by Like Tom Hanks in You’ve got mail, I tend to think that many situations in life can be helped with friendly advice from The Godfather:
Difficulty signing a candidate? “Make him an offer he can’t refuse”
Not sure what to bring for lunch? “Leave the gun. Take the canolis”
There is one quote that has helped me more than any other in my career:
“This is business, not personal.”
You see, sometimes HR has to say “No” or sometimes we end up holding things up. Most of us don’t want to be the annoying bureaucrat holding things up…sometimes though we have to. There could be a legal, compliance or ethical reasons or maybe it’s a stupid company rule we don’t really agree with but have to enforce anyway.
Well, saying No gets a lot of bad reactions. People like to have a place to put their ire and sometimes that falls on HR. For that reason we tend to hear a lot of complaining, and tend not to be liked by everyone. In my early career I took this to heart. You see, I’m actually a pretty nice person who doesn’t like drama, finger pointing or hostility Gee…sometimes it feels like I got into the wrong field.
But seriously, one of the best things I did for my sanity was to realize that it wasn’t personal. Over time I realized that people need scapegoats; Right or wrong sometimes the local HR person is an easy target for blame. On the other hand, people can get easily offended or upset. It is important to strike a balance and realize most of the time at work it really isn’t personal. It’s just business.
No clue what I’m talking about? Don’t remember You’ve Got Mail? Check out the clip below (email & RSS readers may need to go directly to the bog for the video)(there is a 3 second advertisement first):
Good article, and I can relate.
Interesting because later on in that same movie Meg Ryan’s character comments on that very saying to Tom Hank’s character.
Joe Fox: It wasn’t… personal.
Kathleen Kelly: What is that supposed to mean? I am so sick of that. All that means is that it wasn’t personal to you. But it was personal to me. It’s *personal* to a lot of people. And what’s so wrong with being personal, anyway?
Joe Fox: Uh, nothing.
Kathleen Kelly: Whatever else anything is, it ought to begin by being personal.
Something that I take with me as an HR Professional. Perhaps is it “just business” but we’re dealing with people sometimes and it is personal to them.
Still a good write up, good luck to you. 🙂
Excellent point Christine. Like a lot of things in HR it is hard to find a balance sometimes. Yes, we absolutely need to realize that employee’s are people and we should start out with the personal. It can be easy to forget that our day-to-day activities such as coaching, interviewing, terminating/laying off an employees, etc, are not at all everyday for most people. When I was writing this post I was thinking about situations where people have unfairly blamed HR, or myself for something that can’t be helped on my part. I am a pretty passionate person and it used to upset me greatly, so I get over that now by thinking “Its not personal, its not personal.” Thank you for the comment!
Great article. We are all human after all, which can make it difficult to distance yourself from a situation, but if HR isn’t executed 100% of the time then what’s the point?
Thank you for the comment glad you enjoyed the article!