Welcome to Discuss HR, the HR blog written by Human Resources UK.
Graham Salisbury returns today to follow his rocking post with something far more serene. (Ed Scrivener)
When was the last time that you read a book?
OK. Be honest: when is the last time that you read a book?
I don’t mean a gripping crime novel or even something from this year’s Booker prize shortlist. And I certainly don’t mean a blog posting or a brief bite-sized offering in the current edition of People Management magazine.
I mean a solid reputable book on some important aspect of the HR profession, written by an expert in the field, and which will take a few days and some serious effort to complete. A book that will unsettle you, demand that you think through some of the implications, and possibly even challenge your assumptions.
The question was provoked by participation in a CIPD-hosted webinar exploring how recent thinking in Social Science can provide insights for those of us in the HR Profession, when Richard Sennett’s 2012 book “Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation” was recommended to those taking part. Sennett is Professor at New York University and also Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics, so he’s a man with enviable credentials who know his onions when it comes to how people behave.
It’s not a book about HR, nor one written directly for those of us in HR, but it does have a lot to say to all of us who are interested to learn about how to live with people who differ from us, whether in the workplace or outside it, and even within the online community in which many of us spend our time.
The section in the book that that particularly resonates with me is one where Sennett talks about what he calls our “fetish of assertion” that “impulse to ram home your case as though its content is all that counts.” Reading (as I’m sure that you will too) many blogs each day, this certainly set my alarm bells ringing! I will also admit to feeling nervous and somewhat self-conscious when he develops this thought to say that, “listening skills don’t figure much in this kind of verbal joust: the interlocutor is meant to admire, and so to agree, or to counter with equal assertiveness.” Particularly within the HR blogosphere we do seem to have developed the habit of ranting at each other: making bold statements which rarely attract any comments, and even if they do, they are seldom more than ones of agreement and support. Sadly, Sennett’s description of “the familiar dialogue of the deaf” could apply to much online HR debate.
Sennett also makes a plea for us all simply to listen more, and therefore to dialogue rather than just argue with each other. (OK, he uses the term “dialectic” but I suspect that if I used that phrase here, I’d be excused of being a tad pretentious!) Again, none of this is written specifically with the HR community in mind, but it is certainly something that we could do to take on board in all of our conversations and exchanges with those around us. Whether in the context of our dealings with a Trade Union official, or a manager with a differing view on how some people-related activity should be undertaken, we need to be very mindful of Sennett’s quip that, “the antithesis of a thesis is not “you dumb bastard, you are wrong!”
So: what started off here as a challenge to read more appears to have at least partly turned into a book review; but if that encourages any of us to think more carefully about how we debate and dialogue with people, then it’s a mission accomplished!
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Discuss HR is the HR blog written by members of Human Resources UK, the 10,000 member strong LinkedIn group dedicated to the HR professionals in the UK. Discuss HR is published twice weekly and looks to take an insightful, informative and sometimes irreverent view on the world of HR – all with the purpose of generating a discussion.
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