Get a result now! » people http://getaresultnow.com Ignore the description. Start reading. For a description, you can see my Philosophy page. Now start reading! Thu, 22 Jul 2010 18:03:31 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Carmen CUCUL – the business professional whose corporate social responsibility actions impressed me the most http://getaresultnow.com/2009/09/carmen-cucul-the-business-professional-whose-corporate-social-responsibility-actions-impressed-me-the-most/ http://getaresultnow.com/2009/09/carmen-cucul-the-business-professional-whose-corporate-social-responsibility-actions-impressed-me-the-most/#comments Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:32:54 +0000 Olivian BREDA http://getaresultnow.com/?p=109 This message focuses on corporate social responsibility (CSR) actions done by Carmen CUCUL and their impact into my life. See details below.

Note: Due to very large tables in this message, I strongly suggest you an alternative web page to read this blog post. Much easier to read this way!

This blog post has the following structure:
1. How to read this blog post?
2. Why am I biased in this evaluation?
3. Parallel reading: Facts versus Impression of facts on me
4. How can you contact Carmen CUCUL?

1. How to read this blog post?

Note: As the length of the scroll bars of the browser you use might also indicate you, this is yet another of my long blog posts.

I think it would be nice first of all to explain what corporate social responsibility is. I needed the explanation for myself too.

According to Wikipedia,

Corporate social responsibility (CSR) [...] is a form of corporate self-regulation integrated into a business model. Ideally, CSR policy would function as a built-in, self-regulating mechanism whereby business would monitor and ensure their adherence to law, ethical standards, and international norms. Business would embrace responsibility for the impact of their activities on the environment, consumers, employees, communities, stakeholders and all other members of the public sphere. Furthermore, business would proactively promote the public interest by encouraging community growth and development, and voluntarily eliminating practices that harm the public sphere, regardless of legality. Essentially, CSR is the deliberate inclusion of public interest into corporate decision-making, and the honoring of a triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit.

The practice of CSR is subject to much debate and criticism. Proponents argue that there is a strong business case for CSR, in that corporations benefit in multiple ways by operating with a perspective broader and longer than their own immediate, short-term profits. Critics argue that CSR distracts from the fundamental economic role of businesses; others argue that it is nothing more than superficial window-dressing; others argue that it is an attempt to pre-empt the role of governments as a watchdog over powerful multinational corporations.

If you look carefully at this self-regulation of companies, you may notice the insert of some peculiar things into a business model – ethical standards (care for people and planet, not only for profit) and responsibility for the impact of their activities (we don’t look only at us, we also look at the environment). Ok, the ethical standards are there, the responsibility is there. The real question might be – why? Why would a business need such things?

If you look in the second paragraph, you notice that the very first criticism Wikipedia quotes is the distraction from the fundamental economic role of businesses. In other words, “Help us, don’t help others. Focus, people!”. It also says that by doing CSR, one might affect the role of governments (who needs CSR, when you have governments to care about?).

My blog post doesn’t answer the “Why?” question from a business perspective. I can’t say if CSR is a good thing (And for whom? For the person coordinating the CSR? For the company that person represents? For the customers? For the stakeholders? For the business partners? For the future generations? For the planet? For ethical standards?). CSR is a hard thing for me to understand. The “Why do CSR?” is a tricky question, and my blog post should be read with this in mind – I start with the assumption that CSR is neither worse nor better than other business model. If you like it, you decide if CSR is good or not.

Sure, I will have a very biased opinion on CSR on the “Impression of facts on me” section. But that’s a different thing. What this blog post is about is actually how well does Carmen CUCUL follow what I think are CSR best practices. You will see this in the section about facts. Interpret this blog post the way you like, the facts on the left column remain.

So, why the Interpretation thing? More than the facts, I’ll also have a parallel presentation with the “Impression of facts on me”. The reason I do this is because CSR actually cares about this – how would the actions of an organization member affect the lives of others. You’ll see how Carmen CUCUL’s actions made an impact on me. So, the logic is simple: Carmen CUCUL does CSR via HR Club, I’m affected, what do I think and feel about the CSR measures? This is on a separate column. Oh, and HR comes from “Human Resources”.

Please note that to me ethics and God are separated by a very thin line, and I’ll have a tendency to mix these, in my very own Impressions section, of course. Leaving facts aside.

The blog post is made such you can read only the facts, this is fine by me. The impression of the facts on me presents my opinion on how things developed on the facts side.

2. Why am I biased in this evaluation?
a. I’ve known Carmen CUCUL for a long time. I’ve been in Bucharest since 2001. In 2002, when I first entered into LEADERS Romania, an NGO dedicated to promoting leadership in Romania, Carmen CUCUL was just being interviewed. From 2002 until (about) 2005/2006, I’ve been a volunteer in that organization with Carmen CUCUL. After the NGO time ended, I took part in HR Club’s projects (Carmen CUCUL is Executive Director of HR Club since January 2006);
b. I’ve worked on projects lead by Carmen CUCUL more than once. In LEADERS Romania I worked under Carmen CUCUL’s supervision on Global Youth Service Days repeatedly. Afterward, I was hired by HR Club (see below);
c. I’ve been paid by an organization lead by Carmen CUCUL more than once. I did two research projects for HR Club – one in the summer of 2007, gathering materials for a CD for a conference, and another one in this very summer (the project ended on 31st of August 2009. I looked for documents for the new HR portal);
d. In the summer of 2007 I took part, for free, to a summer school organized by HR Club. I found out about the summers school via an internal email sent to LEADERS Romania members. But this was only the start. After this, …
e. … I took part to quite a few conferences, seminars, workshops and presentations organized by HR Club, most of the times in exchange for giving a helping hand of some sort;
f. My hope is that I continue with points from a. to e. This should not be the end of it;

3. Parallel reading: Facts versus Impression of facts on me

Timeframe Facts Impression of facts on me
2002-2005 I enter LEADERS Romania, at the same time with Carmen CUCUL. We’re colleagues until 2005/2006 (it was not a specific day in which my work ended). We’re also colleagues at school. We were in the same school year, but different series and groups. Coming to Bucharest, after doing all schooling in Navodari, was a bit of a shock (if you can imagine a do-it-yourself error when suddenly living on your own, I did that error). But soon after I made some friends in the hostel, you can imagine this timeframe (2002-2005) as a very amusing time. School put some pressure on me (I remember an exam that I was trying to pass and Carmen CUCUL to get an equivalent of A+). LEADERS Romania was great time (as in “no stress”).
What happened in this time frame? First year in LEADERS Romania. I had a briefcase for carrying my courses. I carried it everywhere (later to be replaced by an always-on-me backpack). I forget it in a bus. Long-story-made short: a person calls my friend (and LEADERS Romania colleague)’s phone (I didn’t have a mobile phone until 2005). I meet with him, he gives me my briefcase. I tell Carmen CUCUL the story and mention that the person told me comes from the same locality as she does. Regarding the story, Carmen CUCUL’s reply is similar to this: “It’s a natural thing for the people where I come from to do this”. I can see the “People from my city are good” as just a general affirmation. Perhaps it’s a bit of an exaggeration – a social thing. You can say it just like that. Maybe, I don’t know, this is not the main purpose I present this fact. Instead, I want you to pay attention to the adverb “naturally”. It comes “naturally” to do this, Carmen CUCUL says.
Now if you think that it’s by no means typical to offer to help someone, when you could be safe and happy just by ignoring the problem that someone has, I think you’re right. Natural is not to care, not to fight for other’s persons well being. Ok, you can put this into ethics, and then it’s normal to care. Put this into CSR, and it’s normal. Put this into real life and that person who helped me did a very rare (and good to me) thing. Please remember this assertion when looking at the other facts – Carmen CUCUL thinks it’s natural that good things are done.
Now I’ll make a digression: put a let’s-be-kind-to-our-environment business decision into a CSR perspective, and it becomes normal. Put a nice gesture like the one done by that person to me into a field of ethics, and it becomes natural.
Where the unnatural feeling (at least to me) does come from? Why does it seem so out of place? Well, it seems I’m not that ethical. I may not have CSR thinking built-in.
For the whole time of 2002-2005, please have this in mind: never in that time have I considered that the actions done by Carmen CUCUL are right. I had a thinking system, obviously with different ethics than Carmen CUCUL’s, in which what she did did’t fit. For all those years, I’ve never stopped to meditate on this – could it be true that she thinks right in another ethical system than mine? Could it be something different than doing a specific action? A systems thing?

All I thought was this – I wouldn’t do what Carmen CUCUL does, my ethics are just fine (can’t touch me!), therefore her actions must be wrong. All I needed was a simple perception – her ethical system and mine are not the same, she could do so much better within her system. There are just two different systems. Oh, if I could then say “Hmmm, her system is actually better”, this would have been out of this world for that time frame.

To defend myself, I never thought that Carmen CUCUL was doing anything wrong, on the contrary, this was a good thing to do. It felt like a good thing, God must have felt good about this. A good deed. But it was just not right. Why? I wouldn’t have done it. Since my ethical system was nothing like hers, I had to pick – mine system or hers? To make a parallel, I couldn’t conceive that one business can live without CSR actions, and another business can do CSR. “If I don’t do CSR, no one else should. It’s illogical.” And others actually could have done it. I evaluated CSR actions through the eyes of a non-CSR person.

There – I defended myself. Now, to un-defend myself, I was a Christian who couldn’t see good things in others.
It was sometime in the winter of 2002 or 2003 that this event happens: LEADERS Romania gives a small Christmas party. I think we were supposed to bring gifts, there were some cookies and drinks. Something like that. I see at the window some arrangements. Almost all red, with some glittering decorations, they looked nice. Ok, I could understand gifts, cookies, drinks. But where did these came from? After asking around, Carmen CUCUL tells me she brought them. Ok, now we’re getting to the good part.
The way in which Carmen CUCUL said she brought the decorations was something like “Oh, anyone could have done this, it’s natural, we should all feel fine at the party”. Along the years, I’ve switched some NGOs (as will later do with jobs). I’ve seen a lot of persons bringing their time and efforts to help others by working in NGOs (and they might also help their careers). I’ve also seen people putting material efforts into NGOs (If that specific object helps with my work as a volunteer, why not bring it in here? If I lead an NGO, why not finance some things, the success of the NGO following my action will look great on my CV). But in all the NGOs I’ve seen, I’ve never seen this mix:
a. Brining an item from home;
b. Bringing that item not for personal use, not for the success of the NGO (which will later look good on the CV), but for the happiness that object brings in others, due to its beauty; A let’s-do-something-good-through-beauty thinking;
c. (and above all) Acting as if this were the natural thing to do.
I told you before that my ethics (in practice) were very judgmental to anything different than mines. But I did know the theory which I’ll present bellow. I just couldn’t understand it well at that time.

First concept I’ll introduce is the boyar. This article partially explains it:

H.C. Wells in The Research Magnificent: two big forces: fear and aristocracy. Now I understand him. Fear must be defeated. In this world there is one thing, only one: courage. And the secret is to behave aristocratically. Only gentleness and kindness have grace.

(from “The Happiness Diary”, by Nicolae STEINHARDT, fragment translated by Gabriela Ailenei)
Regarding Nicolae STEINHARDT, I’ve written about him on my blog, when I’ll reread for the third/fourth time his books I’ll post a message on them on this blog, you can also read about him in this page. I try my best to see a lot of the Orthodoxy through his eyes.

So, returning, what does the boyar do? He’s brave, he has his own world (yes, the CSR thing), he fights for it. But how does he do it? With aristocracy. He’s gentle. Remember these two things on the boyar and to apply them to the facts on the left column:
a. Courage to have your own ethical system;
b. Only kindly impose your ethical system. With grace and dignity;

Regarding the ethical system of the boyar, in other passages of “The Happiness Diary”, Nicolae STEINHARDT presents it with a new attribute:
c. Generosity. The peasant goes to the boyar and receives good things. He’s well treated. The boyar is a rich nobleman and shares things. He’s actually the opposite of being sly.

The second concept I introduce is the concept of Don Quixote. You can understand how well Nicolae STEINHARDT thinks of Don Quixote by reading two fragments of “Giving you shall receive” essay (excerpt from the book “Words of faith”, taken from here):

It was needed that I stumbled upon reading, a while ago, a text of the French poet Henri MICHAUX (1899 – 1988) to understand, trembling, shuddering, that Christ asks something entirely different: to give what we do not have.
[...]
I think that nowhere, except for the Gospels, have more clear and more Christian words been spoken than in Michaux’s little poem, which stupefied and enthused me. Maybe in some fragments of The Brothers Karamazov and The Demons, maybe Cervantes creating El nuestro Senor Don Quijote, El Christo espanol, maybe Albert Camus in the text about Oscar Wilde (titled The Artist in Prison) and about the way to Christ not through suffering and pain (a good way, though an inferior one) but by an excess of happiness and moments of euphoria (a superior way). I think nowhere a poet or writer has spoken more closely of the unapproachable One.

So, what’s the story with Don Quixote? In a few words, he imagines things which are not there and fights for them. The reality is totally different than his imagination. Is Don Quixote wrong? In his own system, no. To Nicolae STEINHARDT the book depicts what should the condition of a Christian be: pick your system, fight for it. You could easily fight with the existence of Quixote’s world. But once we establish this is not the main point, analyzing his actions within that very system brings some nice surprises – He’s really that good.

Now, for the first time in this blog post, let’s see how the CSR system could be defended (in my own world, that is, based on a Christian model). Come back to the critics in Wikipedia if you like.

So, I’ll make a digression (you should be surprised by now of this): The Parable of the Workers in the Vineyard. The story basically tells that a landowner hires people for a job that ended in the evening. Some were hired in the morning, some in the afternoon, and some later in the evening. At the end of the day each one got the same payment, no matter for how long they have been working. Some complained. This is the landowner’s answer and a defense for CSR in a Christian world: “Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn’t you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?”

Of course, for this argument to be valid, you have to accept the system in which being generous is fine. For CSR, ethics, religion, choose whichever you like, generous is good. Get outside the system and one can easily ask the landowner “Why should you be generous? How do you benefit from that?” The first critic in the Wikipedia quote does just that.

So, to wrap up this section, Carmen CUCUL’s action to bring decoration for Christmas can easily be put into these systems:
a. Acting like a boyar, with generosity, courage and kindness;
b. Acting like Don Quixote, fighting with courage within its own system (Carmen CUCUL appreciated beauty and found it natural to walk the talk).

Please remember the boyar and Don Quixote systems for the next passages.
I think it was after the winter thing (although I might be wrong about the order of things) that Carmen CUCUL gets to lead a project in which I’m involved. There’s one specific session which was in an evening. I remember a few of the participants, all nice, Carmen CUCUL was leading the meeting. I interrupt from time to time to make some jokes. (Almost) everybody was laughing. The session ends. One of the older guys in LEADERS Romania tells me in private that Carmen CUCUL was obviously affected by the fact that I interrupted the meeting. Remember the laughing spirit in the hostels? It was a way of living. Now let’s introduce a new thing: my ability to spot people’s emotions was (and to a large degree still is) close to this – Steven SEAGAL emotion chart. What you should retain from this episode is this: Carmen CUCUL is the project manager, I disturb the meeting, she is very upset, and the meeting ends with me not even noticing anything, while, according to that other person, she was very affected by my behavior. There are multiple explanations to this behavior, but you could consider that she didn’t tell me anything due to politeness. She could have been very upset with me, and still not tell me that.
I’m pretty sure it was in a morning of April 2003 that I had to go to a supermarket near an airport outside Bucharest (Otopeni). I had to buy some minor things, and also a flipchart and get to a location in the center of Bucharest. That specific supermarket didn’t have a flipchart and I was a few hours late. Carmen CUCUL is very angry and tells me “I will not talk to you anymore”. You know what’s a killer? I can’t remember what I did wrong. I could find a few reasons:
a. Being hours late;
b. Not going to another store to look for a flipchart;
c. Not giving a call to announce about this;
d. Just not completing an important task;
e. Not actually caring about what whatever happened (Remember the life in hostels? That’s a hint of my attitude when someone talked with me in an angry voice. For an extra help, here’s an article – sorry, it’s in Romanian – with a story in college only a few months after this). Now you could understand from above that I didn’t really care too much about this at the moment.
I may wrong on this, but at the end of the day having a flipchart proved not to be that important, the conferences in those days went fine without it (there were presentations, not seminars or workshops).
I think it was the spring of 2005, or perhaps 2004, when I had to go with Carmen CUCUL and do something (from what I remember, it was a presentation of LEADERS Romania to another company). I can’t remember why, but I wasn’t there. Carmen CUCUL comes to LEADERS Romania later, and tells me “I will not talk to you anymore”. So, what could have I done wrong this time (again, I have no clue)?
a. Just not being there might do;
b. Not announcing or announcing too late or announcing via bad means (email instead of phone, which at that time in 2005 I still didn’t have);
c. Placing something else as higher important than this meeting;
d. Yeah, I still had the hostel-attitude versus angry-voices.
Now two things:
a. I told you before that I didn’t quite understand some things Carmen CUCUL did. This punishment looked particularly funny to me – “You threaten that you’ll never speak with me again, and you are saying this using an aggressive tone? Uuu. Now that’s a problem – not hearing you again being aggressive!”;
b. The second time she told me she will not talk to me was even funnier to me at that time – “You won’t talk to me again? Uuu. Oh, wait, you already told me this two years ago”.

We’ll get back to these two stories later on and see if anything changed.

Now, you can imagine that between 2002 and 2005 there were more than five stories to be told. But:
a. I can’t remember things that well. Even these above are vague. For this blog post I’ve reread emails I’ve sent in the summer of 2008 to Carmen CUCUL and thought “Huh? I wrote that one year ago?” Ask me what I did in 2003 in LEADERS Romania and not too many things come up. There are some memories, but pretty vague;
b. You can think that if from five stories I remember, three are episodes in which I did poorly, I only did poorly in LEADERS Romania, only arguing all day. Leaving aside the fact that even if it were true, I wouldn’t really remember it, I think I wasn’t arguing all day, these were a bit extreme cases. I can’t really help it if my memory brings these up.
2006-spring of 2009 Carmen CUCUL joins HR Club as Executive Director until present day. I switch internships, jobs, freelancing activities. Oh yes, and besides switching employers, I go to all the imaginable conferences and mostly have fun. I got this habit from college years, I’ve lived two years right near a large exposition centre in Bucharest – RomExpo.
At one time in this timeframe I had to pick between:
a. Continuing a job;
b. Preparing my Masters’ Degree thesis;
c. Going to HR Club’s Summer School in a field I had no interest whatsoever.
What did I pick? Let’s say I had a lot of fun.
What happened in this time frame? In January 2006, Carmen CUCUL makes a 1,400+ words guide on Fundraising in LEADERS Romania. She posts it on an Internal, all-members, forum. No one else replies. I looked now at the guide and to me the intention was obvious – “I work for the good of others”. What struck me was that no one said anything. No “Good job”, no “thank you”. Not in public at least.
Ok, ok, most of the other messages on the forum got no reply either, but most of them were copy & pasted from elsewhere (I should know). There were not hundreds of guides being posted in there.

I’m quite sure that back then I couldn’t even read the guide (Passive tense? Incomprehensible words? I also have low attention, not only low memory). But still, it was pretty amazing work.
In 2006 I have problems on a few projects with Carmen CUCUL due to:
a. Forgetting things (I forgot about the project);
b. Saying I will do something and then taking things back;		 I can’t remember any of the projects in there. If I wouldn’t re-read the emails now, I would say – “Who? Me? Never happened!” Do keep in mind the time problem. If you’ve seen “Memento” movie, I have a similar problem: each day I wake up, remember few things from my past, and have to create complicate procedures to be able to live fine. I know where to look for something, because it’s logical I’ll put it there. Of course, my procedures change with time. When looking years ago, I can’t really tell what I would have done back then (I can’t remember very well what I did back then and how would I typically react to a certain situation).You should also note that I had almost no NGO projects to do back then. What I did have was a job and a Masters’ Degree, and a poor evaluation of time. I might also have done some theater acting back then.
In June 2007, Carmen CUCUL announces via an internal email in LEADERS Romania about a summer school organized by HR Club.
The criteria for the summer school were close to: college or Master Degree students, a previous one year of professional experience of some sort, and as personality traits: creativity, openness, strong interest in personal and professional development. I apply and I am accepted. There were 20 participants.		 As you see, the announcement said nothing at all on the Human Resources (HR) thing, so I basically only had to be a bit creative to get in.
I’ve been to quite a few events and conferences prior to this, and I can say that this one was very well organized. Great speakers, very good location, they even gave prizes to best teams. HR Club gave the most valuable prize, one invitation to the Strategy conference to each of the winning team’s members.

If I got something from being active in NGOs, that was a feeling of gratitude. I got the ability to see better how other people works affect mine.

This being said, after the Summer school ended I left with a very good impression on HR Club in general.

The estimated cost of tuition for one student at the summer school was 300 Euros. The financial investment of each student for the event was zero. I’m sure they could have asked for 50, 100, 200 Euros, but zero? ASEBUSS provided a lot of help to this.
At this point I wanted to do something for HR Club. By the time I started this blog, in February 2008, this initial enthusiasm faded and I didn’t wrote a message on HR Club’s CSR actions. I simply forgot about things.
In September 2007 I do a paid research for HR Club. I had two problems:
a. I was late;
b. I estimated my time poorly (I said I’d work 4 days, the task only took me 2.5 days. This was solved by working extra hours on a different task).		 In the end it wasn’t all that bad – I actually finished my job faster, I haven’t claimed to have worked for 4 days instead of 2.5, and I did a compensatory work.
In October 2007 HR Club organizes a conference on Strategy. I took part and made a review of the conference and web site. I’ve met Nigel RISNER in there. I did a 6,000+ words review of the conference and an 800 words review of HR Club’s web site. Re-reading those reviews, I couldn’t believe how much I’ve changed the way in which I do reviews in two years. For example, I used “boring” as an adjective. Repeatedly. That’s a no-no.
After this I took part to 4+ events organized by HR Club. I really can’t remember each event I took part to, can’t really place them in order in my mind. The Strategy Conference in Human Resources, organized on 12th March, 2009, at J.W. Marriott, Bucharest had the best conference organization I’ve ever seen.

There’s a dedicated part to CSR on that blog post which only says this:

HR Club allowed five members of two HR Summer School to come at the conference. I couldn’t have done it any better.

At that conference I’ve seen, again, Eric KISH holding a public speech and made a blog post on him.

If I were to sum up the participation at these events, I only say this: I was there. I wasn’t paying (most of the time doing something in return), but I was there. Directly affected (in a good way) by HR Club’s CSR.
May-September 2009 In this time I got to full-time job to freelancer. From 1st of June to 31st of August I worked on a project for HR Club (research of materials for a future HR portal). One problem I’ve had with the project was usually being late at the weekly meetings. If you think that I got just an inch smarter from 2006-2008 period, at one time I had to pick:
a. Continuing an year-plus long full-time job;
b. Working part-time, both for the old and a new job, for HR Club;
c. Working part-time (oh, and for three months only) just for HR Club and quitting the old job.
And I had a big dilemma – “Hmmm, what should I do?”
What happened in this time frame? Long story made short: in the autumn of 2008, after a back-and-forth exchange of emails on the subject, Carmen CUCUL tells me I might work on a project to research materials for a portal that will launch in January 2009 with an estimated work load. In May 2009 I receive a real offer for the project, with a different work load, and, as you might expect, in a context totally different for me than would have been the winter of 2008. Carmen CUCUL tells me I’m the only real option for the project. I evaluate with Carmen CUCUL some options (leaving my job included). Carmen CUCUL tells me I shouldn’t leave my job, there would be too many employers on a CV. There are a lot of things that didn’t quite fit the picture. I could say “Why am I the only option for a research job?”, I could say that the May 2009 conditions are totally different to me than the expected winter 2008 were.
But you can’t help but wonder why would she care if I leave my job? She has a European Union-funded project, lots of bureaucracy, deadlines, forms to fill, interviews for a research position would take forever. And in the summer of 2008 I said I’d help, made her an offer, said “Fine”. Despite all that, she stills worries about my job conditions, even this might imply I won’t apply for the job.

Oh, there’s one more thing. In the summer of 2008 I set a price. Of course, in May 2009 I had no idea what my price was one year before. I did some math. Funny thing – the same price per hour as one year ago. Hmmm, I’d better develop my freelancing activities better.
In July 2009 HR Club organizes HR Club Summer school. The 2007 edition had 20 participants, the 2008 edition had 18, while the 2009 had 30 participants. Every opinion I’ve heard from past participants (2007 and 2008) about the 2009 edition was a thing similar to “This event is better”. The Summer School was purely CSR. 2009 was a year of international crisis, companies usually reduced budgets and project sizes, specifically CSR. HR Club increased the amplitude of the event.
Now, let’s get at the event. The opening event ends, members of 2007, 2008 and current edition of the Summer school are on the hallway. Small groups form, mostly with past colleagues. A person from the 2007 edition asks a HR Club organizer a thing similar to this – “Would it be Ok to come on some of the seminars?”. “Sure, it’s Ok”. Another HR Club organizer makes it clear that it’s fine. Carmen CUCUL also approves the situation.		 As said, I like to participate to a lot of public events, I’ve been to six summer, autumn, winter and spring schools, to a lot of fairs, expositions, etc. You get the picture. Let me think of one specific time in which, two years after an event, the organizers contact the members to invite them to the launch of a new edition of a specific event. For free. Hmmm, that’s simple – none.
Sure, there are paid events where you’re always reminded of present and future events. But to come just for the sake of it, just to meet old members of the school, now that’s something. Why would I be invited at such an event by the organizers? Although I can’t think of a good reason of why shouldn’t I, this “invite past participants” rarely ever happens.

So this is how I went to the Summer school’s opening at the College of Psychology and Educational Sciences. I made some pictures with the speakers.

From time to time I get a bit of a shock. Three organizers from HR Club, including Carmen CUCUL, considered it perfectly normal that past students, of 2007 and 2008, to participate from time to time at the workshops and seminars of the 2009 Summer School. “Natural” was the word in the air. “It’s perfectly fine”.

I won’t get into many details now, but I’ve done trainings on NLP (Neuro-linguistic programming) Start and NLP Intensive with Catalin ZAHARIA. Let’s say it wasn’t really free. Yet I went at a seminar with Catalin ZAHARIA at the HR Club Summer School of 2009, although I’ve been a graduate of 2007. For free. Another student of the 2008 class came with me at that same seminar. I wrote a message on this blog about the event.
I can’t really say that other summer schools I took part to didn’t have special treatment for past students. They had. “You are more likely not to be allowed to participate at a future summer school with us, even if you are otherwise perfectly qualified. We prefer to have new students, rather than the same old persons.” So, as you took part to one summer school, the chances of being accepted to another one by the same organization diminished.

Now let’s take HR Club philosophy: “If we once accepted you as a student, you benefited from our educational system, why not come again?”

Now at this point I was decided to write a message on my blog about the CSR done by HR Club. It was amazing. I decided not to write anything until I would end the part-time project with them. Being paid by the organization you praise is a conflict of interest.
Regarding time, we’re somewhere after third part of the project. My task was hourly-based, not target-based. Referring to that specific weeks’ work, Carmen CUCUL asks me a question similar to “Have you worked more hours than you declared to finish this task?”. I reply something like “I worked the exact number of hours declared”. She insists “If you’ll need to work more than declared, let us know”. Carmen CUCUL puts this question: “Have you worked more hours than you declared to finish this task?”. Let’s analyze the possible scenarios:
a. I could have worked less than declared;
b. I could have worked exactly as declared;
c. I could have worked more than declared;
I repeat, the question was not “How much did you work, compared to what you declared?” No, the question was plain and simple – “By any case are we paying you too less for your work?” Look at my past (it’s all here, written black on white) and see if you deduce anything that might show I work more than I declare. As in ever. When does this ever happen?Now, let’s take this hypothesis – let’s say, for the sake of an argument, I really worked more than declared. What would that imply? It’s either:
a. I evaluated correct my time, so HR Club pays me poorly;
b. I’m bad at evaluating my own time’s work (I can only assume that this leads only into “Well, it’s your problem, deal with it”; We’re into deep CSR waters in here, so it could, theoretically, although I don’t analyze this situation, also lead into “Ok, you’re not smart enough to evaluate your own time. It’s our problem too, now”. We’ll keep the situation to safe ground, so I cancel this option).

Look again at my past and tell me if you think that you have to choose between the two, which would it be – HR Club pays me poorly or I’m not that good at evaluating my time?Now supposing I lied. My answer was different than that, but what could keep me (leaving aside ethics, God, morality and, yes, CSR) from saying I actually worked more? How much trust can a simple question show? This question presents very clearly a huge amount of trust – “I trust you won’t try to lie with this answer”.

Another assumption Carmen CUCUL makes is that I won’t speak. The question implies that I would ever work more than requested, and say nothing about. And her intent is to help me bring out my unseen volunteering work.

Let’s summarize what we’ve found so far. This question: “Have you worked more hours than you declared to finish this task?” was chosen out of three possible pathways (more work, same work, less work for the money). An assumption of the question is that I am good at evaluating my own time. The question also starts with the assumption that I, the responder, am perfectly honest and somehow won’t speak by myself about some extra work done on the project.
It was at a conference organized by LEADERS Romania that Jim BAGNOLA asked the audience about the things they’ve learned at his conference. A Romanian student learning in the US talked quite a lot about the things she learned, in perfect in English, with great attention to details. At this point Jim BAGNOLA looks at the audience, puts up a puzzled face and asks with an emphasis on each word “Where is she from?” Yes, Carmen CUCUL is from the place where such things come naturally.

But in what context does this question arrive? Besides telling truth, what else did I do so that such a question is justified? Look as long as you like in the past, see this and that, and understand why to me this question came as a lightning out of a clear sky.
If there’s one thing I can say about my work in the past years, is that I’ve had a lot of employers (quite a lot on the freelancing part). I fail to remember a time when I’ve been asked “Do you want to be paid more for your work?” or “Haven’t you worked too much for us?”. And that “Oh, sure, you’ll tell the truth, we totally trust you on that” is out-of-this-world.

My life is simple: I like two books – “The Happiness Diary“, by Nicolae STEINHARDT and “Essentials of Understanding Psychology” by Robert FELDMAN. I like one movie only – “Le Notti di Cabiria“. Then there are business professionals which impressed me. Some of them are on this blog. Others are not. Then are people which mean a lot to me on a personal level, which do not belong on a blog, I can’t transmit any of their qualities via a blog (humans with great qualities as humans, persons who influenced my life for the better, relatives, a few friends).

But there’s also a category of people who do just one action, that’s it. They do one thing. An extraordinary thing.

All the time, that thing is something that shouldn’t be there. All the persons who did something which is extraordinary to me shouldn’t have acted that way. You could see it from their reaction.

In chronological order, the other three cases in which I saw an extraordinary reaction, are like this: it’s a laugh hiding sadness, a polite anger hiding a big anger, a small cry hiding a bigger one. The reactions are so powerful that even I can spot them.

Oh, and I’m a spectator in all of the situations, it’s never about me. (not the case with the current situation)

I said I don’t usually talk about persons or events that are not at least remotely business-related (writers sell books, too). You’re lucky. This is one example when speaking about a personal event makes things clearer in the business world. Oh, not all of it, of course. Just the CSR part.

You know why I like “Le Notti di Cabiria”? The whole movie is just about that: Federico FELLINI builds an impossibly hard situation and at the end the main character has a reaction a few seconds long which shouldn’t be there. But it’s just a movie, fiction. Still, that’s my favorite movie.

More than this, the people I admire for their actions actually did something which I consider to be good. In the current situation, trying to help me.

Now let’s get back to Carmen CUCUL’s question. I’ll present what it is to me an extraordinary act because it helps reinforce the CSR (yeah, all business) actions on me.

So, did I say I like to see something that shouldn’t be there? In this case it’s brought to another level. It’s not a smile in an angered face, it’s not anger in a polite face, no, no, no. It’s a natural atmosphere. It’s a natural question with a natural reinforcement. Carmen CUCUL didn’t ask “Have you worked more hours than you declared to finish this task?”, I didn’t reply “I worked the exact number of hours declared”, and she didn’t say “If you’ll need to work more than declared, let us know”. No. It seems from another world. The dialogues, according to the emotions in the air, were “It’s raining outside”, “No, I think it’s sunny”, “It might rain later”. Imagine watching “Le Notti di Cabiria” and in the final scenes Cabiria should have fun, salute everybody and plan what to eat for the next day. Nothing big really happened.

So, to conclude, the gesture Carmen CUCUL did with the two questions are:
a. Ultimate boyar. I remind you I defined boyar with three things (Courage to have your own ethical system. Only kindly impose your ethical system, with grace and dignity. And Generosity);
b. Acting like a total Don Quixote, fighting with courage within its own system;
c. (boy-oh-boy) All in a natural atmosphere. Nothing forced, nothing imposed. “Howdy”, “Howdy”.

Ok, for one second let’s go back to me. I’m meeting Don Quixote-like behavior. What to react to it? First of all, please note that when asked this question, my mind went into a process similar to this: “Oh, so you imply I don’t do my work within the standards? Is this some sort of trick question?” Before giving the answer, I got what she meant with the question, but I was even more puzzled – what could I possibly say to such a question?

My solution was simple. Saying “I worked the exact number of hours declared” was similar to telling Don Quixote about the real world, about his imagination problem. “Hey, get back to earth, there are no dreams. This is Romania of 2009. I would never work more.” Was mine reaction right? Sure, if you can define what “right” is. It was true. In that particular case I had no other option – I didn’t actually work more, what could I answer? What should have happened for me to have another option to answer was to actually work more for HR Club prior to the question.

Strangely, but to answer a Don Quixote-like question “Did you work more?” with a Don Quixote-answer “Yes, of course I did”, without actually living it, just saying it, makes the situation dramatic. So, I did good, right? I told the truth. I haven’t worked more, I gave a true answer, I didn’t pretend working more. These are all true sentences, but how come my answer seems so silly and out of place? Why can’t I really be, in reality, the hard work-so-much person that the question claimed me to be? What makes me hold on to just one assumption of the question – “I will tell the truth”?
The question returns – “What do you do when you meet Don Quixote”? Below, there are two situations which show you I have no answer to that. You’ll see I always apply a rock-steady logic. This works fine, but it’s like permanently telling Quixote he’s wrong. So, in such conditions, I’ll change the question.

What can I become after seeing an extraordinary act?
1. I remind you I’ve seen (and recognized) an act like this four times. After each of them I got a sensation you see in the cartoons. The character sees something great (and unusual). He pulls out a pistol, says “Now I’ve seen everything” and commits suicide (Yep, these are cartoons for children). In the Bible, old Simeon says:

Sovereign Lord, as you have promised, you now dismiss your servant in peace. For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all people, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.

Yes, he had seen the Son of God, he can die in peace. He knows now there will never be anything better to see. He’s waited long enough;
2. The future becomes dull. All things become boring. I’ve told you there were four events which I define as “extraordinary”. What will life show me that’s more beautiful than that?
3. The future becomes extraordinary. Ok, first time was an accident – You happened to see one extraordinary thing. The second one – could happen. Third – hmm. Fourth? Now that’s a pattern. You can live life with the hope of re-seeing things like this;
4. I actually want to live up to the assumptions that Carmen CUCUL has been showering in the short interview. I want to self improve (think about it broadly, not reading self-improvement books);
5. I wrote this blog post. You come, read it. Would you trust me more of the things I write in here if I were known in some field for something? So, it could be a reason to try (and better make it) to succeed.

What does HR Club transforms into? I told you at a previous post that I intended to write a blog post on HR Club’s CSR actions. I actually see no reason for such a blog post.

Have it like this:
a. HR Club headquarters is the place where it all happened. Wow! Great NGO! Amazing things in there!
b. There are people in HR Club which share the same goal and values. Wow! Great people!
c. My mind right now can’t imagine a better CSR action than this analyzed right here;
d. Give me a list of 3,000 organizations in the world, put HR Club among them, and make me pick the one organization that does the best CSR. I wouldn’t hesitate in picking HR Club from the list. “How come?”, one may ask, “Other organizations may do also great CSR”. Sure, that’s fine. I can even dare saying that among those 3,000 there might be a few that would do such a great thing as the one described here. But the thing is, it can’t be any better. It can equal it, but it technically can’t be any better. There’s no better scenario, at most equal to this. So, at best, out of the 3,000 organizations, a handful, among which HR Club, would share 1st spot. Therefore, if I pick out of those HR Club to be 1st, I do nothing wrong. They really are on the 1st spot, perhaps equal to others. The order between them is like the Stadium records – the first CSR thing I’ve seen that impressed me to the maximum takes 1st place forever if you can’t ever present me with a better CSR action. You can only set a new record if you manage to beat the first one who set it;
e. Show me a list of things HR Club needs as volunteer work and I might do some things in that list.

Now, going back to the Wikipedia part at the beginning, would you say HR Club made an impact on me due to CSR actions? Are those actions “good”? (via a certain standard, whichever that may be)

How do you work for a person who does an extraordinary act?
Now that’s a dilemma. Putting it simply, I give 100% (and nothing more) of what I have to do. And offer to do more. Ask, not force things. What are we, Quixotes?

What does it all mean to me? The thing I’m most proud in this world is being witness to such things. I bear witness within me that this happened. Putting it on an International-language blog is also fine.

Let’s go back 4+ years ago, as promised, to the upsetting episodes:
a. Would you think of a more out of place thing to do while in LEADERS Romania than upset Carmen CUCUL three times?
b. Can you see in this affirmation – “I will not talk to you anymore”, that the focus on the punishment seems to go not on the one getting the punishment but on the speaker itself? So, it’s not “I force you”, it’s “I force myself”. That’s a bit hard to understand. Say it repeatedly to me and I might finally get it;
c. While in College, this threat – “I will not talk to you anymore” -, seemed more of a joke. Who cared, back then, if Carmen CUCUL won’t talk to me anymore? 4+ years after, could you imagine a harsher punishment than not be able to see the extraordinary act?

Ok, we got into a “serious” mode. On a more happy side. But still serious. Recently, my best friend came from Paris. “Oh, you gotta see it. Versailles, the people, even the subway is cool”. Now compare this projected image with what I’ve shown you. You have two options:
a. Go to Paris and see the wonder for yourself;
b. Rethink on the amazing process just in your mind.

Present these two options to my best friend and ask him what I’d choose. With a complicit laughter (yep, we’re friends since hostel years), he’d probably say “Ahhh, there’s no philosophy to it, he’s just so cheap, he’ll never pick Paris”.

You may wonder how things continued after this episode happened.
HR Club’s future portal had a template design. In it, there was this text: “Welcome to HR Club Portal”. I said that “Welcome” is a distracting and unnecessary word, we should get to the point. I actually said it twice. The next day, when the text was removed, I expressed my satisfaction. By the time this event happened (4+ weeks from the previous episode, the very wonderful one), most of the main ideas presented above were clear to me. The lightning couldn’t strike in the same place twice. You’d think I know what to say, right? I learned my lesson, I know how to answer a Quixote question.
Now regarding my actions, this is a clear case of doing things right. I’m hired by HR Club for my professional opinion, not for the things I appreciate in life. Sure, in my mind I look at the “Welcome to” starting phrase as a clear mark of HR Club’s CSR perspective – “Let’s be kind to people”. But that’s not what they pay me for.

From what I know now, the “right” solution presented here is libertarian, a concept which I adhere. And it is also obvious the power of the contract: “They pay me to do that, we have a contract, I must adhere to the signed words”.

I hope I presented my case well enough until now for you to understand that there’s a bit of a problem with the “right” thing. It’s just a system. Sure, libertarian system may be a great solution. But it’s only a system. Other solutions may be fine also.
On the ending part of the project, I had to come up with feed-back for ideas of HR Club’s portal. Carmen CUCUL once exclaimed a thing similar to this – “What? Olivian to have a positive general opinion on something?” Ok, she said this in a bit joking way, but I think the idea is valid.
Remember that in the autumn of 2007 I did a review for HR Club’s presentation? Since then and until the summer of 2009 I’ve done other reviews. There are actually 40+ reviews for web sites done on my on another blog of mine (in Romanian). Ok, so my job in HR Club was to start from the assumption that they’re doing something wrong and basically tell them what are the things they do wrong at.

They wanted nothing like “Oh, you’re extraordinary! All you do is so nice”. And I was there to follow orders. To do the “right” thing yet again.

4. How can you contact Carmen CUCUL?
On HR Club web site there’s a contact page (in English) with all the contact data. If you can’t get to the English version, and then to the Contact page, you can blame my poor review of the website.

]]> http://getaresultnow.com/2009/09/carmen-cucul-the-business-professional-whose-corporate-social-responsibility-actions-impressed-me-the-most/feed/ 4 How did I feel at the Social Quality Event? http://getaresultnow.com/2009/06/how-did-i-feel-at-the-social-quality-event/ http://getaresultnow.com/2009/06/how-did-i-feel-at-the-social-quality-event/#comments Thu, 18 Jun 2009 04:46:57 +0000 Olivian BREDA http://getaresultnow.com/how-did-i-feel-at-the-social-quality-event/ On the 28th of May I took part at the Social Quality Event (SQE), organized at Residence Cerisiers Hotel.

What did I like in there?
a. Great socializing;
b. Lots of people with charisma;
c. I had a lot of fun;
d. Rules were explained nicely;
e. Did problems occur? Yes; Were they solved nicely? Yes again;
f. SQE really matched the “quality” label;
g. The procedure was tightly followed.

What would I do better?
a. Start earlier (perhaps I’m the only one saying this, but I would have preferred a bit earlier);
b. More than 5 minutes per session?
c. More people?
d. An interactive map with the location of the event?
e. A lot of information with people who attend the event;
f. A warm-up session (energizer?);
g. Some contests to win an invitation to the event.

All-in-all I had a lovely time and it was lots of fun.

]]> http://getaresultnow.com/2009/06/how-did-i-feel-at-the-social-quality-event/feed/ 2 What I learned from a speech by Bruno MEDICINA on “Total Quality Life: quality of life as a true measure of success” http://getaresultnow.com/2009/04/what-i-learned-from-a-speech-by-bruno-medicina-on-total-quality-life-quality-of-life-as-a-true-measure-of-success/ http://getaresultnow.com/2009/04/what-i-learned-from-a-speech-by-bruno-medicina-on-total-quality-life-quality-of-life-as-a-true-measure-of-success/#comments Sun, 26 Apr 2009 06:39:19 +0000 Olivian BREDA http://getaresultnow.com/what-i-learned-from-a-speech-by-bruno-medicina-on-total-quality-life-quality-of-life-as-a-true-measure-of-success/ It was the 29th of March, 2009 when, at the Body Mind Spirit Festival, at Sala Palatului, Bucharest, Bruno MEDICINA held a speech on “Total Quality Life: quality of life as a true measure of success”. For more on Bruno MEDICINA view my opinion on him, which also includes a clip made by me at that event: Bruno Medicina on the things that really matter.

So, what struck me the most at Bruno MEDICINA’s speech?
1. People are looking for the fulfillment and quality;
2. A quality object will do its base function right; That’s it! Do what you are requested in the ‘right’ way;
3. A quality person will keep its promises; If one says something, he should do it;
4. We have false needs, created by companies;
5. We are more likely to be satisfied by only satisfying a need from time to time (some fruits ripe in the spring – strawberries), rather than permanently satisfying your needs (if you really want to, now you can eat strawberries even winter; it would be better not to do it like that);
6. Total quality management changes the perspective and emphasis from profit to quality;
7. The quality of life largely depends on succeeding to manifest on a material level your potential;
8. It’s really important that you make discoveries within yourself;
9. A wrong question can look like this: What do you want to obtain? Where do you want to reach?, a correct question might look like this: Who do you want to be?
10. There are cases in which quality is not important. (e.g. You may choose to destroy your health, or just not caring about this, for researching a vaccine against AIDS)

How do you evaluate these?

]]> http://getaresultnow.com/2009/04/what-i-learned-from-a-speech-by-bruno-medicina-on-total-quality-life-quality-of-life-as-a-true-measure-of-success/feed/ 0 Why, to me, the Strategy Conference in Human Resources, organized by HR Club Romania 12th March, 2009, at J.W. Marriott, Bucharest had the best conference organization I’ve ever seen? http://getaresultnow.com/2009/03/why-to-me-the-strategy-conference-in-human-resources-organized-by-hr-club-romania-12th-march-2009-at-jw-marriott-bucharest-had-the-best-conference-organization-ive-ever-seen/ http://getaresultnow.com/2009/03/why-to-me-the-strategy-conference-in-human-resources-organized-by-hr-club-romania-12th-march-2009-at-jw-marriott-bucharest-had-the-best-conference-organization-ive-ever-seen/#comments Sun, 15 Mar 2009 07:47:44 +0000 Olivian BREDA http://getaresultnow.com/why-to-me-the-strategy-conference-in-human-resources-organized-by-hr-club-romania-12th-march-2009-at-jw-marriott-bucharest-had-the-best-conference-organization-ive-ever-seen/ This blog post starts with the conclusion: to me, a conference I took part to two days ago had the best organization I’ve ever seen at a conference. Why? Find out below.

Warning: long post ahead.

How can I write about a careful planned event without giving all the details? Find out my solution, divided this way:
1. Why am I biased when I make this evaluation?
2. A personal case study: how was the conference for me?
3. Analysis of a conference in quite a few questions:

a. How were the speakers?
b. What speakers I like best?
c. How was networking (a personal case study)?
d. How was the timing of schedule?
e. How was the food?
f. How was the location?
g. How were the banners?
h. What have I learned?
i. How were the Marriott employees?
j. How was the web site of the conference?
k. How were the materials given at the conference?
l. How were the speakers thanked for?
m. How was the technical part?
n. How were the helping people of HR Club?
o. How was the timing of the conference as two days in the year?
p. How was the audience?
q. How was Corporate Social Responsibility?
r. How was the main organizer of the event, Carmen CUCUL?

Note: “HR” means “Human Resources”.

1. Why am I biased when I make this evaluation?
The reasons for me to be biased when making this evaluation include:
a. For quite a few years, I’ve been a colleague in LEADERS Romania with the current Executive Director of HR Club, Carmen CUCUL; Actually, when I first visited LEADERS Romania for the initial interview, Carmen CUCUL was just being interviewed by LEADERS’ CEO; And we were colleagues in LEADERS for quite a few years and worked on projects; For me, it was a fun experience
b. I was part of the HR Club Summer School of 2008 and made a few friends (from my part) with participants and organizers;
c. In the day of the evaluation I was in a very tiring state of mind: I’ve only slept 5 hours the night before and I felt a bit dizzy; While this may sound awkward, this might also have helped me notice things differently in a good way; I’m much more attentive to details in such states of mind;
d. I helped organizing the conference, so it was a little bit of personal involvement in there (how can I say about my work not being perfect? I actually can, but I may be biased when saying it was so nice).

2. A personal case study: how was the conference for me?
Exactly three weeks prior to the conference, I contact the one person I knew best in HR Club: Carmen CUCUL. My e-mail contained an offer (to help), and a request (to participate to the conference). Carmen CUCUL was very gallant, and allowed me to help them out.

Then a nice thing happens: HR Club gave 5 invitations to prior generations of graduates of HR Club Summer School. I’ve been a member of a Summer School in 2008. The value of the classes was high (very good speakers, great locations), while the cost for the participants was low (actually it was free for those to be admitted). And now, in a time of crisis, HR Club does a beautiful thing and invites 5 HR Club Summer School participants to join a great event for free. Now that’s a very good Corporate Social Responsibility and all done in silence (no advertisment for this).

Time passes. Three days prior to the conference, I send another email to get an update on how can I help. I’m informed by Alexandra Aignatoaie, Project Manager within HR Club, when and how I should come and help them out.

Time passes again. It’s 11th of March, the end of the first day of the seminars, and the evening prior to the conference. It’s 6 PM sharp and I’m at Marriott to help the girls (from HR Club and external people) organizing the room. Basically, I helped caring about two hundred bags from the middle of a large room to the margins. This took about one and a half hours. There were quite a few people (girls, actually) helping organizing the thing, and everyone was helping. At the end of the session (after leaving a bit earlier to go see a movie) I was informed I should be there tomorrow at 6:30 – 7:00 AM.

Due to some unexpected events in that evening (such as a movie with a friend and a discussion with a client of mine), by midnight I was still awake. The next day, at 5:20 AM I was up & running, and at 6:30 AM I was, once again, at Marriott.

Who do you expect was, in the day of the event, at 6:30 AM, at the Marriott hotel? All of the HR Club members involved in the project and a few outside people (more to come in a few dozens of minutes). I was really impressed of the effort required to be at the hotel both in the evening prior to the event and in the morning. For me, sleeping 5 hours that night meant sleeping 12 hours the next day. For the organizers, it was somehow natural.

I helped out the conference a bit more (you may notice the emphasis I put on my own work): arranging some banners, giving some not-asked-for-but-still-welcome pieces of advice. From about 8 AM to 8:30 AM I helped welcoming the guests, and then I went to buy some stuff for the organizers (I even negotiated the price and got 20% off). From 9 AM, when I was back from the city, until 9:30 AM I went outside the hotel to fix a personal thing, then all day I’ve been at the event. Now you know the conference background. Here comes the great stuff: Analysis of a conference via some questions.

3. Analysis of a conference in quite a few questions:
a. How were the speakers?
First of all, let me tell you how a typical conference goes: you get to see some speakers live.

There are two options with speakers at a conference: you either know them (you’ve seen them before) or you don’t (oh, goodies!, new faces). As you can imagine, it’s very good to have fresh people at a conference.

That’s a first classification. Another classification I make is regarding the type of speech they hold. Some speakers try to be fairly interesting, they prepare a speech, they do a bit of a research, while other speakers come and speak about their company (sometimes this thing is masked as a “Case study”, which is quite a beautiful name for blunt self-advertising).

Yet another classification from my part is the degree in which the person can keep you attentive. This is easy to be done by free speech, flexing the voice, involving the public, having great body language and other things that make great orators great. Oh yes, and making things funny and laughable does help a lot. How do organizers get into this picture? The organizers have either seen the speakers prior to the conference (this means there’s a high chance of the participants knowing the conference), or they haven’t seen them before (which means they may be poor speakers).

As you can imagine, the best type of speaker is that who you haven’t met before, a speaker that doesn’t speak about its company to try and “sell” it to you, and finally a person that can make you attentive while they speak (as said, laughing is great for this).

Now getting back to the HR Club’s Strategy Conference in Human Resources, I’ll tell you how they made a great success out of these requirements and how they can improve.

First of all, let’s have a look at the speakers in the panel:

  • Dr. Lisbeth CLAUS, Ph.D., SPHR, GPHR, Professor of Global HR, Willamette University, USA;
  • Anca Georgescu ALADGEM, Chief Human Resources Officer, Romtelecom;
  • Brent W. MATTSON, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Learning & Development Executive, Enterprise Learning & Talent Management, Bank of America;
  • Dave ULRICH, Partner and co-founder The RBL Group and Professor of Business – Ross School of Business, University of Michigan;
  • Radu PANAIT, HR Vice-President, Ursus Breweries Romania.

There are just two persons from Romania in that list. The conference had three parts:
a. First half in the morning (various speakers, half of them from Romania);
b. Second half in the morning and first half in the afternoon (Dave Ulrich);
c. Second half in the afternoon (one Romanian speaker and two foreign persons).

As you can imagine, I’ve only seen before this conference the moderator (Csaba GERGELY, president of HR Club). That’s it. All of the non-Romanian people were unknown even by name. So, the very first good thing about the HR Club organization was picking up people from other countries (sure way to make sure they are not known).

That was point one. Point two: Choosing people from other countries was also good for the self-promotion part. While the Willamette University, Bank of America, Ross School of Business, Willamette University may be well known in the US, speaking about them in Romania is quite futile. The speakers had no incentive to self-promote their companies and institutions, their target audience was really not interested. You genuinely had to speak about something else about your company (also, some of these companies and institutions may be well unheard of in Romania).

Another great trick? In the very first part of the day, when there were a few Romanians speaking, the moderator gave them the following task: answer to this question. There was no presentation involved, each speaker had to answer the questions. How can I, a Romanian speaker, promote my company when I have to answer a specific question? It’s quite tricky. Great solution by HR Club.

Yet another trick? In the first half of the morning they’ve brought the speakers to answer questions. In the second half of the afternoon, all of the US-based speakers held a presentation. They’ve used the speakers quite a lot, I can say. Since they’re already there, why not use the maximum potential? Good stuff!

The thing on which HR Club did poorly was picking boring speakers. How can you tell, prior to the conference, if the speaker is boring or not?

i. See him live (harder for those in the US, I’d say);
ii. Hear them talking on a subject on the phone for 5 minutes (it is disturbing to tell them in-their-face that they are being monitored for speaking fine, and if they don’t speak fine they won’t get picked, but it is one solution; you also can’t see body language on the phone);
iii. Find other people’s opinion on them (this might be people who attended their conferences and posted on a blog or forum, like I do it in here).

This is one point where HR Club didn’t do so well. Sure, this is only a one out of three requirement, and I must say that finding an unknown speaker, who won’t talk about his own company and won’t bore you. And repeat this procedure for all the speakers. Two out of three is fine enough.

b. What speakers I like best?
i. Dave ULRICH gave me the best insights. It made me think on different thing, and learned a few things. In the 12th of March 2009 I had two opportunities: either to attend a conference by LEADERS organization with Jim BAGNOLA, or to see the HR Club conference. In any given day, I’d go to see Jim BAGNOLA. Great speaker, best trainer I’ve ever seen (I’ll have a blog post on him sometimes in the following months I hope). He’s just perfect. On this blog I’ve also written about Nigel RISNER (I knew him at yet another HR Club conference; he was the last speaker of the day, not that many people in the room; You can see that for the 2009 event, HR Club put Dave ULRICH right in the middle – not the first, not the last; They do learn!). Nigel RISNER was speaker also, he and Jim BAGNOLA were great choices for a conference day. But the thing is, I prefer seeing a less-than-perfect speaker talking to me, rather than just see the perfect speaker again and again. Sure, in a normal day I’d go see Jim BAGNOLA and Nigel RISNER. But in that very special day of 12th of March, I’d love to see Dave ULRICH more than anyone else. David ULRICH knew all the tricks in the book. He knew he should listen, he knew he should make fun of things (even of himself), he was fast to reply, he used some basic tipically affirmations (“that’s a great question”), he had good body language, he engaged the room, he put a lot of questions, he repeated thing, he made pauses after saying something to be remembered. This blog post is not about what he didn’t do good. Enough to say that although he knew all these things, the end result was not as good. But, at the end of the day, it was more useful for me to understand why he didn’t do good (and I won’t tell you that), than to see yet another perfect seminar by Jim BAGNOLA, or a provocative workshop with Nigel RISNER. I learned a lot of things from faults, more than from (previously seen) perfect behavior. And he had a good enaging spirit, kept me awake (very important) the whole day. Not bad, quite a good speaker all-in-all, with all his faults.

ii. Florin TALPES was another speaker at the conference. He was only present in the first half of the morning. Very smart, good answers, logical and lovely to hear. His strong point? Analytical skills. Great ideas to learn from him.

iii. But the speaker I liked most at this conference wasn’t present with his name in any of the speakers’ lists. He was serious, no joke when he held his speech. He had a less-than-one-minute speech, which he started with “I am not a HR person”. In that one minute, he made two affirmations which made my mouth drop:
a. (approximate understanding by me) We will launch a HR Software solution for the US market;
b. (approximate understanding by me) Within companies with a turnover of a range from millions to billions USD, we wish to hire CEOs and CFOs. All of these positions come with no special MBA required.

The affirmations (or at least how I understood) were made by Eric KISH (VP Retail The Rompetrol Group). It made me wish to include him on this blog with a dedicated blog post.

What have I learned from Eric KISH? In his one minute of speaking it made me understand that the MBA has some value (he said exactly the opposite thing, but, nevertheless, it made me wonder).

c. How was networking (a personal case study)?
When I came into the conference room at 9:30 the conference already begun. Most of the seats were taken. I waited for the speaker to end his presentation, and while presenting the next speaker I went at the very first table in the room. At that table I knew two persons, and I previously spoke with another. There were three other persons at the table. With two of them I had a talk by the end of the conference, and the other one suggested that I should speak for the whole group when requested so in some sort of a game.

When I was in the Summer School at HR Club, I had three colleagues in a mini-group, other than the whole group of participants. All of my colleagues in the mini group were there, plus another one from that promotion (my group was very engaged, it seems).

As you might expect, I talked with other people at the conference.

The best place for networking was a place I’d hate to be in any other circumstance: the smoking place. In Marriott hotel there was a special room dedicated to smoking. Good connections made in there, it’s easier to speak with a person in there.

The schedule for pauses was kept tightly, so there was plenty of room for networking.

d. How was the timing of schedule?
I’m sorry, but I didn’t quite monitor this. I was late from the beginning, and I didn’t quite care about the other points in the program. I can say that the schedule wasn’t followed to the last minute, but the time for breaks was followed, and everything else was thus fine by me.

Good learning experience meant I cared less about timing.

e. How was the food?
In general, at a conference you get to see this kind of food arranging: a wider or smaller group of foods, with a finite quantity. In the first 15-30 minutes of serving the food, the best foods are over, and the people coming late get to eat the remaining (not-so-good food).

Here comes a great solution from HR Club: there was a reasonable amount of variety of foods (pasta, veggies, potatoes, fish, chicken). All these 5 (or around so) foods were doubled: each side of the table contained these exact foods. You may think that the fish and chicken ended first and the problem was not solved. Well, not quite. The food was replaced by the Marriott personnel (I saw this myself), and 40 minutes after initial serving, you could still have the same food. The sweets and cookies were varied and at the same time a lot. Plenty of sweets to choose from, great quality.

All day the were: three types of ice tea, coffee (and of course accessories like milk and sugar), and three types of Pepsi-brand drinks (Mirinda, two types of Pepsi, 7UP), two kinds of water (whatever that may mean – still and carbonated).

In the first break of the day and in the very morning you could also have some three kinds of croissant (this is Marriott-specific and in my opinion it is the worst food for the whole day, I didn’t like it at all).

But all-in-all good food, good drinks, and not-really-that-bad croissants.

f. How was the location?
Well, it’s Marriott. I’ve worked for almost one and a half year at a company 5 minutes away from Marriott and I can say it’s quite easy to get there by any means (with the caution that the automobile and bus traffic in the morning can be a problem in Bucharest). But considering it’s a 15 minutes walk by foot from the subway (and my-oh-my, it’s passing right from a nearby park), it’s a fairly well chosen location.

The size of the conference room was enormous, not too many locations in Bucharest can accommodate more than 200 people. Go Marriott!

Oh, and the speakers’ positioning was great. The room was a rectangle. You had two options: putting the speakers at the middle of the very long or of the very short side of the rectangle. HR Club chose well. The speakers were placed at the middle of the long rectangle, I think it’s the best solution. Go HR Club, too!

g. How were the banners?
If I hadn’t help organized the event, I wouldn’t even have noticed this aspect. At one time, when I was outside the room I had nothing to do and I’ve read some things on a banner. I also saw, during the conference, the main banner of HR Club, with all the sponsors and partners. And the massage-giving team was hidden by a banner and a flower (I knew this from the morning). That was it. I never noticed any of the other banners.

I’d say that the banners were zero-obtursive to the participants at the conference: besides the main banner behind the speakers, during the conference my eyes were free to watch everything. Very warm and cool atmosphere. And while outside, I was generally too busy talking to people, rather to watch a banner.

h. What have I learned?
First of all, I learned, from a person giving me a delicate 10-15 minutes massage (even at the fingers), that I have no obvious back problem. That’s useful for you to know, wouldn’t you agree?

The conference also made me realize I have to make my SEO blog much faster.

I’ve also learned that a good question to help understand women is: “How are you feeling today?”. Ladies will feel they are understood.

For a more serious approach to what I’ve learned on HR strategy, see this (summarized, I promise!) blog post of mine: What have I learned at the Strategy Conference in Human Resources in the spring of 2009?.

i. How were the Marriott employees?
I had these four experiences:
a. After a night of a 5 hours sleep, in the morning, I saw a Marriott employee putting a sign on the door saying details about the conference; I was very intrigued (my mind always is after such a night) about how does this work; And my “be reasonable, act cool” pattern of thinking is very sound asleep, I opened the thing holding the paper; Naturally, the piece of paper with conference details fell on the floor and I tried to put it back; The Marriott employee saw this and, with a smile on her face, offered to help me; So, it went very Ok; That person always smiled that day and helped us out; Great employee!
b. I go to one waitress: “Where is the post office?”, I ask; “I don’t know”, she says; If you were expecting a follow-up to this, well, there wasn’t any; She just didn’t know; But, I might add, she could have helped me find out in other ways (asking, phoning, giving me directions); Well, she could;
c. I go to another waitress (I never learn): “Where is the post office?”, I ask (if you wonder how come, after working one and a half years in the area, I didn’t know where the Post office was, well, it’s memory issue, doubled by, you’re right!, lack of sleep); “Right across the street”, she says; “I know that there’s a Romtelecom office”, I insist, “is there a post office there too?”; “I don’t know, ask the doorman”; Now, if she didn’t know, why did she answer in the first place? I went there and there was no postal office, just Romtelecom;
d. I go to a helping young man from Marriott; “Can you help us put a sign at the entrance of Marriott, so that the people know where the conference is held?”, I ask; “Well, there’s a list of events in the lobby, and the rooms have clear signs”, he said in a not-that-happy voice; So much for help;

All-in-all I was amazed by the always smiling Marriott employee, a great person. But the overall attitude of Marriott persons was not great.

j. How was the web site of the conference?
You can see it right here: http://strategyconference.hr-club.ro/

Sure, my SEO eyes tell me at least the titles of the page should be unique, the black background is not a great choice for reading, the use of a subdomain doesn’t bring that much of a value to HR Club, a microsite or a subfolder was to be preferred, some speakers were not on schedule, after the conference ended there was no news on the web site, no follow-up, the conference specifies two days, but it’s actually a one-day conference preceded by a seminar, the emails on the contact page are not clickable, but it’s a decent website.

It shows all the required information, the sponsors’ banners have working links on them, the information is well structured, and the visual impact is good.

It’s a fairly decent web site.

k. How were the materials given at the conference?
Basically, I got two pens, two writing pads, a program schedule, an English book by the keynote speaker, and … ta-da! a working, great looking, women’s watch. My parents in Navodari couldn’t believe they such give free watches to conferences (my father was in Bucharest these days, he went home today).

Let’s just say that at the end of the day no one at my table left its bag with goodies at the table.

l. How were the speakers thanked for?
This is special. Besides Csaba GERGELY encouraging people to applaud whenever necessary, each speaker got a cute prize and a diploma. The women speakers got a very-well-picked-at-a-great-negotiated-price (so I’ve been told) bouquet of flowers.

I have yet to see such things at a conference. Sure, some speakers get paid (while others compensate by promoting their business), but this atmosphere was lovely and cute, in such a way that I’ve never seen speakers treated more nicely than at this conference.

m. How was the technical part?
The HR Club’s little helpers made the “get this microphone here” action very pleasant. There were two projectors, so you could see the presentation from both sides of the large conference room. There was a movie by HR Club that went smoothly, while the presentations went fine. All quiet on the technical front.

n. How were the helping people of HR Club?
At the reception desk there was literally an army of people welcoming guests. At most of the time, in the morning, there were 3 people who only gave the participants the instructions, one writing badges for people not on the list, and from time to time there were HR Club members checking things out and helping.

All day there was always someone at the reception desk and the microphones were flying during the conference.

Oh, a bonus: when the helping people asked people to join the conference, they were all smiling, put little pressure, and somehow they manage not to force things. It all went natural, I never felt that if I will be a bit late, this will be very bad. But since everyone went into the rooms, no real pushing was necessary. A very gentle way to handle the situation, I can say.

Regarding my personal experience as an organizer, the HR Club persons listened to all my surely-not-that-good advices. The helping people were smarter than that, and listened to none. This might also be due to my poorly way of explaining things.

o. How was the timing of the conference as two days in the year?
Well, they’ve put in the same day with a conference with Jim BAGNOLA, so it must have been bad. Kidding, an event like this is planned months ahead, you can’t tell what other events may be. As a positive side, in that evening there was a MBAs, graduate, and post-graduate education fair at the Intercontinental Hotel (if only HR Club announced the participants about this event). But if you were informed you had a pleasant option for the evening.

Coming back to the strategy conference, spring (alongside with autumn) is a typical period of time for conferences, it came right in a week after the Woman’s day on 8th of March, so bosses could have felt generous with women employees leaving for a day. (if they bring a watch in return)

p. How was the audience?
They laughed and they interacted pretty Ok. I must say I expected much more interactions, more questions, more vivid implications, but all-in-all it was a decent interaction for a typical group of persons. I had more expectations from a group of HR people, but that’s life.

q. How was Corporate Social Responsibility?
HR Club allowed five members of two HR Summer School to come at the conference. I couldn’t have done it any better.

r. How was the main organizer of the event, Carmen CUCUL?
Let’s say it’s 8 AM, and you’re already at Marriott way before 6:30 AM. You need to check the sound system. And check it. And still test it until everything is fine. At 8 AM people start arriving at the conference. And they come. And they come. And Carmen CUCUL has two options: letting people wait outside the room, in the lobby, or letting them in. And then she does a beautiful thing: she lets them out. The logic? “Instead of letting you in and making you hear bad sounds due to testing the equipment, we prefer to let you wait outside until we solve our problems”. Wonderful thinking, thanks for the tip. Good to know in the future.

In the morning she was worried, she checked things, but she still laughed at my try-to-be-funny-and-didn’t-quite-make-it jokes. At the conference she was always smiling, and helping.

And while I went in the very first row, she sat in the back, to check that everybody’s fine. And she never held a speech, although the main organizer.

Nice people in LEADERS and HR Club, wouldn’t you say?

______________
Bottom line: I’ve never seen an event of similar proportions organized so well. Sure, there were faults, there were things to be done better, but the event organization was great. My congratulations, HR Club!

How do you feel about this blog post? Leave a blog comment below. I’m more than happy to reply.

]]> http://getaresultnow.com/2009/03/why-to-me-the-strategy-conference-in-human-resources-organized-by-hr-club-romania-12th-march-2009-at-jw-marriott-bucharest-had-the-best-conference-organization-ive-ever-seen/feed/ 6 Would you agree to be paid for some machine to be reading your emails? http://getaresultnow.com/2009/02/would-you-agree-to-be-paid-for-some-machine-to-be-reading-your-emails/ http://getaresultnow.com/2009/02/would-you-agree-to-be-paid-for-some-machine-to-be-reading-your-emails/#comments Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:29:56 +0000 Olivian BREDA http://getaresultnow.com/would-you-agree-to-be-paid-for-some-machine-to-be-reading-your-emails/ The answer in the title of this blog post is daring: will you do this or not? If yes, you accept that a machine reads your emails for money, I have found an opportunity for you.

Here’s the official announcment of this job title (I just formatted the text):

“We at Lionbridge www.lionbridge.com are continuing to work to improve the quality and recognition of languages by expanding our collection of data (emails, reports (articles, thesis, and college reports), letters and blogs) to help develop language tools e.g. spell checker and increase the word count for your language. To do this, we are collecting data from many people world-wide.

To check if you qualify please answer the following questions:

  • Do you write and save your sent emails in your native language?
  • Do you write or maintain a personal blog?
  • Are you in college in college and write / save your draft reports?
  • Are you a journalist and save your draft articles?
  • Are you interested in earning additional money on work already completed?

If you have answered yes to any of the above questions, then congratulations! You have passed the first step of qualification. Please contact datacol.bal@lionbridge.com  and we will help you to find out more details and provide you with out FAQ. All replies must be returned in English please.”

So, if you qualify, you know what to do. Let me give you a few hints on Lionbridge:
1. From my experience, they are a serious employer, they will pay you for you results, no question asked; they are assertive, and will provide you with technical help;
2. I don’t think they’d compromise their image, so your data is pretty much secure;
3. You should choose carefully if you wish to enter the program for email data; the emails must have been written by you, they can’t be text that are found easily on the Internet;
4. You should especially adhere to this program if you have a large quantity of emails written personally by you; the payment is proportional with the amount of emails you have;
5. (if you’re a Romanian reading this) Romanian-language specific characters (ăîâşţ) are not a must, but they are preferred.

Having read all these, I wish you best of luck if you decide to apply for this program.

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