Review of day 1.

I think I chose the right sessions today. I had also been attracted by the opportunity to see Allan Leighton, but as it turned out, he was stuck in Canada and made his appearance, somewhat delayed, by video. Also, from what I hear, he didn’t say anything which would have changed my mind about his perspectives on strategic HR.

So, a couple of conclusions from today:

1. Traditional training which has largely been replaced by more informal, social learning still has its place. Both I and most of the people I talked to preferred David Rock’s high content presentation to Kevin Money’s more facilitative style and the repeated opportunities to talk to another member of the audience. Most people go to Harrogate for ideas. We can reflect on what we’ve heard and make our own connections after the event.

2. We may all agree that HR needs to be more strategic, but we don’t yet have clarity on what this strategic future holds. David Rock’s call to educate the organisation about neuroscience contrasted with Gerry Robinson’s call to cut the bullshit (I don’t mean to criticise neuroscience, but I think Robinson would have put this in his bs category).

3. Social media (including blogging) provides a great opportunity to increase the number of connections, which as David Rock explains is the greatest contributor towards a satisfying life.
I do however worry sometimes that the HCM blogosphere is a closed, hermetic system in which bloggers read and sometimes comment on, or more often build upon each others’ posts, but which get very little attention outside of this world.

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