ne thing
always amuses me about the annual SHRM conference—it is wonderfully and unfailingly
predictable.
Case in point: I was in the exhibition hall on Monday around
10 a.m., and suddenly an odd feeling swept over me. "Where are all the people fighting
for cheap goodies and SHRM swag?" It shocked me that there seemed to be little of
the usual trinket lust and out-of-control behavior exhibited by so many of the conference
attendees wandering the show hall. This is progress, right?
Wrong. I must have just gotten an earlier start than the usual
swag-loving attendees, because within a half-hour, the usual fight for goodies was
at full throttle. Ground zero seemed to be the Monster booth, where a large and
aggressive crowd surged toward a Monster employee who was tossing toy versions of
the Monster character (whatever its name is) to the growing crowd.
This is part of the immutable paradox of the SHRM conference:
For all the HR people who want to be valued business partners, there are also a
huge number who get turned on chasing down cheap junk that probably costs a fortune
in excess baggage charges to cart home.
Many of these swag-crazy people were the same ones who packed
the general session Monday to hear business author and lecturer Patrick Lencioni
talk about the three signs of a miserable job (which also is the title of his latest
book), and get his advice on how to make any kind of work more rewarding and fulfilling.
I’ve heard Lencioni speak a number of times, and he’s an interesting
and amusing speaker, but I was surprised by the SRO crowd that turned out to hear
his talk. The same room that was probably just 85 percent full for Sidney Poitier
on Sunday afternoon was jam-packed for Lencioni on Monday morning. So maybe this
is what’s going on: Poitier was inspiring and thoughtful, but he didn’t offer the
practical, take-this-back-to-your-job-and-put-it-to-work kind of information that
Lencioni did.
And so while Lencioni was sort of old hat for me, I have to
remember that I’m an oversaturated conference-goer, not a typical SHRM attendee.
This audience desperately wants information and insight today that can help them
do a better job tomorrow, and this might be the only show at which they get such
inspiration. I’ve seen that repeated at SHRM conferences over and over again, and
it doesn’t seem to matter whether it is in San Diego, Washington, Las Vegas or Chicago.
No matter where you are, HR people will turn out in droves for someone who has something
thoughtful and useful to say.
This got me to thinking: Maybe there’s only so much time that
people can put in listening to smart and thoughtful speakers, and the dash into
the mad exhibition hall frenzy is the counterbalance. That’s the yin and yang of
the SHRM experience.
It’s as good a theory as any, I suppose. Maybe I’ll gather
a few more trinkets and swag to see if it holds true.
Workforce Management Online, June 2008 --
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