and learning from them. This seemed to be working well for me…until April of this year when my own name unexpectedly appeared on the top 25 Digital Influencers in Recruiting. Then I really started noticing the criticisms of the list and in fact began wondering about the selection process as well. Did I really belong on a prestigious list like this? I was honored but at the same time a little self conscious. No false modesty intended, but I saw people below my name on the list who were certainly more influential than me and other names were glaringly absent. Embedded in the explanation of the selection process is the caveat that it is an electronic methodology, always being fine tuned and is not perfect. By definition, I am not perfect and electrons generally like me, so I concluded that it is probably OK to be satisfied with being listed.

Fast forward to this past week: I am now listed on the top 25 Digital Influencers in HR! If I said that the recruiting list was a surprise, this one was actually a bigger shock to me. I took the time to become SPHR and GPHR certified, but when I wake up in the morning I am thinking like a recruiter. If the other things in my HR background mean anything it is that they make me a better recruiter. I can probably evaluate stakeholder interests and get buy-in easier than yeoman recruiters without that experience, but they are the ones who are really the backbone of recruiting. So now I am seeing the polarized viewpoints being thrown around again. I say polarized because there doesn’t seem to be any middle ground or at least the centrists are silent like I used to be. There are proponents of the listing that tout the top 25 and there are others who say it means nothing. I am usually contrarian, so I’ll say that both are wrong. The truth is that being listed is like a sporting competition where all the players are required to play by the same rules and the winner is the one with the highest score. “If only there weren’t so many injuries on my team the outcome would have been entirely different.” Yes, and if only you had experienced a change in one X or Y chromosome the determination of your sex would have been entirely different.

If I did anything to tweak my SEO, it was not done to get on anybody’s list. It will always be about branding a service which, by the way, comes with me attached. Hopefully, there are those out there who are influenced by me and will be willing to give me a lot of money for the tools I bring to the table. (Call me if you have money!) That influence is not based on any list but on reputation, performance and value added. A particular non-monetary passion of mine is in areas of candidate experience and job seeker assistance. These people are not clients per se and will not only be helped by my brand image but it makes me feel good while doing it. Money isn’t everything. Am I building a brand? Maybe, but I am more concerned with making sure that whatever branding happens is in a positive direction and not slipping into the dark side.

So if I were to pick influencers based on their impact on me rather than an impartial computerized analysis, it would probably be a mix of people you don’t know and a few of the usual suspects. I won’t go down the Oscar-like awards speech by thanking my parents, but they gave me more than the DNA that brought me into the world. If I make serious mistakes in my decision making, I am embarrassed because they would have been so disappointed in me. I will attempt to mention some of the people who have contributed to, and continue to influence, my professional DNA. I will mention names, but will probably miss more than a few.

First, from way back in my Army days, there was Colonel Wangenheim. I am ashamed to say that I have forgotten his first name, but when he was a mentor to me as well as a commander I only knew his first name to be “Colonel” or “Sir.” I use the word mentor loosely because neither of us thought of it that way. He saw something in a junior officer, a young kid, and I was eager to learn. I was a lowly team member on his study team, the Army’s equivalent to corporate organizational development, and our mission was to totally revamp a general support unit for troops in the field. This was probably the first time I had the feeling of being surprised but pleased to be on somebody’s “list.” I was chosen to give the briefing at the Pentagon. He coached me, drilled me, made me do the presentation over and over to an empty conference room with only him at the back taking notes. If nothing else, I lost any glimpse of self-doubt and went into the presentation fully confident in my role and not the least bit intimidated by the constellation of stars and sea of brass in the room. Building on that experience, whenever I feel butterflies before any presentation I take a deep breath and think of that moment and how I felt.

Most of my hands-on corporate recruiter training came from Roscoe James. He was my boss and mentor at Pitney-Bowes, but was one of the old school Celanese recruiting team who wrote the book on how to do corporate recruiting. I was managing two recruiting departments but he was instrumental in keeping me on track with the basics while I was busily installing applicant tracking systems to take things to the next level. One thing I learned from Roscoe that sticks with me today is that the geeky technological things only help you to do the basics faster, better and along the way show you metrics on what you are doing. I also learned that technology for technology’s sake is not progress if there is no positive impact on the process and people.

I found my way own into social media by watching others, experimenting and asking dumb questions. There are numerous people who would fall into this list of people who were influential to me and their most notable characteristic would be that they were in a much later generation than mine. Actually it made me sad to see the stereotypical boomers fail to see value in others’ thinking regardless of age. These “old people” are the ones claiming to be brushed aside, but are in reality are brushing themselves into obsolescence. The honorable mention influencer list would include Stacy Williamson at ESPN who accelerated my move to warp speed into the Twitterverse. She tolerated my dumb questions and moved me out of being a Twitter egg (actually it was a smiley face) into the virtual world where I now reside. (Watch her career: superstar in the making – she gets it! Let me know if you want to see her resume) Then there is my inspiration, my soul sister in the virtual and real world, Margo Rose from Jackson National Life.  She totally hooked me on the compassionate HR idea and I followed her into the Twitter chat arena. There is probably no bigger influencer that helped me get on anybody’s top 25 anything digital list than her because I jumped into this and other chats with both feet. If one measure of influence is when people are likely to follow or repeat your words, Margo drove me into that area and I owe half of my Klout score to her.

I actually wrote a blog (I called it an article back in the day…on my first web site) in the mid ‘90s telling recruiters that if they failed to follow John Sumser at Interbiznet.com they would not be up-to-date on anything. Of course, John never knew that because neither he nor anyone else ever read my “articles.” One good thing about adopting your own mentors is that they never have to know that you are stalking them and picking out little pieces of their brain to add to your own DNA. Along with John, I patterned my online education after Gerry Crispin, Dr. John Sullivan, Kevin Wheeler and Lou Adler. Since using the term “rock stars” is out of vogue, I would just simply say that what they say is important to me and also to recruiting and HR.

So now I have succeeded in naming a few notables, but I also have to add a Sumseresque caveat that my methodology is still evolving too. I may change my mind and add others as primary influencers, but these are pretty well firmly entrenched as permanent residents. I am not yet to the point, as Andy Rooney used to say, where I have to forget something to add something else to my memory. As far as my own influence is concerned, I am aware that fame is fleeting and fine tuning the HRExaminer lists may sweep me into oblivion. If the referee in this game blows the whistle or the rules change the listing’s invisible ink will fade me away. For now I will not stop being proud of being there among the notables I admire. Forgive me if I ride this wave and then go out and wait for the next big one. I probably will not do anything differently than I have done to this point. I will continue to learn, continue to grow, and hopefully pass something of value on to others to make it all worthwhile. Anyway, my wife and kids think it’s cool…so there!